[All-Or-Nothing]

I am seriously considering picking up a 2011+ V6 Vert but there are a few things that worry me.

Suppose I do all the standard bolt-ons. Full exhaust, intake, gears and Tune all on a 93 Octane Race tune. My job is Overseas and sometimes the countries I wind up working in don't have the best gas and some don't have higher than 91 Octane. In fact I am in Cambodia right now and fortunately they have up to 100 Octane but that is not always the Norm in my line of work.

Is there a Tune available where I can keep all those mods and run the car on say......an 87 Octane Tune. I always imagined that once you went full bolt-ons the Tune would have to be 93 Octane at a minimum.

 

[ShortySmalls]

bolt ons have nothing to do with your gas octane. You can get a tune for any octane you want.

 

[All-Or-Nothing]

bolt ons have nothing to do with your gas octane. You can get a tune for any octane you want.

Thanks alot....:bigthumbsup

 

[Dan_DiabloSport]

With most "custom" tunes that you can get from mail order houses etc.. they can provide you with different octane tunes for different needs. I would recommend having your "low octane" tune which would be for say 85-87 octane depending on the worst gas, and then a tune for 93 for where you can get that or better.

The most important thing is to just run the minimum octane needed for the tune you have, the bolt-ons on the car shouldn't really matter, it's what the tune is built for that does.

 

[Guest]

what I would do is submit a set of tune requests prior to going overseas and request all the available octane options you can get over there...i.e. 91street, 91perf, 91race etc...

 

[WhiteBird00]

Be careful about that octane label you see in Cambodia. Most of the world uses a different method of determining the posted octane than in North America.

There are two tests used to determine octane - the Research Octane Number (RON) and the Motor Octane Number (MON). They both are based on testing in a reference one-cylinder engine but the MON testing is done under higher load conditions and tends to be 8-10 points lower than RON results.

Most of the world uses RON octane rating but North America uses the average of the RON and MON numbers (labeled (R+M)/2 on pumps) known as the Anti-Knock Index (AKI). Since MON numbers tend to be lower than RON numbers, the average will also be lower. For example, Shell V-Power 100 RON in Europe is equivalent to 94 AKI in the US - still in the "premium" range but not nearly as high as it sounds.

So don't load a 93 tune and expect 93-94 octane outside North America to work - it is the equivalent of only 87-88 octane here.

 

[ShortySmalls]

yes, just make sure you run the right octane, if you tune for 91 and run 87 for even 1 tank, it will screw things up

 

[donfromnaples]

Yes, you will hear detonation running lower octane fuel for a higher octane tune. But to say, "screw things up" I think is a bit of an exaggeration. Not good for the car, but likely not cause any major long lasting damage, just some pinging with detonation. I have owned cars that detonated often and lasted for over 100,000 miles.

 

[platinum08]

Sometimes i worry that i am hearing detonation... Or its the slight chatter sound in the shift linkage.. Is it obvious enough so that it can't be mistaken for some other tick in the car? Exhaust is loud and the sc whines. I always seem to worry about everything :banghead: I run the right fuel but never know if u might get a bad batch

Sent from my SCH-R930 using AutoGuide.Com Free App

 

[Dan_DiabloSport]

Yes, you will hear detonation running lower octane fuel for a higher octane tune. But to say, "screw things up" I think is a bit of an exaggeration. Not good for the car, but likely not cause any major long lasting damage, just some pinging with detonation. I have owned cars that detonated often and lasted for over 100,000 miles.

My only comment on that is that aftermarket tunes don't have the same tolerance levels for different octanes necessarily. Depending on the actual octane rating of the fuel over seas (if it's much less by american standards than advertised there) you could run in to some issues with knock. This could affect the drivability severely as well as causing some issues with the car.

Not sure that it will "blow it up" on a mildly modded car, but the more bolt-ons you have and the more aggressive tune, the more damage you can do by running insufficient octane fuel.

 

[donfromnaples]

Agreed. My comment was that one tankful of low octane fuel is not likely to create too much of a problem if any on the engine.

 

[trustyrusty436]

The car is made to run with regular gas-87 octane!:bigthumbsup

 

[WhiteBird00]

The car is made to run with regular gas-87 octane!:bigthumbsup

Yes, very good... take an extra $5 from petty cash as a bonus. :winks

But the question is about octane use overseas with an octane-specific aftermarket tune (i.e. not the factory configuration). :nono:

 

[trustyrusty436]

As long as you don't go with F/I you should be able to run the stock tune with what ever you want to bolt on. The engine has knock sensors, the ECU adjust the timing to the fuel octane.
S**tbird he's asking if he has to run a 93tune with bolt on's. He can run the stock 87 tune that is self adjusting if he chooses to. If you run 100 octane fuel the timing will adjust to give you more power, if you run 93 octane in your car it will adjust for that and give you more power.
I don't know about an aftermarket tune though!:wavey

 

[Radioguy]

Suppose I do all the standard bolt-ons. Full exhaust, intake, gears and ................Tune all on a 93 Octane Race tune.

Is there a Tune available where I can keep all those mods and run the car on say......an 87 Octane Tune.

^^^^+1
All of the "bolt-ons" you mentioned, full exhaust, intake (CAI) and gears can be done while running the stock tune, if you get a CAI with the same intake tube cross-sectional area as the stock intake tube. There are many "no-tune-required" CAIs. As was mentioned, the stock tune will adapt to 87 to 93+ octane fuel.

 

[hearse83]

I would like to add to this by saying

STAY AWAY FROM ETHANOL BLENDS

The ethanol blends allow a vehicle to have a higher octane rating (ethanol itself generally has a higher octane rating). I believe ethanol blended gasolines (not E85, just standard ethanol blends) just up the blend from 10% to 15% to achieve numbers like 91, 93 and 94 that I've seen.

I've found that even though these 10-15% ethanol blended gasolines are supposed to not affect a normal car, they really do, especially high compression and computerized engines like ours. I had a neon R/T that was especially susceptible to running like crap on ethanol blends. When I got my Mustang I was so excited to put 94 in it at an ethanol blended station, and Lyzzie did not like it (yeah that's my name for my car).

I stick to 91 Shell V-Power around here. Noticed that this is a problem with the 3 valve 4.6 cars too.

 

[donfromnaples]

First, finding non-ethanol blended gasoline is becoming increasing more difficult. Secondly, ethanol allows for higher compression ratios when compared with gasoline alone. Third, OBD programmed cars began in the 1980s. Fuel mileage goes down as ethanol is added in higher percentages. Octane rating is unaffected by ethanol. Ethanol can be combined up to 15% without any negative affects on engine performance. This has been studied extensively since 2000. It is perfectly safe to use gasoline blended with up to 15% ethanol. Any driveability differences noticed are random. Ethanol blended gasoline must be used within 90 days so it does have a shorter shelf life which could explain any problems experienced (bad or old gas was used).

 

[WhiteBird00]

Mostly true except for a couple of points...

Ethanol blending does have an effect on octane rating as the ethanol itself has an octane rating of around 110 so it acts just like any other octane boosting additive in gasoline. It's not a problem because there is no real difference between using ethanol to boost octane or using any other additive to boost octane - the end result is the same.

But ethanol has a negative effect on engine performance (both mileage and power) because it has less energy by volume than pure gasoline... about 34% less. A 10% mix of ethanol with gasoline will therefore produce about 3.4% less power and fuel mileage if all else is equal. That may not sound like much but it is enough to be noticeable in the "butt dyno" if switched for consecutive fill-ups. When pure gasoline was still available at a few stations around town, I could feel an immediate difference in power when I filled up with pure gas after a tank of E10. It is reputed not to be harmful to most modern automobiles (although there is some debate on the subject, especially in regards to E15) but it is not good for older vehicles, most motorcycles, almost all marine engines, and the vast majority of small engines such as lawn mowers and generators.

Even in areas where pure gasoline is no longer available at regular gas stations, it can usually be found at marinas.

 

[donfromnaples]

Yes, I only meant running a blend will not increase octane to a noticeable amount 93 versus 93.3 is negligible. But I agree with your post totally. I just wanted to state that ethanol blends of 10% are not harmful to our cars.