94 Octane, is it worth the 10 cents per/L more?

[mystere485]

While on my way back from Vancouver, BC I stopped at a chevron station in Vernon. 94 OCTANE! NO WAY! I've never seen 94 octane in alberta. What the hell, I'll get a tank and see if it helps through the mountain passes. I'm not close to an expert, but I didn't notice a thing. Is this normal for fi engines with air/fuel/exhaust meters?

[ontarian_frog]

94 Octane will not give you more power, nor will it 'clean' the engine blah blah blah.

Higher octane ratings are for engines with higher compression to prevent detonation, that's it. People think higher octane ratings give more power because more powerful engines use it. They simply use it because at regular 87 octane, they would knock (detonate).

[kirko]

You should be gettin 87-89 octane for your car. Higher octane on a car that wasn't designed for it will hinder its performance. Lower octanes burn faster, higher octanes burn slower. On high compression and turbo engines or nitrous, highger octane is needed for the engine to make a complete burn. In other words, you paid more for less performance

[Alex]

lol i'm glad you can admit that it doesn't add performance. i don't know how long it took to convince my friend that higher octane isn't adding performance and hit "improvements in fuel economy and power" were all imaginary :\...took him 3 things to finally get my points. 1) show him chevrons information on higher octane 2) wreck his civic 3) gas prices get too high for him to handle in the truck he had to drive after his civic. lol simple frustration i thought i'd share. but yeah basically wat onarian_frog said. higher compression = more friction = more heat = pre-detonation. lol i laugh at the kid that bought our *sorta family* z32 300zx...also he drives it like a jackass so he deserves having to pay more for fuel :P

[khan4rtist]

ive always wondered, what happenes if you use gas lower than 87 octane :P

[mtlswift]

Then the knock sensor detects pinging, adjusts timing etc and you lose on performance.
Here's a good read:
http://www.baileycar.com/gasoline_html.html

[ontarian_frog]

In fact, if you go into high altitude areas like the rockies, you might find 85 octane gas. Perfectly fine up there where atmospheric pressure is less than at sea level. But if you drive down to sea level with that gas, you'll get what mtlswift said.

[mralx152]

I have to disagree my aveo loved its tank of 94 octain this week. It seemed to me like it ran so much better. And honestly in less im just seeing things my car was a lot faster had to let off the gas more but maybe I was just driveing fast but it definitely was a noticeable difference my girl even asked what I did different.