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Regular or Affiliate Member. Graduate Student Member. Undergraduate Student Member. Benefits Enjoy these benefits no matter which membership you pick. Thank you! The WorldFirst race car has a steering wheel made from carrots and waste cocoa butter in its fuel tank. Credit: Indy Racing League. Cars in the Indianapolis run on a mix of ethanol and specially formulated gasoline.
Subscribe ». You might also like Share X. To send an e-mail to multiple recipients, separate e-mail addresses with a comma, semicolon, or both. Submit Sending Join the conversation. Sunoco distributes racing fuels to more than race tracks and 50 racing series in the US alone. Learn More.
We use cookies to enhance your experience on our website and improve the delivery of ads to you. For specific racing disciplines, there are specific racing fuels. Other racing fuels, such as nitromethane , are used exclusively in ultra-high demand racing such as drag racing. Obviously, you would not be able to put nitromethane into your normal car, so in terms of racing fuel we will only be referring to the high octane, unleaded gasoline options that are available to consumers. Methanol is also not what we will be considering here, as your engine would have to be designed to take a methanol-heavy fuel to be compatible.
So, what would happen if you were to add high octane unleaded racing fuel to your normal car? Well, not very much. However, if you were to push your car to its limits , you might notice some power differences, but again it really would not be that much. The main difference you would notice would be the price.
Racing fuel of a high-octane rating tends to be much more expensive , sometimes 5 times as much as regular 87 octane gasoline. So, unless you have a high-performance car there really is no point buying racing fuel if you are expecting to gain a power or speed advantage. But if you accidentally bought it and were worried that it would damage your car, rest assured that there should be no lasting damage.
However, there have been issues in the past with vehicle warranties being affected by the addition of incorrect fuel, so do try to avoid it when you can just in case. If you were to put leaded gasoline into your car, which is still sometimes used in racing, you would definitely notice a difference. Leaded fuel can damage oxygen sensors, as well as poison catalytic converters as we have touched on already.
Leaded fuel is no longer sold at gas stations for these reasons, and if you ever accidentally add leaded fuel to your car, you need to call an expert. The short answer to the question of whether or not you can put racing fuel into your normal car is yes , however it does depend on which type of racing fuel you add. Leaded fuels, methanol fuels and even nitromethane fuels are used exclusively for racing in most cases, unless you have an engine designed to run on methanol.
This allows us to specify certain hydrocarbons in a blend to achieve desired fuel properties, then add varying amounts of lead to target an octane level. This is why the myth about high octane fuels burning slower is exactly that — a myth.
We also get questions about lead being used to keep old engines running longer. We do not add lead specifically to promote valvetrain life in older engines, but indeed that is a benefit, especially for vintage racers.
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