Haven't really given this much thought, but should I be using better than regular gas? At our altitude, "regular" is 85, "premium" is 89, mid-grade 87. So far stock 2000 tune with EGR/AIR/skip-shift/EVAP/tank pressure deleted, LS6 intake and 1-3/4" coated Hawks headers. It'll see regular track time while being driven daily.

 

did you change the timing curve? did you remove torque management? if it has stock torque management put in mid grade. if torque management was removed and the timing tables were retuned then run premium and see where knock comes in in the cells on the timing table.

 

Mine takes 87, but the 5.3 has a lower compression than your 5.7

 

it will all depend on the tune. remember torque management can remove up to 22* timing if it sees knock. it will all depend on the timing table you have set. are you tuning it yourself? or is someone else tuning it.

 

Five7, I've been told by my LS1 guru down here that I should run premium and premium only in the car (ours is 93 here) on the gas lid mine says "Unleaded Gas Only (Premium recommended)"

 

it will be suggested to run premeium all the time.

who is tuning it?????

 

Well, like I said, stock tune with the items noted deleted. May get it to a dyno for tuning some time in the future, but not currently planned.

The fuel tank is from a 2001 LS1 (not sure of exact model), but the gas cap was busted up, so I just picked one up from Advance Auto. So, that didn't lend any clues.

 

best performance will be the highest octane for now. whoever is tuning it can make it runa lot better. like i said torque management will pull timing until it is tuned for max performance. put in the highest octane. whether or not it is 93 or lower torque management will continue to pull timing until it is tuned.

 

While you can run regular i sure wouldnt. I never do in my car but I have it tuned for max power on premium ( i use 91 octane no eth ) which is better than 94 octane 10% eth IMO.

I keep good records and after a whole summer of driving the difference adds up to about 1-200 bucks to run premium all the time and thats with a LOT of mileage. When i think of the hours spent in the pursuit of power PLUS the dollars thrown and making power I just dont see the sense in cheaping out on regular gas and leaving 20-30 hp on the table.

LS1's in stock trim can bu tuned for 10-15rwhp with no changed aside from premium fuel and the tune to match. With headers, and performance mods the gains become much greater. Truck engines can gain as high as 20-30 rwhp TUNE ONLY as they have much more conservative tunes than the LS1 cars do plus they have slow reacting O2's etc. A few cheap mods and tune on truck engines yields massive gains comparatively speaking

 

I copied my high octane table to my low one and you could tell it knocked at times on 87.
I since changed them to give it the ability of some retard but not as much as stock and still use 87 and the computer adjusts for it fine.

So for max power use the highest you can get, if you use the cheap stuff just allow the computer to adjust for it and it will.

 

I usually like spending the least money possible, but I'm willing to pay more to get more.

I'm guessing that an EFI LS1/T56/4.10 '82 Berlinetta running premium won't cost more in gas than driving a CC-carb'd ZZ4/TH700/3.23 '82 Berlinetta burning regular unleaded.

 

Im with you all the way on spending the least possible but theres three areas where I go no expense spared just give me the best! Thats oil, fuel, and tires.

Im always baffled by some gear heads I get yakking with who even utter the words "hard on fuel" etc. While I sure love getting good mileage as much as the next guy I didnt build a go fast car with mileage as my primary concern. My goals are and always have been to have the best all around street driven car i can build for as cheap as possible. One day i'll blast off mid tens and still have very easy drive ability and decent fuel mileage as these two traits seem to run in common for me at least. The cars that i've owned that were reasonable on fuel were also the most casual and comfortable to drive. But I still ran them all on Premium fuel although i do draw the line on Race gas tunes only as the only suppliers for it are FAR from my place and I travel around quite a bit with my cars.

As for the tires??? A local wrench I know who I suppose I could call a friend but them Dodge guys are... a bit off... so I dont know if I'd refer to him as a friend. Anyways the guy builds a blown BB Dodge Dart and rolls around on 20 year old BFG radial TA's.... Insane... Everytime he gets on it he risks crashing its all over the place.

I just cant understand the logic? Or should I say lack thereof? I see it over at LS1tech too fairly often actually. Some guy spends a mint building up his car with all these power mods and then bombs around on half baked tires and wipes it out and wonders why? LOL

Nothing is more important than the tires. No sense making any power at all if it just goes up in smoke as you cant use it. Plus the danger... Yikes...

Anyways a complete tirading rant off topic/hijack whatever here ( Right now I feel a bit like Lt Dan "Change your socks!" LOL )

Carry on

 

That's what my grandfather said.

In 1971 when I got the '57. . .

 

I put Regular in my 00 TA once. It was down on power and got really bad gas mileage. (I think 50 less miles out of that tank then normal). Run Premium, it was actually cheaper then taking the mileage hit all things considered.

 

You could always tune it for E85......

 

After buying a set of bigger injectors. . .

 

I've always used 93 in my firebird, even with the LQ9 I could probably get away with lower octane, but with the cam, stall, and daily driving I figure why skimp - not worth it if I end up with 14 gallons of knock juice in the tank.

 

iirc, I read somewhere on tech that you could increase the duty cycle of the injector to put out more volume in the tune, but I could be mistaken.

 

I always run 93 in my LS engines, 87 used to run fine in my stock LS1, 93 runs perfect in my stock LS6, 87 runs noticeably different.

 

No, I've read up on it over there quite a bit (with regard to the LQ4 that will be going into the currently-E85 '57). The consensus seems to be: Step #1 is to buy HPTuners; Step #2 is to buy 30% bigger injectors.

 

Apparently I really hadn't been paying attention. Premium is 91 (R+M)/2.

Saturday when I picked it back up from the exhaust shop, I stopped and filled it up with 14 gallons of premium (to go with what remained of the 3 or so gallons of mid-grade I had put in to get it started). Used the opportunity to calibrate the programmable fuel gauge.