hey guys i am new here i got a 2000 ford f 150 5.4 with a troyer performance sct6600 performance chip i usually run on a 87 performance tune and now 87 octane gas is at $3.05 but the 90 octane 10% ethanol is 10 cents cheaper is that gunna hurt anything to run the 90 octane on the 87 perfromance tune? i have heard it doesn't hurt to run a higher octane, is the lower one u have to worry about but i wanted to find out for sure thanks

 

Should be fine. You can always get TP to write you a 90 oct tune; (the 6600 has room for 4 custom tunes, plus the stock program).

 

Hi jfunk,

Yes, you *can* do that, though I'd really rather see you have a proper tune to do that if you want to run it like that any significant portion of your time behind the wheel.

See, what happens when you run significantly more octane than the engine is tuned for, is that the engine will peak it's power early - like around 4000-4200 rpm, instead of up there where it would normally be, at about 4700-4800 rpm. Now this really doesn't *hurt* anything, it just causes the engine to peak it's power earlier in the rpm range.

For example, we had a customer who had the 5.4 3V newer F-150, and on his 87 octane tune, he ran 91 octane premium gas - took it to the dyno, and it made *very* nice power gains until he hit 4200 rpm, and then the power flat lined, meaning he didn't gain another single horsepower even taking it all the way up to 5800 rpm - and this was because the engine had too much octane than it was tuned for, and it caused it to peak it's power early - this is actually beccause in this condition, at higher rpms the cylinder pressure did not peak where it needs to to make proper power.

Again, this does not actually *hurt* anything inside the engine, it just alters the powerband, giving you a bit more power down low, and not gaining any more **additional power gain** once you hit somewhere around 4000-4200 rpm or so.

If you wanted to run it like this any significant portion of the time, then I would have us change your chip's tuning, but if this is just a once in a while thing, go ahead and run it like that, I suppose.

 

hey mike thanks for the input it makes sense to me now i don't really plan on running it all the time the deal is the ehtanol blend is just 10 cents cheaper around here now so i figured it was worth a shot now my other question is wut do i all have to do to have u guys write me another tune i have a 91 performance tune that i haven't used yet because i can't find the 91 octane gas around here so, i was thinking about just changing that one to the 90 octane what would that consist of? thanks in advance

 

Hi jfunk,

My apologies for not getting back to you sooner, we've been so busy here that Iv;e had to take some time of the boards - my apologies!

Anyway, we can easily write you another tune, we simply need to load that tuning into your chip, so you would need to send it back to us. If you have modifications that prohibit you from being able to run on the stock factory tune for a little while, then we can always swap out the ship with you as well.

I also think it's a good idea to do that, because while your vehicle has to be capable of running on 10% ethanol from the factory, once it's performance tuned (this is on non-flex fuel vehicles like yours - for flex fuel vehicles like some of the 2006 & newer F-150's we do not need to change anything for 10% ethanol), if you are going to run 10% ethanol blended fuel then we should make an adjustment to the tuning to offset that.

See, when you introduce ethanol, you actually run the engine leaner - for example, when running on 10% ethanol-blended fuel, you run about 3.5% leaner. Now that is fine on the stock tuning, simply because from the factory these trucks are set up to run way rich - especially the 1997-2003 trucks! However, once you have performance tuning done, then we should compensate for 10% ethanol for best performance on at least one of your tunes, or however many you want to be able to run 10% ethanol on and get the best performance, since you do not have a flex fuel vehicle.

Anyway, I hope I've managed to make this a little bit clearer than mud, & if you have any questions please feel free to give us a call, I'll be happy to go over this with you and arrange to change your tunes if you like, etc.

Have fun,

 

If you think about it, weather you have a 24 gallon or a 30 gallon tank, you are looking at $2.40 to $3.00 difference per fill up.
That's not a lot of money to be putting that crap in your vehicle. Ethanol is a joke and we should be boycotting, not advocating it. Imagine taking scotch away from an alcoholic and giving him only wine coolers.
You haven't solved any problems.
F$%k Ethanol