Found a few non Ethanol gas stations

[fowljesse]

What was this thread about?
Oh, yeah...
Ethanol ruins performance, and mileage, so I'm going to get gas that doesn't have it. I am active on a forum dedicated to getting better gas mileage, and have studied it for years. I have never heard of a car that didn't get worse performance/ mileage with Ethanol.

[mikeinaus]

ill agree with you on that one jesse.

[Nd4SpdSe]

but our knock sensor only comes into play at low RPM, under high ignition advance (high TPS) or actual predetonation(when it will throw the code? it doesn't for doing its normal job at low rpm (that is, senses knock, retards, knock gone, awesome (and yes this is two nested brackets)))..

An engine is more prone to knock when it's working the hardest, when your sucking in the maximum amout of air to have the cylinders experience the full compression force designed. I know the ECU runs in a open-loop at WOT, and for the longest time, people reported that their car felt that it pulled harder at 3/4 throttle than at WOT. If it's dumping more fuel, it's one way to reduce the tendency to knock is to run rich.

My truck loves to play with her timing, and she never throws a code.

If your advanced ignition timing is causing knock, then you need to adjust your timing to suit your octane (depends on burn rate of fuel, which is pretty much the same, but there may be a difference)

Retarding your timing mean you lose performance. You want to run the highest octane that your motor wants/ecu will recognize for the highest performance available at it's recommended timing advance.

Actual detonation has nothing to do with the spark plug.

Not sure what you mean by this. It's not glow plug, you need a spark plug to ignite the fuel every time. If it's not, you're an awesome tuner to control fuel that precisely for ignition under compression. Diesel and DI motors inject their fuel once the cylinder is compressed, so the fuel ignites only at that point.

There are different heat levels for plugs, which are typically only changed under boosted applications, in cases were the plugs run too hot and cause predetonation, so they're swapped for a cooler plug

only difference octane will make is at what level of heat and compression the fuel starts igniting without the plug.

The point of the octane is that it doesn't ignite without the plug. If it's igniting by itself, it'll be during the compression phase that will trigger it, which is where you get your pinging or worse, detonation. The point of the spark plug is to trigger the fuel in that cylinder when the compression stroke is completely finished, not at 90%, not at 99.9%, and i want to even say not even at 100%. You want that piston to start it's way down before any fuel is ignited, otherwise you would be slowing the piston down (and again, pinging & knocking can potentially happen at this point as well) and also not taking full advantage of the power of the ignition of the fuel to put into the motion of the system ie: making power. Fuel will not self-ignite on decompression of the cylinder, when heat and compression is no longer at it's max and is on it's way down. Diesel and Direct Injection motors don't abide by this because the fuel is only injected once the cylinder (part of how Mazda's SkyActive can get away with abnormally high compression ratios) is done being compressed, which the fuel in our cars, the fuel is injected while the air is being taken into the system, so there's a chance of the fuel of igniting WHILE the cylinder is compressing.

I have never heard of a car that didn't get worse performance/ mileage with Ethanol.

Depends. If you're choosing say 91 Pure vs 91+Ethanol, than yes. If if you're taking 87 Pure vs 91+Ethanol (which is opposite of the case of with Shell where the higher octane, the less ethanol it uses), on a motor requiring 91, than I would say no, because of the benefits of the motor running at it's recommended timing advance for the high compression that it's running. If you're running 91 (pure or w/ethanol) in a car that requires only 87, than either way you're just wasting money.

[_-Night-Shade-_]

No wonder the Germans lost against the Russians, when you have a race of people this bull headed how can you win.

Don't know anything about Russians cause I'm not one. But have you ever had the *pleasure* of working on a German car? They like to overcomplicate everything. They probably only had one guy who knew how to work on the tanks, and he got shot. That's why they lost the war!

Btw does anyone have actual Japanese documents for cars that came with KLZEs which clearly state what kind of octane should be used? I can't find anything. I want some definitive evidence, not something some guy said on another forum.

[Daninski]

We of course use Pump Octane Number or PON rather than RON. This is the average of RON and MON
Below is an approximate comparison chart, these numbers can vary by as much as 2 grades
RON MON PON
90 83 86.6
92 85 88.5
95 87 91
96 88 92
98 90 94
100 91.5 95.8
105 95 100
110 99 104.5

Igor askes what was the ZE suppose to run on in Japan? 9? RON?

[MrMazda92]

Soooo! many! numbers! *brain explodes*

I have always thought it silly that the ZE "requires" Premium fuel, with only a marginal static CR bump over other K series engines... I think Igor's right, that it's another "so and so said it..." deal, and it's just been an accepted norm from the days when the swap was newly discovered.

[Nd4SpdSe]

I never saw any concrete info from overseas KLZE power cars manuals. Surprised Mooneggs don't have anything. Apparently some people were saying that their manuals stated 91 octane (scaned pics no longer work of course)

Fact: my owners manual says that it should use 91+ octane.

the KLZE is designed for 100+ octane in japan. 93 octane is minimum.

Ya Japan's octane is rating isn't very comparable to North America's ratings. Your better off using a higher octane gas since the ZE is higher compression.

people could fight this one to death, but with the klze engine it DOES run better with high octance gas. I even seem to get better mileage....

You dont need to run 94 octane but i wouldnt run 87 dont know how far the car will detime itself...Oh and yes the klze will run best on 94!

The ZE is supposed to have 91 or better.

The names may not be known to most of you guys, but really, their word and experience was gold back then.

[fowljesse]

To help no one, I'll add this info; I use high octane, partly because I run very lean at cruising speed, idle, deceleration, and low manifold vacuum, to save gas.

[_-Night-Shade-_]

We of course use Pump Octane Number or PON rather than RON. This is the average of RON and MON
Below is an approximate comparison chart, these numbers can vary by as much as 2 grades
RON MON PON
90 83 86.6
92 85 88.5
95 87 91
96 88 92
98 90 94
100 91.5 95.8
105 95 100
110 99 104.5

Igor askes what was the ZE suppose to run on in Japan? 9? RON?

Close, just as those numbers are. It's called AKI (Anti-Knock Index).

Anti-Knock Index (AKI)

In most countries, including Australia and all of those in Europe, the "headline" octane rating shown on the pump is the RON, but in Canada, the United States and some other countries, like Brazil, the headline number is the average of the RON and the MON, called the Anti-Knock Index (AKI, and often written on pumps as (R+M)/2). It may also sometimes be called the Pump Octane Number (PON).

As you can see, regular gasoline here (87 octane AKI) has a RON of about 91-92. But don't forget it's not straight gasoline, it's E10 (10% ethanol) which will raise the octane rating by another 2-3.

[Daninski]

In theroy what your harping on about holds true but what if the gas companies already factored that into the equation. In other works 87 octane fuel is in fact 87 including the ethanol. Can't see the gas companies giving us some thing for free and that includes octane. Igor, can you confirm the 87 rating does not include the addition of ethanol?
I remember 'back in the day' it was an accepted fact that 10.1 compression engines needed 91 octane fuel. Now we have anti knock sensors. I'd love it if someone could record what their timing was doing while driving just to compare the numbers between running 87 and 91 octane fuel. Even if there was a way to record the 'knock' numbers. Igor did you run low octane fuel when you ran your car at the track?

[Nd4SpdSe]

Igor, can you confirm the 87 rating does not include the addition of ethanol?

According to the Shell pic posted earlier, 87 can contain the most @ 10%, 91 containing none.

I'd love it if someone could record what their timing was doing while driving just to compare the numbers between running 87 and 91 octane fuel. Even if there was a way to record the 'knock' numbers.

I've been wanting to do this for the truck since he has PMS, but I found out that part of the (maybe some, or all, not sure yet) knock sensor is that it needs to sence some vibration, basically the natural resonance of the motor, and knocks are discrepencies in that resonance.

[_-Night-Shade-_]

Actually that's a very good point - I can't confirm whether the 87 rating is before or after the addition of ethanol.
At the track I was running 87, yes. I just know that I've personally tried 91 in the past and didn't see any difference in fuel economy or noticeable power difference. Maybe I've got a lucky KLZE or something. If someone wants to sponsor an experiment I will gladly dyno with different fuels next season, I'll be doing it anyway to see where my numbers stand

[Nd4SpdSe]

Actually that's a very good point - I can't confirm whether the 87 rating is before or after the addition of ethanol.

Can't be after, adding it would change it's octane rating, so it advertised rating wouldn't be it's actual rating anymore.

[Daninski]

At the track I was running 87, yes.

I was wondering when you posted your time,,15.4 it that may of been partly because your engine was retarding the timing as a result of the 87. Maybe with 91 you would of been in the 14's. I can't believe it was because of your slooooow shifting.

[_-Night-Shade-_]

At the track I was running 87, yes.

I was wondering when you posted your time,,15.4 it that may of been partly because your engine was retarding the timing as a result of the 87. Maybe with 91 you would of been in the 14's. I can't believe it was because of your slooooow shifting.

15.2

My VRIS was off and my clutch was being a whore. Get your facts straight. My 60ft times and trap speeds will tell you that there was nothing wrong with my timing.