dastangman

Well, this winter I'm getting married, November 27th in fact. It's coming so soon, but I can't wait! Anyways, in December we're planning on taking our honeymoon and driving from Iowa to Florida and get out of the snow and enjoy the warm weather.

We're planning on driving my supercharged Cobra, but I got to wondering. In my small town I live in there is no premium fuel available at the gas station. So I have to drive a ways into the next town. What I was wondering is, let's just say I was running low on gas (which I usually don't let happen) and pull into a small town to fill up. What happens if they don't offer premium. Can I just fill up with regular old unleaded?

The premium only hinder detonation, so I would think as long as I didn't drive it hard and floor it, I wouldn't have to worry about pinging. I could just cruise 70 until I needed gas and fill up with premium again then I can have my fun on the road or whatever. Anyways, what about buying super unleaded if it's available, because it'd have ethanol and higher octane rating, and adding some octane booster into it.

I was just wondering, mostly as a way of planning my route and making sure I wouldn't be hitting any small towns or large sections of road without gas stations. Thanks for the help!!!

devongarver

Car details? I have no idea what you are running?

Are you tuned for 93 octane? Running boost?

d3mon

Same as above it's your car tuned for 93?? boost?

If you notice in the gas stations they fill two reservoirs 1 with 93 other with 87, they mix both to get 89 midgrade (at least in Texas) in a 65:35 ratio so if you need 91 "as recomended", filling it up with 93 and topppng it off with medium grade will be ok, now if is tuned for 93 is other story and i wouldnt risk it.

DreamerGT

If he stays out of boost and doesnt bog the motor he should be ok right?

jason07gt

carry octane booster for the road easy fix & stay lifght on the skinny petal

03BottleFedGT

once you get down here in the south just about every gas station(no matter the size of the town) will have 93. i have never had a problem finding it. the rich folks down here have to many high end cars for them not to have 93. even when i have gone up north havent had an issue

hot sauce

dont know if the motor would be ok or hurt but i let my old man drive my cobra and he put 89 in my cobra and it ran like crap even with me just driving around with a light foot!
btw op if the car calls for premium then use the highest grade at the pump. i would only use enough 87 to get me to a station with 93!

boduke0220

i'd carry some octane booster just in case, but you shouldnt have a problem...you must live in a tiny town. my towns population is like 3500 and we have premium

98redstang

haha the sunoco on rt 18 by my house sells 100 and i live 5 mintues from raceway park if i want any higher

dastangman

It's an 01 Cobra with a Vortech SC-v2 supercharger, and aftercooler, runs like 10psi of boost. The lower end is fully forged and built, 9.2:1 compression. I had to rebuild this engine because of a bad experience with gasoline, but I was also getting on it pretty good at the time the piston detonated. The car has a dyno tune with 92 octane which was near the tuning place, and but I usually only have 91 octane available, and 93 at Wal-Mart but have never had success with their gas here at least. I've never had detonation issues on the 91, and the time the piston detonated was attributed to a completely different situation and time...

Anyways, from my knowledge of octane, the higher the octane rating the more it can withstand detonation. I also think (although not completely sure) the 01 have knock sensors correct?

Anyways, I just figured if I wasn't bogging down on the engine or really hammering it, which I won't be anyways, then I wouldn't have to worry about detonation.

As I was planning my route, I found several small towns along the way, and I just got thinking how sucky that would be to be low on gas and only come up to small towns without premium. Those quite a few small towns here in Iowa that do not carry it, and up until a month ago when our station put in new pumps, we didn't even have diesel.

I also know my grandpa has a Cadillac which requires premium, but he uses just super unleaded. It works perfectly okay for him because he's not driving the car under conditions that would ever stress the engine and cause pinging, but the knock sensors would also reduce the timing if need be...and I was kind of wondering if that's how my car would respond if an emergency came to be where that's all I could get. I do need to talk to my tuner and ask if the knock sensors were turned off. I also wasn't sure if octane booster would even have a significant effect. I guess I figured it might be just another one of those chemicals that really doesn't do any good for your vehicle or would have negligable results at best.

I may be worrying about something stupid, but that'd just be my luck ya know. And I'd rather just make sure, before I do anything...of course, I guarantee this is purely for an emergency, because I wouldn't put anything less than premium in any other circumstance.