Regular vs premium vs 98 octane

[tigeryas]

On Monday, A Current Affair had a report on tests between regular, premium and high octane petrol, efficiency, cleanliness, cost-effectiveness, yadda yadda... saw the preview on Monday morning, so I got my mate to tape it for me.

And here are the results... well... it's actually a copy and paste job from a chat log on msn... here goes

me: Oh yeah how was that program anyway on current affair

my mate says: yeah theres not much difference apparently

my mate says: between 98ron and normal 96 octane premium

my mate says: well not enough to warrant the price

my mate says: the mileage worked out being more for the car that had normal premium

me: tf

my mate says: it traveled like 1.5km further than the 98ron

my mate says: i doubt the accuracy of those tests tho

my mate says: they used 3 new accords

my mate says: but like, the cars might have been different in some way

my mate says: a more accurate way wouldve been just to use the same car and measure from the trip meter instead of line up 3 different cars at the same time and see how far each one goes

my mate says: eitherway

my mate says: the main difference between 98 and 96 is a pollution factor

my mate says: which i dont really care about

my mate says:so im going for shell premium

my mate says: u can use the coles discount voucher there too

Anyone else watch it or hear otherwise? feel free to disagree nicely, justify, etc etc... for example, i wonder if results are same for turbo'd cars (since the tested car was an accord) ...?

[Kaido_RR]

meh,

ive used regular, premiun (shell) and bp 98 in my skyline, i get more km's out of the bp and no pinging

I would like to see the test done on a perforance base car, i think the results would be pretty different

[gun32gtr]

yeh i get way more kms out bp 98 than any other fuel?by the way i have only used shit fuel when nothing else was round and just cruized home!plus i once put normal fuel in my vl turbo and just would not run right ended up draining the fuel

[ferni]

Use the fuel your car is meant(tuned) to use, its that simple.

[Ashy Larry]

The go with the fuel was touched on in the earlier post.

98 RON does help stop the onset of detonation in a turbocharged car.

Bare with me here guys as I am not a Lab Tech.

With normally aspriated cars the use of normal premium is fine and the use of 98 Octane products is a personal choice.

But with a car running forced induction, a better burning fuel as well as a fuel that combusts better under load is prefered. While under load a 98 Octane fuel actually burns better / or for a better wording explodes in a more prefered manner.

*Taken from the Web*

*If you are running too low of an octane for your motor, you will get

pinging. Pinging in its extreme form is also known as detonation. The

fuel/air mixture is igniting all at once and exploding instead of igniting

as a flame wave. The resultant "bang" is very hard on the pistons, head,

rods, and cranks.*

I have been using BP Ultimate while I have been here in QLD, but while I was in Sydney i was using Mobil Synergy 8000, both fuels out perform the shell product in my opinion.

Hope this helps.... I am sure it is as clear as mud!

Mike

[G0DF4Th3R]

ive used regular, premiun (shell) and bp 98 in my skyline, i get more km's out of the bp

i find this to be the case with both my RBs

[PHATR32]

a current affair is stupid sometimes, i once used regular premium in my modded laser and it pinged like nutz when boost hit. bp ultimate was the only thing that kept it all good.

i didnt watch the show but i bet they didnt take that into affect.

steve

[caminperth]

a current affair is stupid sometimes

Only sometimes?!?!?

[rep003]

Bugger the economy , fuel is a consumable , like tyres & gearboxs!

I dyno'd my old soarer on Vortex then BP & the 98 gave 6hp more!..... go the power

Having said that , I have a company Starcard so the line is tuned for Vortex.... works fine...

crap mileage (Tho that MAY be the driving style) :burnout:

[ix9]

Wow - Well you know what I've only ever filled up like $10 of crap petrol in the last 2.5 years I've had my car - and that was only to get home obviously.

The rest of the time it's been BP Ultimate - something about me being anal about servicing and car care might have something to do with it

I wish I could honestly compare but having never used the shit I cant

[miss_petepie]

i used to use Shell vortex stuff in my car and it used to ping and shit... changed to BP 98 and its sooooooo much better... the car has cleaned out so much and is totally running better....

its a little bit more $$ but the BP 98 is worth it

[Steve]

If the fuel cost 10c per litre more, using 40 litres of fuel per week will only cost around $200 a year. Worth it? How much does it cost to rebuild an engine? How much do mods that give a few rwkw cost?

Knock, or pinging, or detonation is a spontaneous ignition of fuel/air mix in the cylinder before the flame front - it is an explosion. Normal ignition is a controlled burn, not an explosion. Detonation will smash engines, the more power and revs you are making, the more severe the effect it will have.

The RON (octane) of a fuel is its resistance to detonation. If you dont think 98 makes any difference, with a stock ecu, fill it with 98, run it for a while, fill it again (to get ant 96ron out of the fuel system) - do a reset on the ecu and drive it around for a week, overtake a few cars, give the car a squirt - Then, fill with 96 and drive in a comparible manner, you will notice a difference.

I drove my skyline from SA to WA, on the way I had to use 96 a few times, as even carrying 40litres of 98 ron with me, at times I could use nothing else. I noticed a considerable reduction in power around peak torque (4000 ish rpm) and above. Very, very noticeable, not just a little, the stock ECU was pulling out timing to prevent detonation destroying the engine - its self learned maps had been adjusted to 98 ron. Upon reaching pumps that supplied 98 ron, I reset the ecu and the difference was instantaneous and very noticeable.

The higher the RON, the more timing/boost can be used before detonation will occur. If your ecu is set up to run timing appropriate to 96 ron, and you switch to 98 - it will make little difference because the timing hasnt changed, maybe only a little difference at idle, and run a little smoother, a little more power, but very marginal. Generally, you need to increase timing to gain the full benefits of higher ron.

Higher oygenate fuels, such as elf LMS is different all together, not only is it less prone to detonation, but it will make more power because of the chemical structure of the fuel.

If you tune your engine with 98ron, and run 96 it will make a difference. If you run 96ron on the stock ecu, it will not run as well as 98. If you upgrade to 98, you MUST reset the stock ecu, to take advantage of the higher resistance to knock.

Any comparison of different fuels SHOULD have the cars tune adjusted according to the fuel they are using, then be conducted in identical situations, such as an ADR drive cycle test to be of any real worth. Even throwing the cars on a dyno would have been of more worth than just getting 3 different cars and driving them on the road - what a joke. Just throwing 3 different fuel is 3 cars is really a waste of time and money.

sorry, starting to waffle on a bit now

[SeriesIIGTST]

I watched the program. The testing did seem to be fairly fair in terms of consumption but they neglected several factors. None of these cars were run on a dyno for power. The 98RON car would have probably made more power than the others. They also didn't take into account pollution, the 98RON car would have burnt cleaner giving off less emmissions.

The actual results were: 91 RON car out first, 98 RON car out 4km or 6km later (can't remember sorry) and finally the 95 RON car out a further 1.5km again. Taking other factors into account, the 98 RON car would have made more power, burnt cleaner and only stopped 1.5km short of the 95 fuelled car. Therefore, you pay a premium for more power, cleaner burning fuel that goes a very similar distance. As others have mentioned the 98 is better for other performance reasons such as engine detonation too.

[Topaz]

Ive always used 98 Octane BP Ultimate in my TX3 and Skyline

seems to work good for me

[Ashy Larry]

If the fuel cost 10c per litre more, using 40 litres of fuel per week will only cost around $200 a year.  Worth it?  How much does it cost to rebuild an engine?  How much do mods that give a few rwkw cost?

Knock, or pinging, or detonation is a spontaneous ignition of fuel/air mix in the cylinder before the flame front - it is an explosion.  Normal ignition is a controlled burn, not an explosion.  Detonation will smash engines, the more power and revs you are making, the more severe the effect it will have.

The RON (octane) of a fuel is its resistance to detonation.  If you dont think 98 makes any difference, with a stock ecu, fill it with 98, run it for a while, fill it again (to get ant 96ron out of the fuel system) - do a reset on the ecu and drive it around for a week, overtake a few cars, give the car a squirt - Then, fill with 96 and drive in a comparible manner, you will notice a difference.  

I drove my skyline from SA to WA, on the way I had to use 96 a few times, as even carrying 40litres of 98 ron with me, at times I could use nothing else.  I noticed a considerable reduction in power around peak torque (4000 ish rpm) and above.  Very, very noticeable, not just a little, the stock ECU was pulling out timing to prevent detonation destroying the engine - its self learned maps had been adjusted to 98 ron.  Upon reaching pumps that supplied 98 ron, I reset the ecu and the difference was instantaneous and very noticeable.  

The higher the RON, the more timing/boost can be used before detonation will occur.  If your ecu is set up to run timing appropriate to 96 ron, and you switch to 98 - it will make little difference because the timing hasnt changed, maybe only a little difference at idle, and run a little smoother, a little more power, but very marginal.  Generally, you need to increase timing to gain the full benefits of higher ron.  

Higher oygenate fuels, such as elf LMS is different all together, not only is it less prone to detonation, but it will make more power because of the chemical structure of the fuel.

If you tune your engine with 98ron, and run 96 it will make a difference.  If you run 96ron on the stock ecu, it will not run as well as 98.  If you upgrade to 98, you MUST reset the stock ecu, to take advantage of the higher resistance to knock.  

Any comparison of different fuels SHOULD have the cars tune adjusted according to the fuel they are using, then be conducted in identical situations, such as an ADR drive cycle test to be of any real worth.  Even throwing the cars on a dyno would have been of more worth than just getting 3  different cars and driving them on the road - what a joke. Just throwing 3 different fuel is 3 cars is really a waste of time and money.  

sorry, starting to waffle on a bit now

Hmmmm,

What he said!

Mike

[benm]

I actually recorded this segment in mpeg format (266mb) it's 5mins in length. I've just converted it to Xvid (23mb).

Click [here] to download.

This is the first time i've used SimpleDivX (Dr DivX ran out of trial time) so I had to manually play around with the quality/settings/aspect etc so it could be abit out of whack (lemme know if thats the case for future recordings).

[noise]

I would never use anything but the best in my skyline... BP all the way!

[R31 POWER]

Ultimate is where it's at,the rest is cat wee.

[shmiddy]

also a bp man, although when i put ultimate 98 in my hilux surf it caused problems, probly because it was a diesel, how dare they put the ultimate next to the diesel

[Steve]

lol