Last night I decided to fill up my tank with 100 octane Trick Fuel from a "76" gas station. I didnt expect any performance gains since my timing is setup for regular 92 octance gas. Beside that awesome smell when it burns :P the car felt stronger. At the end of the night I took it down to my favorite back road and did a g-tech. I gained about 4 tenths and about 4 mph.

I know people will say that before this my advance was getting retarted by the knock sensor, but my knock sensor has been bypassed a long time ago. I didnt get any audible ping with 92 octane either.

Now whenever I have an important race (for money) I'll be sure to fill up with 100 octane!

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92 Z28 5.7
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Trick Flow 23° heads, Comp Cams XR270HR-10 cam, Accel intake base + ported TPI,
TES headers, Flowmaster catback, MSD ignition, #24 SVO injectors, 1LE aluminum driveshaft.

Click here to see pics of my car !

 

Just because you didnt hear it doesnt mean it wasnt pinging. I'd say it was, and thats why its faster now.

 

i agree with madmax. Unless you had a scanner and checked to see that there was no pinging...it could have been doing it.

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89 IROC-Z 350 TPI

-Flowmaster Catback
-Performance Resource Chip
-700R4 (Rebuilt) Too much done to actually list
-K&N Airfilters
-Ported Plenum
-2.77 Gears (not much to brag about but eh, its there)
-MSD 8.5 mm plug wires
-Gutted cat
-!AIR
-Gutted Air Boxes

 

Again... I have Diacom and my knock sensor is disabled. So the computer was NOT retarding timing.

 

Timing retard doesnt matter, knocking/pinging/detonation kills power regardless of computer control or not.

 

madmax is right, as usual. Just because the computer isnt taking any timing out, doesnt mean your engine isnt pinging. Any high-compression engine (meaning 9.5:1 or higher, or usually 10:1) will benefit from higher octane gas at wide open throttle. I've gained as much as 5 tenths and 6 MPH from 92 octane to 100 octane in my car.

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1991 Camaro Z28
5.7L 5-Speed (originally 305)
13.23 @ 107.62 MPH
Southern California
Member: SoCal 3rd Gen F-Bodies
Webmaster: SoCal F-Bodies
-=ICON Motorsports=-

 

i've heard 93 pump gas is actually better than the 100 fuel because the pump has some kind of additives to it that make the engine combust better or some crap like that

 

If you could picture detonation on a scale of ten, the only audible part of it is 9 and 10. You could be pingin and not hear it. A sensor will though. You could only hear massive detotonation.

 

They say you can start to hear audible detetonation when the knock sensor is already pulling bacl 10-12 degrees.

I agree with everyone else, the only reason you picked up was because your engine is probaly under detonation with pumpgas.

Gasoline alone doesnt give you power, despite what people think. You only need enough octane so you don't detonate, anymore than that will actually slow you down.



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Mike
1989 Turbo Trans-Am
11.25@121.25


1998 Trans-Am LS1 6 Speed
13.10@106

 

So I AM detonating then huh. My knock sensor doesnt pickup anything though. It did before when I had my funked up engine with a wrist pin banging around making it sound like a knock and retarding the timing. So maybe I should try lower advance at WOT on 92 octane. I think that will actually slow me down though :/