If I ran cam2 or Turbo blue 116 octane in my Z would it help it any or will it hurt it and why?

 

If the difference between running 87 and 92 octane gas is potentially an undriveable vehicle, and the difference is 5 octane, imagine what a difference of 24 octane would do?

Those fuels (I dont know these exact brands but I assume its like any other race fuel) are not meant for your car, your car was designed for 92-93 (really it was designed for 91, but why quibble), use 92-93.

 

i thought anything over 103 octane was pretty much leaded gas?

i'm sure i'm wrong though

I guess the question is why do you want to run 116 octane?

If you actually NEED that high of an octane, then you're probably not running a VQ35 engine or you've modded it in such a way that you wouldn't be asking if you can run 116 octane gas because you'd already KNOW if you can/should or not.


I wouldn't do it.....not on a stock or medium modded Z

to answer your question: It would likely hurt the engine and you'd see no performance gain. It'd be entirely possible you'd LOSE power with the octane being that high

Highest I'd run is around 101-103 and the Z will drive a little better if you're tracking the car or in a situation where you can repeatedly floor it to redline and the ECU determines everything is running fine and does *not* have to pull timing

 

Leaded fuel will start killing your O2 sensors so make sure that you have a couple on hand. Leaded will also destroy a catalytic converter, so make sure you are running a test pipe.

 

i was thinking about running liquid nitrogen in my z.....will it run better?

 

Only if you are using the Mr. Fusion system. in that case, i would save the money on the nitrogen, and use bananna peels and beer cans.

 

Don't forget to adjust the flux capacitor...

 

Lead is one of several (many?) ways of raising the octane rating. It's just cheap, so that's why it used to be common.

If you don't have a way of adjusting your timing, you're just wasting your money. If you can advance your timing, then running higher octane can help you get more power (usually with mods). I would think that your best bet would be to mix some of the super high octane with normal premium to get something close to 100 octane.

Unless you have FI, it's probably not worth it.

Keep in mind that the higher the octane, the less the energy in the fuel.

 

I like cheese

 

hell i ran chicken **** in my z..whoo let me tell u the octane that **** has..the exhaust smelled a little funny though..but other than that the car ran good noticed about 20 whp.lol

 

please tell me u're joking... higher octane gas will in no way give u more horsepower in fact if it did nething it would slow u down... a little lesson in how octane lvl's react with engines... the higher the octane the slower the fuel will burn, people running high boost or high compression applications use this gas to help run a bit richer and reduce the chance of engine knock... in fact a lower octane would move your pistons faster due to the quickness it burns so go use some crappy gas and knock the crap out of your engine please

 

Ok, makes sense. Was just wondering for all the know it alls; but appreciate the responses who serioulsy helped me . Thanks, I guess no turbo blue till I get her pumping a grand. That wont be for another 2 or 3 years though.

 

Agreed. If the car isn't tuned to use fuel of that octane you're either going to see no performance gain, or a degradation in performance. Regardless, you'll be spitting money out the tailpipe. Last week I accidentally put Premium in my Xterra (still not used to having a car that doesn't use Premium, lol). The truck has run noticably slower this week. It's pretty short on power as it is, so its very obvious. I'm sure living at 5000' of elevation in combination isn't helping either. I put 85 in yesterday to my 1/3 tank of premium and she is back to normal now...

 

out of curiosity cause i don't know how, but how does running gas kill catalytic converters? Does it actually melt them or something?

 

Disclaimer: I am FAR from a mechanical expert so someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

I believe that the idea is using octane with a much higher rating than necessary results in unburnt fuel being expelled from the car. Being that the catalytic converter is a sort of "plug" in the exhaust, this fuel gets trapped there and ignites which reduces the effective life of the cat... or something along those lines...

 

you will have catalyst failure within the hour'

The amount of unburned hydrocarbons will start gunking up the cats. At the same time the ECU will try in some way to get catalysts at higher temperatures to burn the crap the engine is spitting out.

results in gunked up, cooked up, failed catalyst

that is my understanding of it

 

lead will clog your cats, not gas. unleaded gas is fine for your cats.

the cat has stuff in it (platinum and other things) that get really hot and simply help unburnt stuff burn. it gets rid of the stuff your emissions tests look for - CO, NOx, unburnt gas (HC's) and gets them to finish combustion, turning to relatively harmless CO2, NO2, and H2O (air and water). it's a "catalyst" which means it helps start a chemical reaction without actually being used in the reaction - that's why they last forever.

the casing of the cats can get hurt though. too much unburnt fuel will cause the cat to get too hot. lead will coat the pellets making them ineffective. running high sulfur (US) diesel is also bad. Low sulfur European diesel and US diesel in 2 years will be fine.

running higher octane (doesn't matter what the number is, just higher) will result in your car running closer to max potential. this is because you *do* have timing adjustments on your engine - probably every Nissan does. It's the ECU and it will definitely retard timing to preserve the engine. using better gas will reduce retardation under certain conditions.

in a stock NA engine, high octane doesn't GAIN power, it simply prevents potential LOSS of power.

question is "is it worth the extra money for the nicer gas?" that's for you to decide. in day to day driving, it's probably not worth going over 91. but running 87 all the time will result in your engine always retarding the timing.

btw race gas, as well as potentially having lead or other harmful additives in it, doesn't have some "street" additives like detergents, antifreeze type things, etc. if you want to experiment with high octane without spending too much money, put in a gallon of toluene (114 octane) when you fill the tank next.

FI, that's a different story. the higher peak pressures in the combustion chamber make the quality of the fuel important in tuning the car safely. Running 70+ psi boost enabled BMW to get up to 1500 HP from 1.5 liter engines from used street blocks for Formula 1. Obviously octane had to be high so that the engine could take advantage of the high pressures seen inside the engine. the BMW engines ran 85% toluene and 15% fillers (0 octane).

hope this helps
aki