Premium Unleaded

[Toby]

If I put Premium Unleaded in my A20A4 engine will this do any engine damage at all?? I have used it before and it improved milage and power but will anything happen if I use it all the time?? as far as I know it would be just like using normal Unleaded and adding a bottle of octane boost

[Vanilla Sky]

it would only hurt if you used fuel with a loower octane than what's reccomeneded for the engine, which in this case is 85


Derick

[2Fast_Fiero]

My dad used to put 85Octane in my accord when he owned it, but ever since I've owned it, I did a complete engine flush, and I've been using Premium Unleaded 91 Octane, and it definatly improved my MPG and Performance.

[shepherd79]

man where do you find 85 octane gas. here in WV the lowest we have is 87.

[Vanilla Sky]

in some areas... just like premium is 91 in some places, and 93 in others

Derick

[iiviasterp]

id recomend putting premium in your accord. about a year ago my car started to spark nock and that was when i was runnin 87 octane.... i decided to try 93.... no more spark nock and a bump in mpg and alittle better performance, its all ive run since

[Neuspeed87lx]

i always put 94 in my car ....in my accord and now in my civic ....it costs my like a buck more each time i fill it up

[Toby]

So the bigger the octane rating the better??

[My 89 Accord Lxi]

here the highest we have is 97 octane

[original2k]

premium is very nice, i think it's like a drug to my car tho, whenever my tank gets low i don't have to look at the gauge cuz i can feel it when i shift, but when i filler up in premium it feels like a brand new car. gotta love that 93

[carotman]

The recommended octane in my manual is 90....

[Stefi-blueLX]

Yes, keep using premium! I've never used anything else. Honda's, to me, work the best with it. It's been workin great for my LX and my mom's 93 LX wagon! Down here though premium is 91....I think.

[smufguy]

the only reason you put higher octane is when u have a sports engine that needs it. not your car which is not performance oriented. There was a good article abotu why and when u should use hig octane. shit cant remember the site. :banghead:

[Neuspeed87lx]

they have racing fuel up the street from me ....i think its 100 ,,,i should get it sometime and see what it does

[1988starter]

I use a combo of 93 and 89 my car likes that the best I try to get about 91 but it does not run too good on 94.

[Coitis1]

so can u mix octanes w/ no problems? like if i put in $10 of 95 and then made up the difference with 87 octane if i was low on money. just curious, probably can't afford it anyway. "all my life been po, but it really doesn't matta no mo.."

[tyne89]

itll just give you an average octane between them depending on how much of each you put in. high octane burns hotter which leads to its own problems like decreased o2 sensor life. i live in detroit somewhat near a small private airport. i can either get 110 octane super blue from the gas station or aviation fuel (i dont even know the octane on that stuff but its gotta be like 130)
but both are really expensive so i got with 86-87. after 13 years my car is so torn up i dont think it would ping if i put 80 in it.

[Toby]

Here in Australia the Premium has an octane rating of 98, we don't have fuels with that many different octane ratings.

[87AccordsterLx]

Ok check it out....

The octane rating of gasoline tells you how much the fuel can be compressed before it spontaneously ignites. When gas ignites by compression rather than because of the spark from the spark plug, it causes knocking in the engine. Lower-octane gas (like "regular" 87-octane gasoline) can handle the least amount of compression before igniting.

The compression ratio of your engine determines the octane rating of the gas you must use in the car. One way to increase the horsepower of an engine of a given displacement is to increase its compression ratio. So a "high-performance engine" has a higher compression ratio and requires higher-octane fuel. The advantage of a high compression ratio is that it gives your engine a higher horsepower rating for a given engine weight... The disadvantage is that the gasoline for your engine costs more.
So yes it helps to some level... but for our cars I would think that 89 would be just fine... Now as I understand it... the 93 octane burns at a cooler temperature then the 87 being that when a gas is compressed it gets cooler... now someone please correct me if I'm wrong... heat doesnt have to mean power... we all relate them together becasue when we see afterburners go off dumping jet fuel we think power... but in all reality if we took any flamable substance and ignited it while dumping massive amounts of it into the open... we would get the same effect... like I said... someone please correct me here...

[87AccordsterLx]

anyone on this???

[smufguy]

the fact of spontaneous ignition is true and thats why they (sports engine) use higher octane. but u also gotta know, there was a car made by toyota which went by the name trueno, which is a same engine (AE 86) of the Mr2, but was not a transverse, but an inline 4 (RWD). that engine used unledeaded gasoline of 86 octane (regular) and had a compression of 11:1.

Its how ppl manufacture some engines. My aunt's car, an infinity J30t, has a V6 (210HP) with a compression of just 10.5:1 and it used premium unleded (97 octane). weird huh???

[87AccordsterLx]

yeah... that is interesting

[rallyeNate]

NO, higher Octane will not hurt you car. you will only beable to go up to 104 octane, unless noted (104+ octane requires some lead additive)

thats neat that your octane is 98, what it the method that they rate your octane? the reason you use a higher octane is because, higher octane feul is more stable (less pre-ignition) and the burn rate becomes longer. if you know anything about deisel engine the principle the same. more power out of a longer burn duration.

[Jerren]

wow coitis is using my avatar

[Jerren]

and what do you know, he's in MO as well.

[smufguy]

what is the purpose of it though? when u dont get anything out of it why spend money into it?

[rallyeNate]

right, why buy a better, cleaner feul when you can buy the cheap gas

[87AccordsterLx]

lol... I mean why would anyone want clean injectors and a healthier engine anyway????

[smufguy]

so according to the specs on our cars from the factory, they did not know that 86 octane would actually be bad for our injectors and hurt our engine? dont get smartass with me, i am just asking things i dont know and just wanna know why ppl do it.

[rallyeNate]

first off i never said 86OCT was bad, why cant you people read!
secondly 93 is just better for your car.


my doctor never said fast food was bad, but why am i so FAT.

[Sean]

there are some common fuel myths propogating here.

one there are about 4 rade of street fuels hee in america.

86 87 89 93

now depending on where you live these grades may be ever so slightly different dependning on how yr sepcific state determines octane.

2/r+m

i could go in into how the arrive at these #'s but i wont. just tht some states require different octane rating standards.hence MD 93 is NJ 91.

as for octance requirements every engine is a bit different. the design of the piston top,combustion chamber,rod length,and the placement of the sprk pug as well as ignition timing can all have effects. also carbon buildup can increase the need for octance.by reducing the volume of the combustion chamber and therby compresion.

there is no benifit all at in any way to running higher octane fuel. than wht the engine needs. the 89lxi sei need to use 89 due to the 9.3:1 compresion. all other accords are fine with 87.

to dispell another myth high octane fuels have never been proven to be any cleaner in terms of sediment than the lower octane brethern. most of this is due to te fact that the tanks they store fuel in are notrously dirty. higher octane fuel may acctually increase carbon deposits and buildup due to the fact the higher octane fule use less benzine which is a solvent. benzine actually does a great job of keep yr fuel system clean.

if you want a great running car with clean injectors and carberator. keep the fuel filter chaged every 3-4 months. i know yr thinking wow thats alot of filters but its not realy enough. todays gas stations are getting older and alot of them have largely dirty tanks. so in short fresh filters not exspensive designer fuel will make yr car faster.

also high octance fuel due not burn any longer than low octance fuels.they have less btu's to boot. your nto getting yr gollans worth with high octane pump gas.

as for racing fuel they genreally have a higher btu content that why yr car goes faster.

[toastyghost]

One question... what the fuck is "octane boost"? Fake race gas additive or something?

[Mike's89AccordLX]

It really doesn't increase the octane level of the gas. I believe it's proven to not work. That's what this mechanic told me.

[87AccordsterLx]

dude... chill.... I didnt realize that you were asking why... I apologize for turning it into a joke when you were really just asking a question...I didnt realize that you were... so... the reason is becasue it is ok for 3geez to use a lower octane fuel... our engines will run it. The thing is that it isnt as clean as a higher octane fuel is for our cars.... read the post that I posted earlier... its not necessary to run it... its just better to... the higher octane rating that you use the less additives mainly heptane is used to to make more gas...

The name "octane" comes from the following fact: When you take crude oil and "crack" it in a refinery, you end up getting hydrocarbon chains of different lengths. These different chain lengths can then be separated from each other and blended to form different fuels. For example, methane, propane and butane are all hydrocarbons. Methane has a single carbon atom. Propane has three carbon atoms chained together. Butane has four carbon atoms chained together. Pentane has five, hexane has six, heptane has seven and octane has eight carbons chained together.

It turns out that heptane handles compression very poorly. Compress it just a little and it ignites spontaneously. Octane handles compression very well... you can compress it a lot and nothing happens... Eighty-seven-octane gasoline is gasoline that contains 87-percent octane and 13-percent heptane (or some other combination of fuels that has the same performance of the 87/13 combination of octane/heptane). It spontaneously ignites at a given compression level, and can only be used in engines that do not exceed that compression ratio. For a 3g the compression is such that it is like I said before... "not necessary"

Sorry for that long post but is it a little bit more clear on why its better yet not needed??? Just trying to help.... Peace
:cool:

[87AccordsterLx]

funstick.... I read your post and did a little bit more research... You are right when it comes to the higher octane being cleaner for your engine... thats not true in all aplications... my statement on compression and heptane being unstable is still accurate as to why using higher octane does help with decreasing anti-knock and engine performance as far and fuel effeciency... thanks.. Peace...

[Sean]

wel octane s the amount of knock resistantce a fuel has. its deternimend in sevral manrs. do some checking around on the r/m 2 equation. thats how octne is figured. ill let you do the reading.

[rallyeNate]

higher octane feul is more REFINED! you know CLEANER! NOT FULL OF SHIT TO SHIT UP YOUR CAR. THATS my point, NOT PERFORMANCE! you will not gain any performance out of higher octane gas unless you need it, but with almost 9.5 compression, its a good margin of saftey. it doesnt take to much spark knock to destroy a piston.

SPARK KNOCK BEGETS SPARK KNOCK

[smufguy]

i am sorry about my outburst, i am just sick of ppl making it a joke when someone is trying to learn something (unless ppl say that they are just kidding or joking as i do when i am an asshole). so anywayz, my question is. our cars did not run on higher octane than 86 octane from the day it hit the road from the dealer ship. so everyone knows for a fact its like shit inside the car, cause i have taken a look at the valves, and they arenot a pretty sight. so anyways, although clearer fuel would not deposit any more NEW residue on ur fuel system and what was there is just there still right? but also to know that the amount of residue on our cars were accumilated over 13 years so using a higher octane is not gonna make a HUGE difference, though it would minimize the deposition.

i got confused about thie octane crap when ppl started to come out and give an impression that higher octane in their car performance. i am not saying ppl said that, but the way they said that made me think that they were tlaking about a gain in performance. i am a dumbass. i wish there was something that would just eat away the black shit in our internals and push it out thru the exhaust.

with 9.1 on carbs and 9.3 on an efi, i wonder whats gonna be really messed up on low octanes. its just a thought.

[Accy]

Hey thanks a bunch to 87AccordsterLx for all the info (really helpful) Just want to mention that although some ppl are saying that using a lower octane for 3geez i.e. 87, 89 is ok for the car, what's read in the Honda Accord LX Manual is that the recommended octane fuel level to use is 91. now us Canadians have a gas company called Sunoco (Americans may have it too, but not sure) and their highest octane is a whopping 94. See Canadians arent all bad, guys! lol so what I suggest is that you read your manual so that your not giving your beauty of a car crappy gas

Thanks again for all the help

[87AccordsterLx]

:) no problem man....