A neighbor with a 3 series BMW tells me he forces mothballs into his gas tank to enhance the performance of his car. Is there any reason the chemicals in mothballs would increase performance. I have a BMW M3 (which performs quite well anyway) and would like to get as much performance as possible.
I might be wrong, but I would think mothballs would just gum up the fuel system. Besides, why would someone do this to a BMW? I could see boosting performance in, say, a Hyundai, but a BMW? That, to me, is just stupid.
Your friend is misguided and suffering a bit from the placebo effect, pure and simple.
He may have gotten the idea from this scam, which made national news and continues on anyway.
(Note the sentence about halfway down about what these miracle pills are.)
http://cbs11tv.com/local/Bioperformance.Secret.Gas.2.493815.html
From what I remember (which isn’t much), mothballs in the gas is an old (and I mean ooold) racer’s trick. I emphasize old so much b/c from what I gather, technology has caught up with this little trick.
There was some sort of chemical in the old style mothballs that was supposed to help fuel and air mix better. But that was back in the carbureated -low octane - days of yesteryear. With today’s fuel injection and higher octane fuels, I doubt it helps much, if at all.
Honestly, if I had a nice ride like yours, I would not be screwing with stuff with that. You’ve got a pretty highly tuned little toy there, and fooling with things that are
a: outside the bounds of mechanical/electrical control
b: you can’t undo once done
is asking for trouble.
I remember that one from when I was a kid in the 50’s. It did not really work then and today it can do damage to the sensitive sensors and fuel injection systems. Stay away from it.
Nice link. The part I liked best is the mention of generating $25 million in sales in the first five months. Hmm… anyone here want to join be in a business venture?
Put premium in your car and it will perform wonderfully.
You don’t pay the repair bills for your knucklehead neighbor’s 3-series and be beyond happy.
Absolutely! Totally accurate!
And, here’s another useful tip that I heard from someone:
If you have pain, put a knife under your bed. It cuts the pain in half.
(Hint: Old wives’ tales may sound good to old wives, but they don’t work for anyone else, unless one counts the placebo effect.)
Wished I could totally eliminate ethics and dignity for about 6 months and get involved in something like this, earn a few million, and retire after bailing out on all of the suc…uh, consumers and distributors.
Some amusing reading about how to use this product. 
http://www.go-bp.com/tools/bp/How%20To%20Use%20Bio%20Performance.pdf
I heard from old timers that the mothballs in the gas tank helped the performance of Model T Fords. I also heard one old timer tell me that he really damaged his engine and had to tear it down and rebuild it. I think that the mothballs boosted the octane of the fuel and one could set the spark advance (which was controlled by a lever on the steering column) higher for better performance. Maybe your neighbor could adapt his BMW to a manual contolled spark advance like the Model T Ford.