Jump to content

What Are You Paying For Gas ?


sunburnwilly

Recommended Posts

Using a "higher grade" of fuel than the manufacturer recommends only

makes the gas stations richer. Octane is the measurement of the fuels

resistance to detonation (pinging or knocking) There is no advantage to running the

"higher" grade of fuel if a lower one does the job. Some fuels have

additional additives for special applications (such as aviation fuel)

and they are tailored to the needs of those engines. Using those fuels

for what they were NOT intended for can harm your engine, such as

aviation fuel in a car. Aircraft engines have sodium filled valves to

dissipate the heat faster than a solid valve due to the higher

combustion temp in an aircraft reciprocating engine.

In short, use the lowest grade fuel that won't preignite or detonate in your engine. Anything more is just waisting money.

If you wish to have a cooler ruining engine, make it run richer. There

is an expression in the aviation world taught to pilots; "Use fuel to

cool" Aircraft engines have adjustments for mixture as well as a

throttle. If your engine is running hot, adjust the mixture richer, this

floods the cylinder and cools the combustion tempature. There are

sensors mounted in the exhaust headers that measure the tempature of

the exhaust gases.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What are you guys driving that you require premium??

I

put nothing but premium in my '93 Subaru Legacy . Premium fuel burns

cooler than regular and is better for most older cars . I have heard

that some new cars say to run only regular or plus . Lower octane fuel

has less weight than higher octane fuel And as such has more of a flash

burn whereas higher octane has more of a controlled burn .

I am glad to be able to tell you that you can save a lot of money by

burning regular fuel in that Subaru.

Todays fuels have much less octane

than those of years ago. Unless you are driving a 60s muscle car or a

car that has had the engine rebuilt for high performance, your

compression ratio is most likely in the low 8:1 or less. These engines

run just fine on the lower octane fuels, in fact the need for higher

octane fuels is for the most part gone. If you remember back to the

60s, you could get 101 octane or better at the gas pump, now 93 is HIGH

OCTANE![:o]

If your engine has a compression ratio of 10:1 or better, you NEED

the high octane fuels but if your car is stock from the factory and

less than 30 years old, the chances that you need the higher octane

fuel is remote. There are some newer cars that require + or premium but

they are few and far between. If in doubt, check your owners manual.

EDIT: You said "Lower octane fuel has less weight than higher octane

fuel and as such more of a flash burn whereas higher octane has more of

a controlled burn"

I don't know where you got that information but it

is in error. The whole octane rating system is to Gage the resistance

to detonation a fuel has. The higher compression the engine has, the

higher the octane rating that is needed to keep the fuel from

igniting on its own rather than when the spark plug fires,

causing the power burst from the fuel to be at the wrong time in the

position of the piston and the rotation of the crankshaft, thus causing

what is known as "Pinging or Knocking"

A diesel engine operates at a much higher compression ratio (if I

remember correctly about 18:1) and the fuel is ignited by it being

sprayed into the cylinder at the correct time. The high tempature of

the compressed air is higher than that of the flash point of the fuel

and the fuel ignites upon being injected by the injector. This is the

process you do NOT want in a gasoline engine and the octane rating is a

Gage of how much the fuel resists this process.

Within all reasonable

measurements, gasoline weighs 7 lbs a gallon no matter what the octane

rating is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

$3.29/gal for 91 octane here in NW CT.

and I use what the owner's manual suggests for my 2005 Subaru Legacy GT - cause more octane = more boost from the turbo.

but now that gas is getting crazy, I'm driving like a granny to keep highway milage >27 mpg, so octane is getting irrelevant. no boost = no ping.

back in 1986, I briefly owned a Shelby GT-500 with a 428CJ - besides only getting 13 mpg on highway, and ~8 around town, it wanted 101 octane, which was unavailable, except at the airport. So I'd put in a $8 can of octane booster in every tank. crazy. too bad I sold it to put a downpayment on my first house. in today's market, I could just about buy a whole house for what it would be worth.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We finally went over the Canadian dollar mark for one litre a few weeks

ago, with it was C$1.08 yesterday Wednesday morning. It went up

to C$1.32 yesterday and up to C$1.47 an hour ago. That's

equivalent to US$4.33 per US gallon.

[:@]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Feersum, please read the post above yours, I edited it at the same time

you posted.

If your owners manual says 93 then use it! The turbo boost

on most cars is pretty low, less than one half atmosphere or 7# of

boost. An aircraft turbo can go up to 2 or more atmospheres or 30# or

more. If you put an aircraft turbo on a street car you would need to be

careful not to blow the heads off of the engine.

The turbo adds more air to the cylinder thus alowing more fuel to be injected into the cylinder thus causing a higher

compression ratio thus requiring a higher octane fuel. The short answer

is yes. less boost, less octane required to avoid ping.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's been pointed out that I do have a Chevy pickup truck.

While it does not get the same 30 mpg that my primary vehicles gets, it's only for occasional utility use and I have driven it around 6000 miles in the 6 years I have owned it. My Accords travel around 200,000 over a decade. So I feel that I've been doing my part toward lessening reliance on foreign oil.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Before I bought my 03' Acura TL-S (which requires Premium, at least it says so on the filler door) I owned, since new, a 94' Eagle Talon ES non-turbo. The manufacturer's sticker in the window had it rated at 27 hwy. and 21 city for a 2.0L with 9.5:1 compression and a 4-speed automatic trans. Final drive ratio is around .400.

Even though it didn't call for it I put Sunoco premium 94 in it as well as filled the tires to 35 lbs. in the front and 33 lbs. in the rear (factory calls for 29 in front and 26 in rear) and it still handled great and steady. The first set of tires only lasted 28k but I put on a set of regular ol' Goodyear RSA H-rated tires and they didn'tr need to be changed until over 70k miles later. The only other mods were a K&N air filter, Borla cat back exhaust and I lightly ported the iron exhaust manifold to match the gasket on the aluminum head.

After doing all those little things to it and after setting the cruise control at ~80mph., I would get a consistant 40mpg on the highway!!

Total cost for the modifications: under $300. And, yes, I made up that cost over the 9 years I had the car.

A good buddy of mine bought the car from me a few years ago and even at 115k miles, it still gets that good of mileage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

FWIW.....For the last 2+ years, we've run nothing but regular in my '03 Acura TL-S even though it calls for premium. A good friend of mine is driving his second Acura TL and he's run nothing but regular in both and he says the same thing as me - no difference between regular and premium.

My gas guzzlin' (AND DAMN PROUD OF IT!! [:P]) Titan pickemup says premium only and I run nothing but regular in it - even when towing my noisy, water poluting Sea-Doo jet boat.

As for joesportster's suggestion of boycotting buying gas for 3 or so days.....that won't do anything. Why? Because folks will all fill up before the three days commence and then rush to fill up afterwards.

No, what needs to happen is for ALL of us to start buying from one or two brands only. That means for days and maybe weeks, the other companies will sell nothing. That's when the law of supply & demand kicks in and the starving stations lower their price in order to stay alive. That would then force other staions to follow suit. I personally think this would only have to happen once for the oil companies to get the message.

Tom

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OMG - Budwieser at a local grocery store - $11.75 a case - all case boxes have $5.00 off coupon - Final Price - $6.77 A Case !!! - Limit 4 Please . [:D] Offer is also good on Coors Lite and Miller Lite ! " I'm not condoning the consumption of alchohol , but if you drink the ocassional cold one it's a pretty good deal , " . This appears to be related to the Storm and is a result of a beer surplus , at least here in the South East . Any of you living in the area might wanna check if theres a sale like this at a store near you . Point Being , Beer Is Half The Price Of Gas Here , For The Moment !

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mt. Morris NY, yesterday afternoon - I saw

$3.19, $3.29 and $3.39 per gallon, all for regular

unleaded. In Geneseo, NY, the stations were fairly

consistent at $3.40 a gallon. It's outright

shocking! Two days earlier, it had been

$2.85. According to the local news, in Rochester all the

Delta-Sonic locations had closed their pumps - they were out of

gas. I hope more stations aren't affected.

Here in Portageville, our one gas station was STILL at $2.99 per

gallon. Longest lines I've ever seen there (usually there's

NONE!) I bought an additional 5 gallon jerry can, filled that up

(now I have two stored in the shed - just in case). In an

emergency, I could also siphon 20 gallons from my boat if need

be. My truck gets 21-22 mpg, so if I keep the tank topped

up, I've got 1000 miles of driving available in the event of

worsening of the crisis.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You think you have it bad, my mom has a range rover, she gets like 11

mpg, mostly city. We are paying out the ears for gas, It is right

around $3.20 for 93

I guess people need to ask - do you really need something like a Range

Rover for mostly city driving? My Montero

Sport has all the amenities, and while it's not an economy car, I

still get 20-22 mpg depending on the driving mix. It's not

great, but it's twice that of a Range Rover. LOL

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...