I have been thinking about the addition of a Superchip for my 2001 S/Crew 4x4. I have some concerns about fuel. Where I live (Northern Alberta, Canada) Premium fuel can, on occasion, be hard to find. After the chip is installed is it okay to run reg grade fuel?

 

If you're concerned about finding a steady supply of Premium, I would suggest a Flip Chip. That way you can run either grade by merely flipping a switch. It is NOT a good idea to run regular with a single program chip, as it may cause detonation and engine damage. I'm sure Mike Troyer will be along soon to explain in more detail!

 

Hi DTS F-150,

The single-program Superchip that most people here are using requires the use of premium gas, all the time.

What happens if you use less than premium gas with the Superchip is first, you'll lose the power gain of course, that will fall off gradually as the lower octane gas gets worked into the system; secondly, depending on just how much total effective compensation range the knock sensor in your particular vehicle has, you may or may not experience audible detonation, "pinging". Some of these vehicles can be run down to 87 octane with the Superchip, you lose the power gain and of course and driveability won't be as good, but the knock sensor system is able to effect the required reduction in spark advance by signaling the ECU & thus quell any detonation. And then in some of these vehicles, they will "ping" if you run anything less than premium gas with the Superchip, so there is a good bit of variance in the adjustment range of the knock sensor systems in these vehicles.

As Snyper suggested, the most eloquent solution would be to use our 2-program Superchip Flip Chip, which we can set up with a pair of programs, one for 87 octane and the other for premium gas, and that way you'll have an enhanced powertrain program giving you best safe power & performance for either fuel.

Or, if you wanted to stick with the single-program Superchip, you can always just remove it should you get into a situation where you can't get good gas, and removing the Superchip will revert your vehicle back to its original factory program. Once the Superchip has been installed for the first time, it can be removed or replaced in just a couple of minutes at any point in the future.

So there are a couple of ways to handle this, either one of which will get you thru in a worst-case situation.

If you'd like to go over that in a bit more detail, please feel free to give us a call at our number listed below or shoot us an email.

 

Thanks for the info!

 

Check back with Mike - re fuel - we can get 91, or 92 up here
Not sure abt 93. I think a chip requires 93. - could be wrong.

 

Hi Roadrunner,

That's a good point!

However, you can use from 91 octane on up to about 94-95 octane or so with the Superchip. It requires the use of 92 octane or greater to get the rated gains, but a 91 octane fuel that is good quality is usually OK to use.

Here in the Eastern part of the U.S. most pump premiums run 93 octane, with a few at 92 octane, and then out in the Mid-West and at high elevations, you may only find 91 octane, then on the West Coast it's mostly 92 octane. These are just generalizations, there are always exceptions, of course. And as long as it's a good quality fuel, 91 octane is usually fine. If you have access to 92 or higher then that is what you'll want to use, but if you can only get 91, that's usually OK as long as it's good quality fuel.

Thanks for your post!

 

Don't forget that what we up here in Canada call 87 octane is not the same as y'all south of the 49th. I'm not sure of the difference, but I do knbow that each country uses a different octane scale that may be 2 or 3 octane points different. This may be a factor for Canadian Superchip users ( of which I hope to become one soon!)

 

Hi Mashie,

That's a good point!

So far over the years, we haven't had any basic issues with our Canadian customers using their local 92 octane and it not being enough.

There are 2 different basic rating systems, here in the US we use the octane number derived from adding the Motors + the Research method, and then divide that combined number by 2, to get an average of the octane as determined by both methods.

For example, in Europe, their local 92 octane is roughly equal to our 92 octane, but then they also have 97-98 octane available, which would equate (roughly, of course) to about a 95 octane over here, so they do have access to a little bit higher octane by comparison over there on Europe.