- This gas costs $3.70 a gallon,
and this gas costs $37 a gallon.
(spectator whistling)
What the heck makes this one
cost 10 times as much as this one?
Is it its fancy components?
It's all its additives?
Is this because it's in a big 'ole blue jug?
Or is it all just BS?
Well, today we are going to look
at the chemical breakdown of these fuels.
We're gonna figure out what ingredients inside here
make it so expensive
and break down the mysterious number we call octane.
Are you the type of person to run 87 in your 93 engine?
Or are you the type of person
to run a 93 in your 87 engine?
One of you guys are doing it wrong.
Let's find out who.
(casual catchy music)
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And now back to "Jazz Yoga Dance 15 Minute Workout"
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- You know, there are only so many hours in the day,
most of which I spend
nipple deep in automotive edutainment,
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(grunting)
(chuckling)
- There's a whole world of different fuels
beyond the ones at your local gas station.
Most gas stations give you a choice
between two or three different grades of gas,
each with a different number associated with it.
Those are all octane ratings,
but what does octane even mean?
Well, in the most basic terms,
octane ratings are how gas manufacturers
measure how stable a fuel is.
The higher the octane number, the more stable the fuel is,
and the more pressure and heat is needed
to get it to ignite.
Now, most engines nowadays are designed to run on 87.
The amount of compression in a standard base level engine
and a car like a Ford Focus, for example,
works perfectly with the amount of compression it takes
for 87 octane gas to combust.
The engine in the Focus can still run
on a higher octane gas like 91 or 93,
but it doesn't necessarily translate to more power.
Those higher octane fuels are engineered to work best
with engines that can produce higher compression ratios,
like sports cars or race engines.
Now there's also a common misconception
that the lower the octane level, the dirtier the gas is.
Now admit it, come on, you felt guilty
about putting 87 in your tank,
but listen here, you don't have to feel ashamed, okay?
The octane rating has nothing to do
with how pure or clean your gas is.
Okay, that's all great, we know what octane is now,
but what exactly would happen
if I were to put a super high octane gas
in my Catfish Camaro, which is designed to run on 91?
Is that gonna make it run like a race car?
Is it gonna shoot flames out the tailpipes?
Well, let's see.
Now 119 octane is designed for high compression engines,
engines that are 12:1, 14:1, even 16:1 compression ratio,
much higher than the compression ratio that's in my Catfish.
And 119 fuel needs that high compression
in order to get it to combust
in the most efficient and powerful way.
(engine revving)
Oh, (beep), yeah.
(engine revving)
Yeah, man, it's weird.
It definitely feels slower.
It makes sense, right?
The engine is not designed for it.
It needs more compression to be more useful,
to make more power.
This is why if you thinking about going
throwing race fuel in your car and going to the track,
it's really not gonna do anything.
What about my two wheeled buds?
At the Motocross track, there are always guys
running expensive race gas in their bikes.
Why is this happening?
Well, a 4-stroke Motocross bike
is in the 13.5:1 compression range,
so it's definitely higher compression.
But even at that high compression,
they're engineered to run on standard pump gas,
so why would I wanna spend my extra money
by putting race gas in my bike?
(casual catchy music)
Again, don't get it confused.
Octane, no matter how high, has very little to do
with horsepower ratings.
For instance, the fuel I'm using in this bike,
it has 8% oxygen content, 8%.
That's about double what you get in pump gas.
And pump gas varies wildly from station to station
from even the day of the week when you get it.
So when you pay for ratio,
you know you're getting the same formula
every time you go buy a jug of it.
But this fuel still costs a whole heck of a lot more.
So what gives?
Now, one of the reasons is because of additives.
Every additive has a different purpose,
and most of them fall into one of these categories:
oxygenates, detergents, and antioxidants.
Now, oxygenates are compounds that contain oxygen.
More oxygen in the fuel means better vaporization,
better combustion, and reduced emissions.
Some of the more common oxygenates you've probably heard of
are alcohols like methanol, ethanol, and butanol.
High quality oxygenates can really drive up
the price of gas.
Now, antioxidants are different from oxygenates.
And you might be asking yourself,
hey, Jeremy, why do they add oxygen only to take it away?
Well, to you, I say,
my name isn't Jeremy, it's Jeremiah,
and antioxidants serve an entirely different purpose.
They inhibit the oxidation of gas over time,
which degrades it.
Now, I know everyone has probably
seen the movie "Battlefield Earth", it's a classic.
And if you remember that scene
where they find a 1000-year-old jet
that still has fuel in it and it starts up like no problem,
well, that wouldn't really work in real life
because the exposure to oxygen over time
would render the gas ineffective.
Now, detergents do exactly what they sound like.
They clean your engine.
One example of a gasoline with a detergent
is Shell V-Power NiTRO+.
Now, the nitro in the name
means that this gas is nitrogen enhanced,
which is just one of a few components
that help strip the turtles in your engine
of grime and carbon buildup.
One of the more common additives,
at least back in the day before environmental regulations,
was lead, tetra-ethyl-lead, to be exact,
or TEL for short.
It's less common nowadays,
but you can still find lead in many different race fuels.
And when you start talking about racing fuels,
that's when you start seeing the prices really go up.
But what is in race gas that can make it more expensive
than what you find at the pump?
VP Racing Fuels makes
about 80 different bespoke blends of fuel.
They make fuels for 2-stroke motorcycle engines
and 4-stroke car engines,
each with a different but specific purpose.
The more specified they get,
the smaller the window is for combustion.
That's when fuels start to get really, really expensive.
Makes sense.
If you have a fuel that's highly specified for one task,
like a tune 2-stroke dirt bike engine,
or drifting, or even top fuel drag racing,
those are super, super specific
so there's no room for error.
The octane levels have to be just right
in order to delay combustion until just the right time.
Now VP starts out with a very high grade base stock
which is refined at a major oil manufacturer's facility
specifically for VP.
This is the gasoline that's of way higher quality
than anything you're gonna find at the gas station pump,
and it provides a pure high quality base
for manufacturers like VP
to make their own proprietary blends.
The base stock is extracted using alkylation,
a refining process that takes light hydrocarbon gases,
like butene and isobutane,
and combines them to make heavier hydrocarbons,
like isoctane.
The final product in alkylate is great for making gas blends
because it's got a high octane rating,
and it doesn't contain compounds like sulfur or benzene,
which are pretty detrimental
to the environment and your health.
You don't wanna breathe that stuff in.
But alkylation takes longer
than the other refining processes like distillation,
and it also costs more,
which is reflected in the price that consumers pay.
Now, if you want to talk specifics,
which is why you probably clicked on this video,
here is the chemical makeup of a race fuel
that costs 10 times that of pump gas.
This is MR Pro 6, and it costs $37 a gallon,
and, man, can you smell that expensive smell.
(whiffing)
If you've never smelled race gas,
come on over to the Donut factory.
I'll let you sniff my can.
78 to 83% of what makes up this gas
is a blend of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons,
and this just means that that's what our base stock is.
17 to 24% of it is methyl tert butyl ether,
which is abbreviated as MTBE.
MTBE increases oxygen and octane levels in gasoline.
It's actually been banned in pump gas,
but in race fuel, it's still used today.
Now this blend is designed to generate the maximum amount
of horsepower from a 4-stroke engine specifically.
The high percentage of MTBE
is one factor that adds to its high price,
but it's not the only expensive additive.
It contains isoctane,
which is a product of the alkylation process
we talked about earlier.
It's in there to boost the octane rating even more
and reduce engine knock.
It contains mesitylene, which is a hydrocarbon
that vaporizes at relatively low temperature,
124 degrees Fahrenheit to be exact.
So in this application, I would assume it's in this blend
to help vaporize the gas easier
when it's inside the cylinder.
That's what makes this gas more expensive.
It's got a special formulation with special ingredients.
That raises the price tag on this fuel.
Not only that,
there's always the research and development costs
that drive up the price of race fuels.
Companies like VP, they have huge R&D departments
dedicated to creating special fuel formulas
that offer racers a leg up on the competition.
And speaking of VP, big thanks to the guys over there.
They actually didn't sponsor this video,
but we reached out to them,
they gave us some of their stuff.
I already ran this in my dirt bike;
you might see some photos of it.
If you're a Donut fan, go check out the podcast "Past Gas".
That's where James, Nolan, and Joe,
they go super deep into some more
of the crazier automotive stories out there in the world.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
Follow me on Instagram, @JeremiahBurton.
I post a bunch of stuff up there.
Me riding dirt bikes and doing silly stuff for my Catfish.
If you want even more access
to more of the stuff that I don't even put on my Instagram,
go hit up Donut Underground.
Follow us here at Donut on Instagram, @donutmedia.
Until next week, bye for now.