Growing up in the PlayStation generation playing Grand Turismo, I always looked for that next tuning mod to increase the horsepower of any virtual car. But whilst I thought nothing of grabbing a humble Yaris and strapping a stage 4 jet turbine to it, it never crossed my mind to order any special drums of fuel. Not that there were any.
Race gear optional when filling up
But in the real world, BP believes their new Ultimate 102 fuel can increase the power output of your Porsche 911 GT2 by around 100bhp. So when a phone call from BP came through to the PH office, we had to go and take a closer look.
What makes this fuel a bit different is how it’s made, and with gloves and suit adorned I was ready to make it like all 102 fuel - by hand.
As you may know, fuel is made by breaking crude oil down using massive equipment with odd names such as hydro crackers and catalytic reformers. The problem with this method is that because oil comes from the open market, it has different characteristics with variable carbon structures and hence burns slightly differently from batch to another.
What the BP boffins, led by Jim Cronin at the BP Global Fuels Technology facility have done, is changed this process by making the fuel in reverse order. Literally building a carbon structure that they know burns well instead of being reliant on the one created by breaking down crude oil.
In front of me on the workbench are the four main ingredients that have to be measured accurately out into their correct proportions and then blended. I decided on the shake like crazy method and voila, I create one finger printed £2.42 litre of BP 102.
This sample is then taken for analysis to see if I had correctly carried out the process and it was good – good enough to set the recipe list for the next 100,000 litre batch reaching the nine current BP 102 locations near southern race tracks. In other words, buy 102 and you might owe PH for your extra horses…
My new concoction - along with all 102 fuels - has a consistent carbon structure which the man in white coats has worked out gives cleaner combustion at higher revs. This is due to less un-burnt hydro carbons, or in other words more carbons combusted creating more power. They can build it with 6.2% bio component, and make it completely clear, non carcinogenic and good enough to pass FIA regulations to put in your spare F1 car you might have lying around.
The downside is that you’ll need to re-map your ecu to gain the real benefit from the fuel. Do this, and BP 102 can give between a four and ten per cent increase in power.
The fuel is aimed squarely at racers and the track day enthusiast, although with a southern bias to the places that’ll sell it, you’ll need to be dedicated if you’re to use it regularly. BP reckons the fuel keeps for over 1 year if you fancy turning your garage into a petrol station.
Many high performance cars will see benefits over standard super unleaded fuels without a re-map, but the gains won’t be anything like so big. But if you want to optimise everything on your track day warrior, BP 102 is the forecourt fuel to go for. Wonder if they’ll put it in Gran Turismo 5…