As
@swatski said, octane boosters are not ideal for permanent use. Torco is the only one i would ever consider and i would only consider that for an emergency situation where i couldn't get the octane required.
I'm highly skeptical of all tunes, especially tunes that you don't verify afr sand timing on. loads of vendors just take the stock tune and add 2 or 4 degrees. Like tow tunes on gasoline truck, strongly consider not running then if you will be at wot more that a few seconds unless you can verify afr.
Never ever change the fuel pressure on an efi vehicle! Ever! The tuning to make it run right is complex, and that is if the ecu has a fuel pressure sensor. If not, it will f everything up.
Being the guinea pig is tricky. I like to wait a couple years for vendors to blow up customers engines before they work out all the bugs and make it safe.
What is the wheel you guys speak of? I've been Ford efi tutoring for over a decade but these engines are new to me.
MMT was a primary octane raising ingredient in commercially sold gasoline for over 20 years and following the removal of TEL (Tetra-Ethyl Lead) from gasoline was the only one available for several years. It is still used in Canada, Mexico and in many other places around the world as the standard octane raising ingredient in commercially available gasoline. All MMT in the USA is produced by Afton Chemical. MMT is the primary octane boosting component in Torco. The toluene in Torco's forumla is the delivery fluid and is not advertised by Torco as an octane booster, although it does have a small boosting affect. MMT is the primary ingredient in Boostane and Lucas as well. Boostane uses a patented delivery fluid other than toluene to keep the manganese from depositing in the tank. Torco is no different from Lucas except that they sell a 32 oz. container which is over twice as large an amount as Lucas, so of course it will raise the octane higher.
I use MMT as a buffer, not a booster. I just moved to a new area, with new gas stations and don't trust anything yet. Having the highest octane rating in the world does nothing if the ECU isn't taking advantage of it. Once I am confident that the fuel is ok, I'll stop using it. When I left Oklahoma, the tank was full of 91, which is the highest octane readily available in the state. It is however mostly ethanol free gasoline in Oklahoma.
The mods I am performing, and the mods
@SamCF has already done require aftermarket tuning, there is just no way around it. I would never run a modified fuel system without a proper tune regardless of the system being variable boost referenced or atmosphere referenced static pressure. Using atmosphere referenced fuel pressure may be alright for naturally aspirated applications, but it becomes problematic when used on an engine using a compressed air charge. The problem only gets worse with more boost because you begin to run into fuel flow issues. These engines have Bar map sensors already in stock configuration, adding a boost referenced fuel system makes fuel tuning fairly easy. I was simply considering the static +10 FPR as a cheaper solution than the rising rate FPR. With the ETLB wheel, 10# of added fuel pressure more than makes up for the flow loss due to manifold pressure increase, and I don't intend to take power any further than this next step.
Those shady tuning practices are very prevalent in the world of automobile tuning, that is true. I've had to repair I don't know how many engines and scrap that many more because of tuning performed by several names that come to mind. I approached this tuning program for our boats with a healthy degree of skepticism, it would be foolish not to. The 1.8L SHO motor has been around since 2008, so tuners have had plenty of time to modify, learn, and experiment. The SHO is virtually identical regardless of whether it is in a PWC or a boat. The company and people I am working with have hundreds of hours of dyno time on this one platform. The relationship between Yamaha and some of the performance vendors (specifically the one I am working with) is extraordinarily close, with a lot of technology sharing happening. The relationship is similar to the one that Ford enjoys with Roush and Steeda. The company I am working with uses a fairly light touch, the tune I am using at this time is nothing more than a rpm raise and boost limit remover. The tuner module I am using is capable of displaying all critical live data while the engine is in operation. A very important fact is that these engines are over-engineered for what they are used for, and if anything, the boat is a more stable platform compared to the PWC because it is more consistently loaded (even if that load is higher) as opposed to being varied in speed and load at a high rate typical of PWCs.
The "wheel" is the supercharger impeller. These engines are factory supercharged using a gear and shaft coupled, crank driven, centrifugal supercharger manufactured by HKS. The pitch on the impeller determines the amount of boost it can generate at a given engine RPM.
