BTR-75

So last June I participated in Rally Dixie which was a fund raiser for the Accelerated Cure Project for MS put on by Rally North America and sponsored in part by CJ Pony Parts. It was from just outside of Indianapolis, IN to Fort Walton Beach, FL, along the way 93 octane was available every time I needed fuel except once. On that occasion I added some octane booster instead of swapping my tune, after reading some old posts I'm thinking I should have re-tuned to a lesser octane tune.

Some background is in order. A few weeks prior to heading out of Tallahassee for Indianapolis I got some gas at a station I never really frequent and I think it had some water in it. I had some issues on a jaunt over to Pensacola, wrench light came on, flashed, car ran like crap, I stopped and added octane boost then and babied it back home. All of that happened on the return trip when I wasn't too far outta Tallahassee. I stopped at a local performance shop as soon as I returned and had them check it and explained everything and they thought I was probably right in my assessment, they just advised me to run a few tanks thru it before the trip.

I head out on the trip and about 5-6 hours in my engine light comes on, I'd been driving it pretty hard 80-90 for long stretches. Anyway I back off and the other cars I was convoying up with slowed down so I wouldn't have to tax it. I get to Indianapolis Sunday night and 1st thing Monday morning I take it to the local Ford dealer and explain everything to them. They look at over and again agree with my assessment but the replaced a fouled spark plug, everything under warranty which I was thankful for as my car is modestly modded and they could have stuck it to me.

So the car runs fine all of day 1, but like I said at one point I fueled up with I wanna say 91 octane so I added the octane boost. Later, and I really can't recall when but I know it was on day 2, I started having the same issues and they persisted thru the remainder of day 2 and day 3. I got it home and took it to my Ford dealer and had them look at it and other than the code the found nothing wrong.

So like I said, after reading a few threads on octane booster I'm thinking maybe that was causing my problems instead of fixing them. I haven't taken the car on any long road trips since then but it's run fine. What I'm afraid of, and I'm waiting until it gets warm again to test, is that on a long trip if I push it above 75 mph for any amount of time (3+ hours) my engine light will come on again.

I just had my 30,000 maintenance and they changed the fuel filter, I have a spare cop and 2 spare plugs. I've contacted Bama tunes and they want me to run a data log and send it to them to look over, which I will as soon as it warms up a little.

So to make a long story long, my question is do you think my issues were made worse by the octane boost? Should I have just lowered my tune?

Thanks

FrostByte

Octane boost will only give 1 or 2 points higher. Your better off loading a lower octane tune. You should even be OK with 91 on a 93 tune as long as you dont get on it, just traveling down the highway shouldn't hurt.

We have a gas station here that sells race fuel, 103 oct I think? Last I knew it was $8/gallon. If you have any place like that you can get some race fuel I would add 5 gallons of 103 to a near empty tank just to make sure. Run it long enough so you can smell the race fuel so you know your on good gas & then try it out with some foot in it.

BTR-75

Ya, I was definitely not just "traveling down the highway" when I started encountering issues again. After the light came on again I backed off considerably, but on the next rally this coming July I'll just back down to a lower tune if I can't find 93.

Thanks for your response.