Right on Brother!!

 

Anyone who buys into that " it's okay to run regular when the manual says premium" crap needs an education lesson. First off, in an emergency it's ok if you have no other choice but to run low octane fuel, but drive gently and don't load the engine because the ecu can only prevent so much knock and if you drive hard on regular gas then it's detonation city. That article conveniently neglects to mention that premium fuel is even more important on a turbo car than it is on a normally aspirated car running high compression.

Boost creates levels of heat that high compression ratio NA motors often don't come close to equalling, and since heat is a major cause of preignition then I'd say that it's a bad idea to take any chances with stuff like this. Keep in mind also that a bimmer or a lexus that runs on premium is tuned way less aggressively then an evo that makes 300 hp out of a 4 cylinder by running 23 lbs of boost. That article is just some environmentalist nonsense.

 

Supposedly they use better detergents/etc in higher grade fuel to keep everything nice and shiny inside. Don't really believe it though

 

Two things...

1. 'Running' on the knock sensor is forcing it to operate at much higher duty cycles than it was designed for, not a good idea IMO. Plus the reliability of the motor is solely dependent upon this one part as opposed to to the proper balance of all the various components.

2. The answer is E85.

 

The guy that owns my old evo 8 had it tuned on 87 octane at AMS. The car has a methanol kit with large reservoirs for boost but he mostly just putts around on 87. Chris tuned it well ... its been running about 6 months like this with no issues.

jeff

 

or better yet E100. (100% ethanol, not 85% blend)

E100 has an octane rating of 110, the only problem is that you get less MPG. But that shouldn't be a big deal because it is "sustainable"...

In any case, I would really like to get more E85/E100 stations out here in the bay area . This car can easily be returned to run flawlessly on E85+ by an tuner...

 

well i have an 8 with stock boost and let me give u my experience.

I was running on 91 oct from circle k. I figured its still 91 oct so whatever. Did some datalogging was getting continuous 3 counts of knock in low rpms and sometimes 6+ counts in high rpms. And though thats not really bad im sure the knock sensor can easily handle that, but when I put in 91 oct from shell and chevron then datalogged was getting 0 counts of knock. And this is still staying at 91. Ive actually found a place that has 93 so im sure ill keep the 0 counts of knock and gain some performance as well. But my point being is if on 91 from ****ty circle k gas i was getting 6 counts of knock. I would hate to put in 87 oct.

 

Exactly! - and this is the same kind of response I was waiting for when I posted on the first page.

 

"Porsche, for example, acknowledges that any of its modern production cars can be run on regular fuel without the risk of damage."

 

I think alot of you guys are forgetting the point this was on the NY times not Motor Trend or anything performance related.
I dont think any part of this article relates to evo users, more or less to simple daily drivers.
just my 2 cents