89 safe compare to 91 Octane?
- Thread starter GullyBoy21
- Start date
FrequentFlyer
Member
- :
- 2008 CWP Mazdaspeed3
i miss living in nj and having 93... all i ever see here is 91 and sometimes 110...
"Back in the day", Sunoco in NJ used to offer "Ultra 94". Now they have 87, 89, 91 and 93.
They still offer the "Ultra 94" here but I prefer Amoco Ultimate, thats all I put in my car for whatever reason.
91 is fine. Mazda would have to tune the car to perform at its best for 91 since that is the best many markets can get. I have never seen 91 octane gas personally, but anything higher will probably not be any different. That will change once Cobb releases specific maps for 93 octane gas.
builthatch
Member
first of all, i find it extremely scary that the OP was unaware of the requirements. (burn)
i know in typical modern port injected highish compression OE boost applications, running lower octane will kick in alot of safety measures. direct injection might be different in some ways, in terms of how the combustion process reacts to the lower octane relative to everything else going on, but the car probably kicks back timing via the knock sensor signal and possibly fattens the mixture a bit.
I can't imagine it's good for the engine to operate on the ragged minimum edge like that, even with the electronic bandaids. everything about this engine is setup for atleast 91 octane (AKA "California piss"), and it having to adjust and throw a bunch of electronic red flags to deal with the lower octane fuel makes it operate out of spec. all of this especially under boost and/or situations where you are trying to wring any type of performance out of the engine.
if you look at the cost difference over the course of a year between using higher octane vs. the lower octane s***, it really is minimal. i mean, don't go out to dinner two nights over the course of the year or stay out of the bar for 3 nights a year to make up the difference. it's really minimal, especially spread out over a year.
not to rant, but it burns me up when people complain about gas prices, but go and blow money on s*** like starbucks coffee, or...buy 7 dollar packs of cigarettes each day. yes, it sucks it's expensive, and it's asinine that the petrol companies are doing what they are doing...but life is about making things work and rationalizing, and if you can't figure out a way to rationalize using 93 octane for your turbo and high compression sports car, then maybe you bought the wrong car.
builthatch
Member
that is obsurd. sure you could, but why? let's be practical here.
listen to these numbers via some simple math...
15k miles a year...
25 miles per gallon
600 gallons
93 is like 20 cents more than regular, on the average.
considering all of those factors...if you put 93 in your car instead of 87 over the course of that year...you are spending an extra 120 dollars a year. you could burn through that in 3 hours at a bar, or one dinner at a half decent restaurant.
if you put 10k miles a year, it's 80 dollars extra a year.
is that really that much of a difference over the course of a year to risk running the car out of spec?
just run the right fuel and get on the no stress express maann!
