Do any of you guys understand what octane rating is and why we (SVT at least) have to run higher octane gas in our cars. The answer is simple, the compression ratio is too high to run lower octane gas. The octane rating is simply a measure of gasoline's resistance to detonate. Since higher compression will cause detonation, you have to run a higher octane, and filling up with higher octane than necessary doesn't improve performance...it may run a little cleaner because those grades are usually more refined, but you're not going to see any noticeable improvement.
