The octane of gasoline is designated mainly on the engine compression. If you want to use low octane, buy a low compression engine. Just don't ask for high HP/l. To make a high compression engine run on low octane, you have to make it run with unnatural parameters to overcome the bad things that happen. If you like to run a car out of tune, put cheap gas in an S. But as you know, it's hard on a car to run it out of tune!

 

I put it in by accident once and didn't notice any difference, but I wasn't racing around, just cruzin' through town.

 

you cand do it and unless you're stuck in hot, humid traffic it's not likely to hurt the car. it will; however, definitely affect performance and efficiency. at the end of the day, you're likely to erase most, if not all, of your savings in decreased fuel mpg so why bother?

treat your car right and it will treat you right.

 

If you can't afford to maintain your S2000, then you should get something more financially suited to your needs.

 

I was just thinking the same thing. If you bought a car for 30g's cant you afford the 15 extra on gas?

 

Just a quick note about octane and gas...

The MAIN difference between 87 octane and 91 or 92 octane is......

MARKETING!!

Using 87 octane in your car will not hurt it in any way. The minor difference between 87 and 92 is so minimal that even though there is a difference in performance it is minimal.

The main reason that oil companies sell three different levels of octane is to make a higher profit. The cost involved in producing 92 octane gas is a fraction of a percent more than producing 87. If Chevron can charge (these prices are for my area) $1.69 for 87 and $1.89 for 91 octane, that is a mark-up of almost 12%. With the cost of producing the 91 octane only about 0.7 % more than producing 87 octane, their profit margin on 91 octane is around 11% greater than 87.

People here mentioned issues like knocking or deposits. If you were to fill-up with 87 nine out of ten times and 92 the other time, you would have no more deposits or issues with knocking than if you were to fill up with 92 all the time. That one time with 92 would clean out what little deposits you did have.

HOWEVER, if you are like me, that extra 12% cost is worth it because I am DAMN SURE that I can tell the difference in performance with my "butt dyno".

 

Ummm, what about higher octane gas? Would that help, hurt, or what.....

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Humanatek
[B]Just a quick note about octane and gas...

The MAIN difference between 87 octane and 91 or 92 octane is......

MARKETING!!

Using 87 octane in your car will not hurt it in any way.

 

Da Hapa, I also read that article about using premium unleaded in cars that specified it or not. You are right that it said for those vehicles that didn't specify premium, it was a waste of $$. For those that did, performance dropped off if regular was used. Recently I read an article where someone put a few gallons of 100 octane racing fuel in the tank and redid a 0-60 test or some such thing and got faster results.

I can get 93 octane here at no price premium over 92 so I will go for it.

 

If you're driving an S and putting regular gas in it, or even 'mixing' it with mid-grade/premium because you're worried about paying an extra 50 cents to a dollar for a fill-up, all I have to ask is why? Puh-lease, that's just plain silly (especially if you're using REGULAR gas). The manual says Premium Fuel, so that's what mine gets (93 octane). Period.

If you can afford the car...