Here's a new one on me. Just put some 93 octane gas in the L, along with a little 104+ octane booster (black), and for the 1st time I get the dreaded "pinging". I stop at my Tuners place and question the possibility of this when he tells me NOT to buy gas around here (Michigan) between December and April (for hi-performance) because the gas they ship in during that time is blended for early ignition. In other words, for quicker winter starts. AND in other, other words LOWER OCTANE! Hence, detonation. Anybody else out there ever experience this before? There must be some sort of requirement or law governing such things. Of course the laws we have usually protect the guilty anyway, don't they!? By the way, he also said that the Turbo Blue gas is not affected by this questionable practice.

 

It's the federal guvmint that makes those 'laws'. The refineries have to make it that way. Auto store octane booster don't(for the most part) work. I use a Torco product named 'Accelerator'--it works. Or, you can email CornerCarver for his 'better ideas thru chemistry'--I'll let him tell you--you won't believe it!

Dan

 

We don't have the same problem in our part of the country, however that does not mean we don't have "winter" gas. I have JDM's chip and have no problem with pinging if it is "winter" gas.

Let's look at the Law side...... if it says 93 Octane on the pump and but really 91 Octane might have a case.

 

Just be glad you don't live in California (or Nevada, Arizona, etc...) where you can only get 91 octane...

 

Hey Jack! Did you know that on the corner of Gratiot and 23 Mile Rd. there is a station that sells 104 octane unleaded. I haven't bought any yet because I still have some of the Torco "Accelerator".

Mike

 

Mike! How the hell are ya? I did not know that. I had called Turbo Blues' Headquarters this past summer and was told the only place with that kind of gas was at 8mi. & Telegraph. This is great news. Do you recall which station? Jack

 

In Windsor, just across the river from Detroit , our Sunoco Ultra is 94 Octane.
It's roughly 2.80 per gallon Canadian. With your U.S. dollars it would probably cost you about 5.00 to fill up.......hehe.... a little exaggeration I guess.

 

Not sure ,but I think it's a Marathon. My wifes cousin just bought some and put it in his snowmobile. They keep a padlock on the pump. I believe he said it was blue in color. I just ordered my 160 thermostat tonite at Autozone. They will match Summit prices and usually have items in 2 days.

Mike

 

As like most of us that live in a cold climate during the winter months we experience lean conditions causing detonation from the cold drier air not so much being from gas like alot of us think.I just had my truck at the dyno not to long ago with sunoco 94 and i dynoed several chips and the best chip i had could only manage a 12.8 on the air-fuel and the others were well into the 13's because of the colder drier air.These same chips i tested in the fall when it was warmer were all in the 12.0-12.4 range so the air-fuel can make our trucks run .7 to 1 full point leaner during the winter months! Most of us should probably get reburns for the winter months if you plan on driving your L in the cold weather.

Matt

 

Sorry guys, but its not true. If the pump says 93 its a 93. The difference in winter gas is the RVP (Vapor Pressure) is higher which simply means that there are more Lite ends C3's and C4's (LPG'S) blended into the gas to make a cold winter start much easier. In the summer time even if they blended the lite ends into the gas it would vaporize as fast as you put it into your tank. Believe me the Feds would shut down a refinery if they were trying to do what you are thinking. You wouldn't believe how many test go on before a truck or barge is loaded and sent out to a gas station.

 

3 gallons of 93 octane
+ 1 gallon of Xylene (from Lowe's, Home Depot, paint supply stores)
+ 1 oz. of Marvel's Mystery Oil (any auto parts store)
---------------------------------------
4 gallons of 100 octane unleaded race gas

[(3)*(93) +121]/4 = 100

It works. You can substitue 1 gallon of Toluene and drop the Xylene and Marvel's Mystery oil to make 99 octane race gas. Both Xylene and Toluene are components of gasoline. BTW, Xylene is 121 octane and Toluene is 117 octane.

Alot the the turbo Buick guys have been using this stuff for years in place where they can't get race gas from a pump. As well as the turbos Ford guys (SVO's, T-birds, Merkurs), import racers, etc. etc. It is alot more prevalent than I thought. Seems it works so well that guys buy it in 55 gallon drums so that they can make it real cheap.

 

We've been fighting "winter gas" since Nov. 1. It's just about impossible to get great performance w/o some ping. I had my chip retuned, and it looks like I didn't do quite enough.

The winter gas has an oxygenate that will lean out the mixture a little. I believe that they are phasing out MTBE and adding Ethanol, which by volume, has half the energy content of gasoline

The truck runs fantastic on 100 octane unleaded, but it's a little hard on the wallet.

 

CornerCarver,
Thanks for the formula !
- Rick -

 

Hey guys, thanks for the corrected info. Learn something everyday, don't we? Even sometimes when it's wrong!