Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

Ok, I don't have a turbo n yet, but VERY close, and I'll probably be doing a lot of traveling with it with the turbo on, if I'm not going to be boosting at all, stricly highway driving, is it fine to just use regular gaas...because it's sooo much cheaper? My set up is gonna be t25, d16, afc, 450cc, CCA FMIC, 10 psi, blah blah blah, let me know what you think. thanks

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

how are you running timing on the boosted setup?

I would assume that with the added turbo your car will most likely get higher mpg on the freeway so might break even for you to fill 'er up with premium.

My buddy threw a way overpriced supercharger on his d16y8 (I forget the name brand of the blower) and he does a ---- load of highway driving, he said he gained a few mpg

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

i'm not sure how the timing will be, don't have it on yet, but i'm guessing that it will be moved up or back a bit with the AFC hack, not positive on that though.

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

Get premium all the time. When your on the freeway it's too easy to boost. What about freeway on ramps? Your car will want to boost even if you give it a little throttle so it will be hard to stay out of it. Plus you never know when your going to run into a car you want to race. ;)

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

actually I just calculated it. for a 1000 mile road trip, it's only about $5 extra dollars, that's not as bad as I though it would be.
1000/35mpg=28gal. 28 gal x $1.85 reg.=$51.80
28 gal x $2.02 prem=$56.56

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

hey do it the true ghettro way, fill er up with 87, then dump a bottle of octane booster in there.

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

those stupid bottles are like $13, I tried one once, didn't feel a thing, piece of crap

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

why would you feel anything from octane booster? The only reason to put higher octane in is to prevent detonation.

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

i always use premium, even n/a :-\

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

My car is N/A and I always use premium, sometimes you get a little better mpg, plus i hear its alot healthier and better for engine life.

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

i thought your car had the greddy kit and n2o, at least that's what this post of yours says

what the hell dude, make up your mind, you turbo with n2o, then you're n/a, which one is it?

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

Get the higher octane, and increase the life of your engine, and save you a headache later...

Are we going to get cheap with 10-20 cents more on gas? Or should we just settle for fucked up pistons, ringlands, and a block for being stupid and letting DETONATION OWN YOU! :P

Get 91+ octane.

If I had my choice, I'd be using higher octane when I'm boosted. ----, I like to run off 100 octane or even the 114 octane when I'm blowing off nitrous.

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

haha.. You guys are killing me !!

#1 oct. boosters that come in a bottle will take 93oct. all the way up to 93.8oct !! What a deal !!! Bottled "oct. boosters" are pointless.

#2 If your car doesn't need 91+ oct. then don't be dumb and put 93' oct in it !! 93oct is harder to burn than 87oct. and is more like to leave deposits and crap in the cylinders and crap. Not to meantion sense your getting a less effecnt burn the car will get less proformance and less gas mileage. It may "feel faster", but to be honest my car "feels faster" after I wash it, hehe... The Butt Dyno is WAY OFF.

I'd only run 93oct. in some of the cars with B16/b18 ( non LS motors ), but for the good ole D16/D15 unless you've radically changed the compression ratio, or added FI, your wasting your money, and profromance...

Don't waste money that could be going to a HMT on 93oct. ( OR if your going to have a B-series engine you better save your money for when something breaks or just stops working ).

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

you might want to look at propane injection, someone on www.turboforum.net uses it in his MR2, he uses reg gas and the propane.

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

Hahah thats my fault....Im not talkin on my 99 civic EX, i meant my daily driver POS. I have a 93 civic ex with liek 160K i use for work, and I run premium on it cuz i drive about 1000 miles every two weeks or so for work and use premium, and it seemd to work a bit better than reg, eventho i doubt it makes a difference on my engine with 160k, but even so. Theres no way in HELL id be puttin thos kinda miles on a car i spent $$$$$ to modify and boost. ;)

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

buy regular and dump a half a gallon of tolulene in it :) ( by the way thats an incredibly precise measurment i just gave you ::)) that'll give you high octane gas

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

i hear people say that, but is it in anyway harmful to your car? and where the fuckdo you get tolulene?

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

get toluene at paint stores

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

Just to help out, the afc hack Will Not retard your timing for you, it does not have this feature, it actually advances the timing, so you need to either retard your timing alot at the distributer, or buy a MSD btm to retard timing under boost.

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

Here is good info on homebrew octane boosters

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

toluene is like $8/gallon. hell, you can get race gas for 1/4 of that....

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

I buy toluene for $4/gal when I buy the tin (the one that looks like a big can of paint thinner). (gonna check for bulk price)

Guess it's time fer y'all to move to the derty souf...

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

yea but you are dilluting it. and getting a boost retard with an afc hack isnt really solving the problem, since the hack advances timing down low

Toluene works
 

Cheaper than race gas, huh? Maybe, depending on your octane needs.

Toluene works, so far for me anyway. I'm working through my first full tank of it. You can buy it at automotive paint stores - Sherwin Williams sells it right on the showroom floor - look for the rectangular 1 gallon white & blue can that says TOLUENE in big blue letters. The Xylene is right next to it.

I paid $6 & change for it last week in the gallon can. So, say $6.50 in Toluene, $18.81 in premium fuel ($2.09/gal here) = $25.31 for 10 gallons of "fuel". That's $2.53 / gallon. How much is unleaded race gas again?

I mix 10% Toluene with premium pump gas (that's 91 octane where I live) - 1 gallon Toluene, 9 gallons premium. According to the math it makes our premium fuel 93.3 octane which keeps my beast detonation free - A JRSC D16A6 running 9psi with a 9.6:1 CR and no intercooler of any kind. No detonation is all I care about. Any additional octane beyond non-detonation is a waste of your money.

Formula:
(gallons gas * octane rating) + (gallons toluene * 114) / total gallons = octane rating (R+M)/2

Example:
(9 * 91) + (1 * 114) / 10 = octane rating
(819)+(114) / 10 = 93.3

Buying Xylene just because it has a higher octane rating does not mean you are making your car faster. Your car will only be as fast as it is when it's NOT detonating and when you can run maximum reasonable timing advance. This is a case where more is not better.

I've read not to mix Toluene any stronger than 30%.

I encourage anyone who's interested in Toluene as an octane addative to do a Google search on it. I found several informative pages about using it as "fuel".

Some a couple I found:
http://www.elektro.com/~audi/audi/toluene.html
http://www.theoldone.com/forum/topic...hTerms=toluene

Read as much as you can find. I found a couple sites that say it's a waste of money - both of them included the opinion of Tim Wusz who represents 76 Racing Fuels I believe. Of course he's going to say it's not worth it...
He quotes some figures using a 1:1 Toluene / Gasoline mix, which is WAY more than you'd ever use.

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

When i go on road trips what i do is lean it out in the 3500 to 4300 rpm range to -45 cause thats like 75 to 85mph on the si tranny. I run boost as well with a t3 with premium and got 35 mph.

Re:Do I need to use premium on road trips?
 

If you are using a chipped ECU you can actually have your tuner come up with a regular gas boost map. I was surprised how much boost and how much ignition timing you can actually run with regular gas.

Leaning it out a little in the cruise range is a good idea but if you do you should have an EGT probe as leaning it out too much for long periods of time can easilly lead to burned valves.

-Michael