AirBrontosaurus

Good point. Technically octane rating does not relate to energy content, however in practice you can assume that higher octane gas has less stored energy than lower octane gas. There's also probably some stuff having to do with propagation speed of the wave versus the impact power with the piston but that's way beyond what I know.

98SN95

i do know one thing, when i did the pi swap on my car regular unleaded made it ping going up a bridge, switched to premium, problemed solved.

AirBrontosaurus

That is entirely untrue. Engines burn most effectively at stoichiometric equilibrium. Deviations from this are allowed because at high RPM a stoich (14.7 AFR) mixture would create too much heat and melt the cylinder. However, simply adding more fuel does not increase power. You need to add both fuel and air in order to actually make more power in the combustion chamber.

Simply dumping more fuel in there will throw off your air/fuel ratio. The further away you are from 14.7 the less power you're going to make. Dumping more 93 octane into the cylinder is going to make less power, not more. You'll be choking off your flame by not providing it with enough oxygen to burn and that will rob you of power. It's the same thing that happens when your engine runs super rich at WOT and falls on it's face.

Just adding more fuel to your mixture will make the problem worse, not better. Why do you think people even bother to do WOT tuning if all you had to do is dump as much fuel as you can into the cylinder?

98SN95

okay, its obvious you have never tuned a vehicle, with your wide open explanations

98SN95

i type long messages so that makes me smartttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt take a breath tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt!!!

HasABetterSN

Haha thanks for the explanations guys. I honestly didn't know how the octane comparisons worked - I'll probably stay with 87 for now. I'll talk with my shop and see if they have any suggestions (they only deal with mustangs) about tuning.

Thanks again

--Mike