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Premium Gasonline. Whats in your tank?

D

Daves95Contour

CEG'er
Joined
Feb 2, 2005
Messages
96
Location
Cleveland, Ohio
I just did my first fill up with my CSVT with citgo 93 octane. Do you guys think that shell V-power is better gas? I guess it has like cleaning additives in the gas that other grades do not have as much of. Is it worth it?
 
projectSHO89 said:
You're wasting your money with the "super" grades of gas.

If it makes you feel beter, then go ahead.
Click to expand...

Yes please explain. Cause if you have an engine with 10.5:1 Compression and you run 87 you will most likely encounter detonation. There is a difference between 87, 89, 91, 93 etc. The higher the number the better it will resist detonation.

If you are strictly refering to using Brand Name vs. Brand X there is still a difference, its not just marketing. Each manufacturer develops certain additives that help prevent deposits on valves, plugged injectors, etc.

Personally I use Shell V-Power and I encourage most others to do so as well. I used Chevron when I first bought my SVT and although I never had any serious problems I would notice a loss in fuel mileage after around 5-6k miles then I would run an injector cleaner through the injectors and my mileage would rise. With the V-Power I haven't experienced a loss of fuel mileage at all. I flush the fuel injectors and change the fuel filter every 15k using a stand alone injector cleaner not an add to the tank kind.
 
I recently tried Shell, and it was like I was driving a different car. I get it as much as possible now. I use regular unleaded.
 
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I think what he means by wasting your money is that unless the timing or compression ratio has been changed from stock you should go with whatever the owner's manual recommends for the grade of gasoline in your car.

I remember one year I did an experiment with my V6 Mystique. I used a different grade each month and tried to duplicate driving conditions as much as possible. The 87 and 89 grades yielded about the same in fuel economy. However, the 93 octane dropped it nearly 2 mpg. I've stayed with 87 octane ever since.
 
SVT Contour's owner's manuals state that they requires Premium, which is about 91+ (R+M)/2 or 98+ RON octane.

Another thing is, look at the gas guage... Notice how it says "PREMIUM FUEL ONLY" on it? Then get into a car that 'recommends' premium for best performance... will say nothing or "Premium Fuel Recommended." Hmm... wonder why they did that?

BTW, I have ESSO 98 octane (RON method) fuel in my SVT.

Wikipedia - Octane Ratings

If you read this, you will notice that higher octane fuel is harder to burn, with lower octane fuel easier to burn. You should also remember that putting things under increasing pressure heats them up.

So, from that... put a low octane (READ: easy burn) into a high compression (READ: more heat) engine, and wham! You've got pre-ignition from the fuel burning while the piston is still coming up, which tries to push it down... I don't think the crank will allow that (it goes to the gym more than fire does), so it just keeps going up as the burning fuel/air mixture attempts to force it down.

Now see why they REQUIRE premium fuel in high compression engines?

Also understand why higher octane than you need is NOT helping, and actually may be hurting your economy?

Not the quickest? Ok, then get this... your engine has low compression (READ: low heat), and you put in high octane fuel (READ: hard to burn)... Now your engine has to work harder to burn that hard-to-burn fuel you put in.

Now, your engine is lazy... It's not really working harder, more that it's not completely burning the fuel in the time frame the original engineers designed for the easier to burn low-octane fuel. Unburned fuel also causes the catalyst to burn it up, which destroys the cat.

So uhh... yeah... like mentioned before follow the manual!
 
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Something that is not taken in to consideration when this topic comes up too is that the fuel companies for the last 5 or so years have been adding ethenal to all grades of gas to the tune of at least 10% or more, and calling it an additive. At this % they do not have to tell you that it is in there but it will in that amount effect your fuel milage, for the worst.
 
I drive an 98 CSVT and 87 rarely if ever goes into the gas tank. when prices started to go up sharply, it saw 87 a few times. 89 and 93 run great in my car.

It does say on the gas gauge PREMIUM FUEL ONLY and they mean it

if you have access to 110 octane fuel (we have a couple places publicly you can get it where i live) throw some of it in your gas tank. My car loved it!!
(i don't know if the SVT motor is setup to run 110 octane solely, but you can does as you deem safe)
 
Technically, the manual states that 91+ Octane fuel is recommended but it will run fine on 87 Octane. I remember reading that in my manual this summer.
I am not saying it will perform top nothc with 87, just saying it can be run according to the manual.
 
I did search. I always do... I just did not think about searching under octane... My head was in the clouds after yesterday work day... Thanks for the reply tho guys. I will do some searching now. Do you guys feel that the shell vpower is worth it? THe reason why I even made this thread was because I was researching Vpower via the internet and I found an article about a guy using shell vpower in a small 1.6 liter somthing and ending up getting 4mpg increase overall compared to 87. He said that he was the only one to drive the car and never took it above a certain RPM and tried to maintaine the same driving habbits throughout the whole experiment. I just wanted to know.
 
My car runs better on Shell 87 than on any of the other companies' premiums I've tried.
 
I like Shell and Petro-Canada in Ottawa. I avoid Esso whenever possible as I notice a decline in performance and fuel economy when I use it.

I always use 91-94 octane on the SVT and 87 on the 2.5 95LX.
 
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