Octane Question

[RAUL AGUILAR]

Ever since I can remember I have used 93 octane on my V6 camaro. A while ago I changed the intake and valve cover gaskets on my motor :banana: . After I got it all together I noticed I had a service engine soon light:angry: and figured it was because of a rocky start up after it sitting too long and the repair :wacko: I had made. This last weekend I went to fill up and all the 93 pumps were being used and I did not want to wait, so I put the cheap gas in it (87 octane). After about maybe two or three blocks of driving the SES light went off and a hesitation under light load from take off was gone. My ? is, can high octane hurt your car if it is not made for it or is there something wrong with my car, maybe lossing compresion and can no longer burn high octane fuel, since lower octane is more flamable.

 

[Johnny O]

Higher octane fuel burns more slowly. Using a higher octane than the engine needs can hurt performance because you are effectively retarding the timing.

 

[EddieS'04]

What johnny said. Unless your engine is tuned to it or built for it. It is performance robbing to run Higher octane. There is alot of misconseption out there. Higher octane does nothing for performance.

 

[Joe Turner]

No need to waste the extra money for higher octane fuel either unless vehicle requires it. V6 Camaro and Firebird use 87, but the V8 models require at least 91 octane due to higher compression. My 97 Fireturd Formula did, although when gas went to $4 a gallon I cheated and ran 87 anyway, didn't care about knock, etc as I was getting rid of the POS soon.