Dilema: Switch to 95 Octane and retune, or detune" it for regular petrol?

Gannon · Post by **Gannon** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 5:53 pm

Dont forget that yanks measure their RON differently to us, so 86 or what ever their regular is, is equivalent to our 91.

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 7:30 pm

sven '2' wrote:* carby syndrome (noun def) - thinking one can increase the power of a EA82 by tinkering with the carby - most often a delusional state, fixed only by 2,000ml of EJness, and in rare cases, 1,800ml of EA82Tness

I think we should start a thread of subaru definitions

^ This one is classic!

As alex has said, save up for an EJ conversion, they're the bomb and probably what you're looking for. I've got an increase in power (HUGE compared to the EA82) AND an increase in economy!

Cheers

Bennie

2nd Hand Yank · Post by **2nd Hand Yank** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 7:56 pm

Gannon wrote:Dont forget that yanks measure their RON differently to us, so 86 or what ever their regular is, is equivalent to our 91.

That would be 87 mate. It's still fresh in my mind.
91 or 92 is often what premium fuel is, but sometimes higher.

I know there's supposed to be a rich/lean mixture rating,
but I don't know what each country's rating stand for.
Aviation petrol is always rated in a double number, for.
80/87 was the common lower grade.

2nd Hand Yank · Post by **2nd Hand Yank** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 8:02 pm

El_Freddo wrote:I think we should start a thread of subaru definitions ^ This one is classic!

As alex has said, save up for an EJ conversion, they're the bomb and probably what you're looking for. I've got an increase in power (HUGE compared to the EA82) AND an increase in performance!

Cheers

Bennie

I'm unsure about if I want to do a conversion.

I use this to get to work, so unless it can be done over a weekend
I might have to rent a car.

Perhaps I can ride my push bike to work again...
That's about 17 km one way, and takes me about 1 hr 15 min.
I did that when I was waiting for WA Rego.
I wouldn't want to do that for very long, but it might not be bad in SW WA summer.
Sometimes my toes eventually would go numb through my boots, on 3 C clear mornings.

Maybe a week or two with my car out of service?

woody.t · Post by **woody.t** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 9:56 pm

conversion is do-able in a weekend if you have everything there and wiring etc tee-d up.. and nothing goes wrong.. when we did my mates there was probably only.. day and a half of mechanical work just stuffing around getting the bits you forgot about stuffs you up..

2nd Hand Yank · Post by **2nd Hand Yank** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 8:50 am

Who sells 98 octane?

Our Shell only has 91 and 95 octane.

What about using low grade petrol for everyday use (Bunbury's quite flat)
and add "octane boast" when I go somewhere hilly or do beach driving?

NachaLuva · Post by **NachaLuva** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 12:16 pm

2nd Hand Yank wrote:Who sells 98 octane?

Our Shell only has 91 and 95 octane.

What about using low grade petrol for everyday use (Bunbury's quite flat)
and add "octane boast" when I go somewhere hilly or do beach driving?

Everyone lol

I'd just give it a go...do a full tank filled from empty & decide for yourself whether its worth it.

2nd Hand Yank · Post by **2nd Hand Yank** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 8:15 am

nachaluva wrote:Everyone lol

I'd just give it a go...do a full tank filled from empty & decide for yourself whether its worth it.

Maybe not in WA

Caltex has Vortex 95 as their highest grade.
Gull has "premium unleaded" of unknown octane
Shell also has 95 as their highest grade.
That's why I asked.

I did see a no-name station in Perth selling 98 though.

BP's might have 98, but they overcharge for their petrol so I haven't looked.
They charge more for low grade than most stations charge for premium unleaded.

Driving back from Perth,
I got almost too close to risk waiting for Bunbury (a bit cheaper here)
so I added 10 L of 95 octane to my 1/8th of a tank.
I think it might have sounded better and felt vaguely more responsive on that.
I drive short distances to work, so this week I'll let it get to 0/empty before refilling.

Post by **Alex** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 10:03 am

2nd Hand Yank wrote:
Maybe not in WA

Caltex has Vortex 95 as their highest grade.
Gull has "premium unleaded" of unknown octane
Shell also has 95 as their highest grade.
That's why I asked.

I did see a no-name station in Perth selling 98 though.

BP's might have 98, but they overcharge for their petrol so I haven't looked.
They charge more for low grade than most stations charge for premium unleaded.

Driving back from Perth,
I got almost too close to risk waiting for Bunbury (a bit cheaper here)
so I added 10 L of 95 octane to my 1/8th of a tank.
I think it might have sounded better and felt vaguely more responsive on that.
I drive short distances to work, so this week I'll let it get to 0/empty before refilling.

nearly every servo in perth sells 98 octane.

BP has ultimate98
Caltex has Vortex98

not sure if shell do it actually. Most smaller servos like peak and stuff do have a 98 grade.

BP ultimate98 is by far the best. and about 14-16cpl extra.

HAving said that..its still wasted on an ea82

alex

tony · Post by **tony** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 12:04 pm

d_generate wrote:No EJ should be running on 91 period, if it was mine it would be on 95 minimum. I have to run both my Lib & WRX on 98 as they have JDM computers and should be on 100 but I wouldn't use anything else unless I was driving a HQ Belmont.

if you run your HQ on 91 you will kill it.
my last 2 ea82 engines pinged madly on 91, the first engine eventually burned holes in pistons, changing carbies made no difference (before it burned out smartarse) . also not much power. the money you save by going 91 is very quickly consumed when ya gotta do an engine change/recon.
however the last motor i put in a 92 ea82 n/a did not ping but was pretty gutless, may have been retimed to stop the pinging.
I think its more than just the compression, timing must have a lot to do with it.
personally if i had the heads off i would rip off 40thou or so and bump the compression up properly and run on 95 or 98.
I see a new car can't remember what is is running at 14:1, amazing, thats diesel territory. in fact their diesel model also runs at 14:1.

2nd Hand Yank · Post by **2nd Hand Yank** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 10:52 pm

Alex wrote:nearly every servo in perth sells 98 octane.

BP has ultimate98
Caltex has Vortex98

not sure if shell do it actually. Most smaller servos like peak and stuff do have a 98 grade.

BP ultimate98 is by far the best. and about 14-16cpl extra.

HAving said that..its still wasted on an ea82

alex

Caltex Bunbury only sells Vortex 95. I looked.
Odd that it would be so different just a short drive from Perth.

BP ultimate98 is the best? Why?

2nd Hand Yank · Post by **2nd Hand Yank** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 11:04 pm

I drove until my fuel needle was 0.5mm PAST zero, then filled up with Shell's 95.

Straight away it sounded a bit better just firing it up.
I did my test...

The worst conditions for knocking was at the bottom of a slight hill, (5-10% grade?)
there's a roundabout and before I was gearing down to 3rd just so the car didn't jerk.
I also figured since my car has "no horsepower" I might as well floor it in 3rd at 20-25km/h.
I honestly thought it was a manual transmission problem,
since I've only heard it on manual tranny cars.
I did this same brutal (for low rpm, high load) test
with the 95 octane and it nearly didn't knock.
I would say that 90-95% of my detonation with 91 octane is gone.

All for $137.9/L with my Coles grocery docket!

Perth petrol prices are ridiculous to me...
$1.45ish/L for only 91 octane most servos, at least on weekends when I visit.
Shell in Perth offers around $1.41/L for 91 octane if you bring your Coles docket.

If I remember correctly,
petrol prices only get worse heading north out of Perth;
higher in Gero, higher still at Kalbarri and Carnarvon.

*Since a few of you mentioned a EA82 isn't worth the expense of premium fuel, I think I found a happy balance.

I might be inclined to try even higher octane,
but I probably wouldn't need it unless I was planning to drive in a lot of steep hills or soft sand again.

NachaLuva · Post by **NachaLuva** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 12:03 am

I'm glad you tried it.

When your heading offroad i'd try 98 octane, thats what i'll be doing.

generally the further you head out of a major city the higher the prices so try to fill up as much as you can. Maybe even use a gerry can.

2nd Hand Yank · Post by **2nd Hand Yank** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 8:56 am

nachaluva wrote:I'm glad you tried it.

When your heading offroad i'd try 98 octane, thats what i'll be doing.

generally the further you head out of a major city the higher the prices so try to fill up as much as you can. Maybe even use a gerry can.

Me too.

What about "octane boost" additive instead for offroading?

Only Bunbury is hardly a major city, but the cheapest I've seen for petrol.

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 12:18 pm

2nd Hand Yank wrote: All for $137.9/L with my Coles grocery docket!

Perth petrol prices are ridiculous to me...
$1.45ish/L for only 91 octane most servos, at least on weekends when I visit.
Shell in Perth offers around $1.41/L for 91 octane if you bring your Coles docket.

You're lucky! I'm paying 147.9cpl for 91RON!! I don't look at the higher octane fuels as the EJ does well on the 91...

Octane boost, give it a go and see what you think. Personally I've never tried it but the guys that race cars used to always use it, apparently an increase of 2RON over the fuel your using can be the advantage for a win. If it doesn't do anything for you then don't use it again

Cheers

Bennie

Post by **Alex** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 12:39 pm

i used octane boost when i took wanky wagon to the drags.

ran about 1/4 tank of ultimate98 and a whole bottle of race strength octane boost (nulon)

definately noticed the difference with my EJ20turbo.

she was probably pushing 105-110ish octane that night. On the way home i proceeded to curtain a turbo supra and kept up with a worked vz clubby (up to a certain speed which im not going to say

)

octane boost definately made a difference but that was for racing in a fairly high performace car.

NachaLuva · Post by **NachaLuva** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 1:14 pm

Alex wrote:i used octane boost when i took wanky wagon to the drags.

ran about 1/4 tank of ultimate98 and a whole bottle of race strength octane boost (nulon)

definately noticed the difference with my EJ20turbo.

she was probably pushing 105-110ish octane that night. On the way home i proceeded to curtain a turbo supra and kept up with a worked vz clubby (up to a certain speed which im not going to say )

octane boost definately made a difference but that was for racing in a fairly high performance car.

I think you will prob notice "some" improvement but will it be enough to justify the cost?

Alex liked the "nulon" booster but remeber most of these types of products are made for the consumer, not the car. Ie, it looks good but does little...except empty your wallet!

Some will work, but most dont so be selective.

After all that i'd say try it but dont expect miracles

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 1:17 pm

Matt,

Alex was at the time running an EJ20G - an RS turbo conversion in his L series, so the extra octane would have been put to good use. In an EA82 it would be a huge waste of money IMO.

Cheers

Bennie

Post by **Alex** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 1:26 pm

El_Freddo wrote:Matt,

Alex was at the time running an EJ20G - an RS turbo conversion in his L series, so the extra octane would have been put to good use. In an EA82 it would be a huge waste of money IMO.

Cheers

Bennie

the point i was attempting to put across (with abit of crap thrown in for good measure)

for everyday use, even for 4x4ing its wasted.

NachaLuva · Post by **NachaLuva** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 3:32 pm

Yeah i agree it would be waste. I think a tank of 98 octane is all you need for a bit "extra".

Sum1 mentioned "E10"...thats what i use. Its 95 octane & helps support the alternative fuels industry...save the planet! lol

Plus its 4c/L cheaper than regular unleaded at United servos, plus my shopper docket from IGA (where the community benefits

), thats 8c/L off. Cpl weeks ago i filled up at 133c/L doing this