Around where I live, I have several gas stations that have 91 octane, however, there is one gas station that offers 94 octane for about 2 cents more a liter. (Hardly anything, considering a liter is about $1.00.

Would I gain a bit more power going for the 94 octane? If I am experiencing some very minor pinging (I do not hear any) would it get rid of it?

Would I damage the motor by going with higher octane/loose power?

Thanks!

 

I doubt you'll gain any power from 91-94. I run 93 but the next lowest is 87 or 89. Id run the highest most affordable octane. If running nitrous id run 94-104 even though 91 would probably be adequate, but thats just me.

 

I run 93 in my car.... how much more per gallon is it for the 94 over the 91, that is what is really going to be the deciding factor for you because 91 is the recommended octane for our cars.



Every now and then I run 100 unleaded to clean the motor out, whenever I have 100 in the car I never think about going to the track to see if there is any gains, N/A or sprayin', but I rarely do it so whatever, lol.

 

on a stock car it should make no difference.
If you have raised compression or have boost you would definitely want to run 94,
it might even be a good idea with heads cam and headers.
91 allows for full spark advance.
If you have Tunercat you could delay the spark retard ( stock PCM wont go full advance if the car is over about 180 ) If you always ran 94 you could delay that to 200 or so. then again, you could just get a 160 degree thermostat.

 

i'd say 91
no sense in adding any more octane than needed
i use 93 but that's because the next lowest we have is 89
we also have 94 here but i'm not willing to use that just because i know my car doesn't need it
injuneer had a great post in a recent thread that explained some of the common misconceptions, etc.
might want to try and look that up

 

Where do you live? What is the altitude? The higher you are located, the less octane you need.... that's why you aren't as likely to find 93 in Denver.

The only way to know if you are gaining or losing performance is to monitor the knock retard on a scanner. As long as you aren't getting any knock retard, you can use the lower octane fuel.

 

I was putting in 89 and then I started putting in 87 and I seem to get just the same if not better mpg with the 87. All we have around here is 87...89...and 91.
I will only put in chevron with techron in it though.