I am going to post this question reluctantly as I am fundamentally against fuel additives. Through the years I've tolerated the decline in the quality of gas by gently retarding the timing or tweaking my distributor curves. I no longer want to do that as engines tend to run hotter and performance suffers. When I rebuilt my motor I put it back together with NOS parts and left it stock. The only changes I made for sake of performance and durabilty were porting and polishing the exhaust openings and balancing. The distributor curve was dialed in by Chuck Barbero and I verified that he had it right on the money, and Pony did the carb. In both cases they were left stock, and the timing was set to 12 degrees BTDC as specified, with total advance of 34 degrees when it's all in.
As weather conditions have changed and warmed up I'm getting a little detonation on the highway when I jump on it. Around town and gentle acceleration are fine. I am acquiescing to the reality that it's going to take some octane booster to allow me to run stock compression and stock tuning, and drive the car the way I like to without fear of detonation. I am reluctant to use additives because of experiences I had when I was younger and working in a speed shop. When unleaded fuels were introduced many hot rodders started using boosters and our carburetor overhaul business increased dramatically due to gasket failures from the chemicals, particularly the Holleys.
Has anyone done any research on octane boosters or used any for an extended period of time? If so, what brand are you using?