One of the biggest problems when tuning our cars for max power is the quality of the petrol (gas) we use. Honda enthusiasts are probably most familiar with this as for close to a decade, we have been forced to see Honda's very desirable Type-R models being purely JDM models with generally de-tuned substitutes for the export market. One of the biggest reasons for this is the issue of petrol/gas quality - the Type-Rs are spec'ed for RON100 petrol and few countries outside of Japan has such level of quality for sale in the public petrol/gas stations.

This problem with petrol/gas quality also becomes a big problem when we modify our Hondas. Detonation becomes a problem whenever we push for max power when we modify our engines. I was given a rather 'blunt' introduction to this problem when I embarked on my project to soup-up my DA6 Integra more than 3 years ago. I wanted the power level of a H22A but wasn't willing to accept the substantial chasis mods needed to swap one into the car. So I decided to install a blower. I can still vividly remember my first, brutal introduction to the lack of quality in the local Malaysian petrol. We set for a nominal 0.5 bar boost and proceed to do the first dyno run, carefully, to extract the baseline result for tuning. Upon WOT, the check engine light promptly came on and the ECU went into back-up mode. The ECU trouble code read 'knock sensor' - the engine was detonating so badly that the ECU went into back-up mode to save it from destroying itself ! Because I simply bolted the kit on and ran it with the stock 10+ CR, we later estimated my RON requirement went up from around RON95 to an estimated RON99 !! And it is this inability to meet the octane requirement that stopped me from extracting max power from the blower kit - I had to set the wastegate for lowest possible boost in an effort to avoid detonation in the humid hot Malaysian weather !

RON rating of course isn't the only property about petrol/gas that is important. My 'Automotive Engines' text-book listed a whole list of important characteristics of a good petrol/gas and this includes things like volatility and purity. A good quality petrol/gas will allow an engine to run extremely smoothly and extract maximum power with minimum stress.

I was first introduced to the concept of a fuel additive by Jungle Juice which was a pure octane booster. Adding 3 litres of Jungle Juice to a full tank of petrol (45 litres) let me run at slightly higher boost levels without any detonation even in the hottest and most humid weather. But I also discovered that a pure octane booster like Jungle Juice affects the engine's throttle response, dulling it significantly. While I love the smoothness of the engine with Jungle Juice, I really hated the throttle response lag that it induced. Jungle Juice had other problems. It was not sold commercially and my tuner buys it by the barrel. And because running with too high a concentration of Jungle Juice will foul up the plugs, everytime I needed it I had to make a trip to the speedshop before I could top up my petrol tank.

My first introduction to the concept of a fuel modifier is with HKS DHOB. Unlike Jungle Juice, DHOB improves the property of petrol, making it burn in a more controlled manner - more evenly and more complete. It also has the side effect of improving the octane rating of the petrol. HKS DHOB gives all the benefits of Jungle Juice plus a better throttle response. The metal can makes it safe and easy to transport and running too rich a mixture was not harmful to the engine in anyway. But then the bad news. Each 500ml can of HKS DHOB costs more than M$100 (~US$25) ! At a recommended mixture ratio of 500ml to 50litres, this means for a full tank, I would spend more on DHOB than on petrol itself ! This extremely high cost quickly makes it impractical to use DHOB on much more than the rare occasions.

There are of course a huge variety of such petrol additives and petrol modifiers in the market. Some like 'Justice Brothers' are plain octane boosters and are available for sale via the supermarkets. Others are more specialized and are only marketed via specialist tuner shops.

Afterburn is a fuel modifier developed by Malaysian tuner specialist Aerotech. Aerotech has been in operation in Malaysia for over 20 years. Their first project car was a HKS turbo-charged Prelude and they have since been building countless cars, from powerful NA Hondas to streetable 700ps Nissan Skyline GTRs. Afterburn is developed to offer the benefit of fuel additive like HKS DHOB but at a much more affordable cost and to work on all types of cars from completely stock ones to wildly modified ones.

To develop Afterburn, Aerotech analyzed many different fuel additives currently on the market. This includes both plain octane boosters like Jungle Juice to fuel modifiers like DHOB. Aerotech decided that the HKS DHOB 'approach' was the best, i.e. a fuel modifier that improves the combustion characteristics of the petrol it is added to and accordingly have similar objectives for Afterburn as well. To develop Afterburn, Aerotech tested it on countless cars, ranging from completely stock run-of-the-mill family sedans to LPT (light pressure turbo) 1.6SOHC Civics, 400ps FD3S RX-7, 600ps R33 Skyline GT-Rs and even superbikes like Honda CBR900 and the Suzuki GSXR 750 and 1000s. The results were measured extensively on Dynojet car and bike dynamometers. The original design target for Afterburn was to offer 80% of the effectiveness of the best fuel modifier in the market, HKS DHOB, but at a fraction of its cost. This has been acheived very well with Afterburn registering a clear increase in dyno'ed power at the wheels, ranging from mild (3-4ps) for stock SOHC family sedans to more than 10ps for really souped up supercars like the 600ps R33 Skyline GT-R. In fact, in many cases, the power increase from using Afterburn actually surpassed that from using DHOB ! Other improvements are of course more subjective - vastly improved throttle response and a much smoother and quieter engine. In addition, Afterburn also astonishingly returned improved fuel economy - users routinely reporting as much as 10%-15% improvements with Afterburn added. Optimal mixture ratios for Afterburn is different between NA and forced induction cars - for NA, the optimum mixture is 250ml for each 50litre petrol/gas while for turbocharged and supercharged cars, the optimum mixture is 500ml for each 50litre of petrol/gas. Accordingly Afterburn is packaged in both 250ml or 500ml cans.

Technically Afterburn is different from the other fuel additives that Aerotech looked at only in its formulation, i.e. how much of each ingredient and how they are mixed. In this sense, Afterburn do not claim at any new or breakthrough ingredient. Everything that goes to make Afterburn have been used in similar products before. But Aerotech believes they have found the best combination of ingredients and the most effective mixing procedure. What might conceiveably allow Aerotech to achieve this better than large corporations like STP for e.g. might be that Aerotech is a specialist tuner and tested Afterburn on not only stock cars but also many tuned cars as well, from mildly tuned ones to crazily tuned one.

A valid concern for any fuel modifiers besides the question of its effectiveness must be whether it has any unwanted side-effects or more crucially whether it will cause any long term damage to the engine and ancilliary systems. In this case, long term testing was carried out internally over a period of more than 6 years on several different cars owned by Aerotech (from a HKS LPT SOHC Civic to a 400ps HKS turbocharged S13 180SX) and no side effects have been found. Confidence in this result can probably be also taken by the fact that the ingredients used in Afterburn have been used by similar products on the market and many of which would have undergone extensive lab tests by their manufacturers.

Ever since Doug MacMillan from New Zealand developed the superb Hondata PGM-Fi tuning software, I have every confidence that people from outside of the traditional tuning powerhouses like Japan or the US are perfectly capable of developing effective tuning products. The low cost of Afterburn and the many reported cases of improvements is testament to its effectiveness. But as usual, TOVA readers themselves will be the best person to decide if its worthwhile to try out. Aerotech has signed up as an advertiser here in TOVA and readers who are interested to test it can order via the net through our Afterburn advertisement banner in this article or on our main page. For orders through the internet, Afterburn is only sold in cartons of 12 cans each, either 250ml cans or 500ml cans. The costs for a case of 250ml Afterburn cans will be US$54 (US$4.50 a can) while a case of 500ml Afterburn cans will be US$102 (US$8.50 a can). Shipping and Handling charges will be extra of course and will depend on the location to be shipped to. Feel free to discuss your experience in our forum.

To do a with/without test of Afterburn, simply run alternative tanks of pure petrol/gas or petrol/gas with Afterburn. A few things to bear in mind though. The best method of adding Afterburn is to pour the can in just before topping up. This helps mix the Afterburn and petrol more thoroughly. But if you have to add Afterburn into an already full tank, then it will take some time for it to mix completely with the petrol. This will be after around 1-2 kms of driving. Also do bear in mind when doing the 'without test' that the first top-up without Afterburn will still see some residual effects because we can't really run the tank until it's totally empty - there would still be some petrol, perhaps as much as 5litres or more in the tank even when the needle is reading bone dry so it's only after the 2nd top-up that all traces of Afterburn would be gone.

Of course any readers who wishes to test Afterburn should take proper common sense precautions, especially for those with concerns about side-effects. I myself have been using it for over half a year and have not seen any side effects on my Integra. Do be extra careful when faced with a new problem that may coincide with adding Afterburn. In one case, a user added Afterburn to his Toyota Estima and got an engine check light a day later. The diagnosis suggests the engine was running too lean. The only apparent change was the addition of Afterburn but luckily the user was open minded and continue checking with pure petrol. The check engine light continues to light up even when it was clear that only petrol was in the tank. Eventually it was found that the MASS sensor was faulty and was under-reading. This means that more air-flow was going into the engine than what the MASS sensor was indicating causing the ECU to inject too little fuel and thus the engine to run extra lean. In this case, replacing the MASS sensor solved the problem. So it is important to be extra careful when diagnosing problems.