87, 89, 93 octane whats the difference?

steveox

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What whats the difference between 87, 89, 93 octane types of gas ? Any changes theyre supposed to do to your car or what?
 
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The 87 is the cheapest. My understanding is that most cars are supposed to use that one.
 
very few cars need anything higher than 87. Jags, Shelby Cobras or other high output engines.

the octane rating measures how big a boom you get in your engine's cylinder when the spark plug ignites it. higher octane number, bigger boom. race cars are over a hundred.
 
very few cars need anything higher than 87. Jags, Shelby Cobras or other high output engines.

the octane rating measures how big a boom you get in your engine's cylinder when the spark plug ignites it. higher octane number, bigger boom. race cars are over a hundred.

Don't the quarter mile fulers run on nitro?
 
If you have to ask, you should not be driving any car that does not just take 87...As you should not be wasting your money on a performance car.

and for quarter miles, not everyone runs intro...its not everyone in Fast and the Furious cars. Also Some races ban nitro and make it about the car, not the fuel.
 
If you have to ask, you should not be driving any car that does not just take 87...As you should not be wasting your money on a performance car.

and for quarter miles, not everyone runs intro...its not everyone in Fast and the Furious cars. Also Some races ban nitro and make it about the car, not the fuel.

Jags &M Benz are not consideted performance cars.
 
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Several things work together to determine the octane you should be using in your car. Combustion Chamber and port design, the camshaft, compression ratio and ignition all have to be taken into consideration. I can't see any advantage to using additives, other than octane booster. Proper maintenance is the best thing you can do. Follow the manual, they spend a lot of time preparing it and the few pages on maintenance are all that are important. Oh yes, finding the fuse box and jack are important. Assitives are used to hide problems usually.
My car is not competitive in Vintage Racing as it is built to the 1967 SCCA Race Specs. I'm not sure what the octane rating is for the expensive race fuel sold at the track; but I can get away with the 93 octane as the compression ratio is in the area of 10.5:1 and the Weber 4oDCOE carbs do a good job. The competition is running between 13 and 15:1 with the only component as used in SCCA racing being the block. The difference is that:
my car is road legal and uses pump gas
an engine rebuild is about $400. unless something brakes as opposed to the 10 - $15,000.00 the others spend.
VVT and engine management on road cars allows them to run on the cheap gas and also minimize emissions.
A good question would be: Why are German race engines made in England rather than Germany? MB and Porsche, I haven't checked Audi.
 
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