Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting 87 to 93 octain

Stock CR is 9.7:1

The SVT requires higher octane because of ignition timing and cams.

Just the CR alone does not warrant it as the 3L Duratec is 10:1 and uses 87 octane fuel.

Run a stock Contique on 87 octane and an SVT on the highest grade you can get (up to 93)

Chipped, Nitrous, or F/I owners should already know they need to run the best they can find.
Nitrous only needs it when the juice is flowing. The rest of the time it's just hurting performance & mpg in a regular Duratec! (get a flip chip!)

If you use premium all the time you may find better performance (if you drive hard most/all the time)
The engine does have some self adjustment to driving that will give a tiny increase in performance over 87 octane if you use 93 ALL the time. and drive like a bat out of h*ll 90% of the time.
if you drive like a Granny, forget it.
I got a glimpse of a new Nissan Z tonight as I passed it doing 85mph in a 50 zone on the freeway. They were doing somewhere near 50'ish... Too bad, such a cool car to do just the speed limit in