100 RON Fuel, available nationwide, but you can't use Cats
11 July 2000, 03:59 PM
#31
Dear All,
I would just like to add fuel for thought on this debate (ho, ho, ho). Firstly, I would like to totally disagree with John on the lack of benefits of putting higher octane fuel in an engine. I have seen with my own eyes a 30bhp increase in using higher octane fuel with NO other mods (no change in ignition, just dumping the fuel in and pulling the lever on the dyno).
However, it does rely on the chemical compositon and amount of lead in the fuel. Too much will lose you bhp (again witnessed with my own eyes). The example I have is from an eight injector RS500 engine. This was live mapped on Harvey's engine dyno by Ahmed and capped off at 527bhp. They then put in a new to the market high octane fuel (can't remember who it was mixed by) that was well, well over 100 RON, but it gained its rating by having a lot of lead in it.
The guy whose engine it was, was thinking of using this fuel for racing so wanted to see what difference it made (if any), as it was considerably cheaper than the proper Elf stuff. So they drained the dyno tank and filled it with the new fuel and then just pulled the lever to check what difference it made from 6000 onwards in 500rpm increments. At 6000revs it instantly picked up just over 30bhp with NO other changes. However, by 7000revs it had LOST 30bhp and was also slightly misfiring. The plugs were pulled out and were found to be very white / grey from all the lead build up on them which was causing the misfire. Obviously the fuel was no good for what he wanted it for.
They (Ahmed and Harvey) then discussed the differences they had seen on similar engines with the Elf "rocket fuel" that John was talking about earlier. This is 119.8 RON and costs £20 a gallon! BUT, it will gain you 30bhp across the board with no drops, troughs or misfires, without ANY other changes. In fact they were saying that it was so good on the rally cars that they can get 326bhp / 460 lbft with the turbo restrictor and the Elf fuel. However, when they tried advancing the ignition to gain even more power due to the increase in octane, all they found was that the engine just got harsh in the noise it made, and didn't make ANY more power. In fact they could advance the engine so much (where they expected it to det like fvck), yet all it did was change the engine note (hard to describe) and it still didn't det. However, this was more to do with the fuel and they had not the same results on other types. The Elf fuel was that good that it didn't seem to matter what ignition they ran, it would produce the power.
Accordingly when they tried it out on the RS500 engines, they instantly gained 30bhp EVERYWHERE with no other mods! The only downside is £200+ per tank full, but in racing terms that is nothing.....
Obviously in terms of things like this it should be a case of "test don't guess". In view of this, I will be taking some of this 100RON leaded fuel with me next time they have a suitable engine on the dyno to see if it has too much lead in it like the other stuff, or if it is effectively "free" bhp....
I only wish I could afford to run my car on the Elf stuff (which smells like nail polish...)
Regards
Mike R
I would just like to add fuel for thought on this debate (ho, ho, ho). Firstly, I would like to totally disagree with John on the lack of benefits of putting higher octane fuel in an engine. I have seen with my own eyes a 30bhp increase in using higher octane fuel with NO other mods (no change in ignition, just dumping the fuel in and pulling the lever on the dyno).
However, it does rely on the chemical compositon and amount of lead in the fuel. Too much will lose you bhp (again witnessed with my own eyes). The example I have is from an eight injector RS500 engine. This was live mapped on Harvey's engine dyno by Ahmed and capped off at 527bhp. They then put in a new to the market high octane fuel (can't remember who it was mixed by) that was well, well over 100 RON, but it gained its rating by having a lot of lead in it.
The guy whose engine it was, was thinking of using this fuel for racing so wanted to see what difference it made (if any), as it was considerably cheaper than the proper Elf stuff. So they drained the dyno tank and filled it with the new fuel and then just pulled the lever to check what difference it made from 6000 onwards in 500rpm increments. At 6000revs it instantly picked up just over 30bhp with NO other changes. However, by 7000revs it had LOST 30bhp and was also slightly misfiring. The plugs were pulled out and were found to be very white / grey from all the lead build up on them which was causing the misfire. Obviously the fuel was no good for what he wanted it for.
They (Ahmed and Harvey) then discussed the differences they had seen on similar engines with the Elf "rocket fuel" that John was talking about earlier. This is 119.8 RON and costs £20 a gallon! BUT, it will gain you 30bhp across the board with no drops, troughs or misfires, without ANY other changes. In fact they were saying that it was so good on the rally cars that they can get 326bhp / 460 lbft with the turbo restrictor and the Elf fuel. However, when they tried advancing the ignition to gain even more power due to the increase in octane, all they found was that the engine just got harsh in the noise it made, and didn't make ANY more power. In fact they could advance the engine so much (where they expected it to det like fvck), yet all it did was change the engine note (hard to describe) and it still didn't det. However, this was more to do with the fuel and they had not the same results on other types. The Elf fuel was that good that it didn't seem to matter what ignition they ran, it would produce the power.
Accordingly when they tried it out on the RS500 engines, they instantly gained 30bhp EVERYWHERE with no other mods! The only downside is £200+ per tank full, but in racing terms that is nothing.....
Obviously in terms of things like this it should be a case of "test don't guess". In view of this, I will be taking some of this 100RON leaded fuel with me next time they have a suitable engine on the dyno to see if it has too much lead in it like the other stuff, or if it is effectively "free" bhp....
I only wish I could afford to run my car on the Elf stuff (which smells like nail polish...)
Regards
Mike R
11 July 2000, 04:01 PM
#32
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Cheers John,
Yet again, excuse my stupidity (Re pinking stuff
)
We'll I'd like to volunteer for an Ahmed upgrade - only I don't own a scooby (yet). If Ahmed's on the case it's gotta be good, you seem to know something about it, any more info ?
I'm still not convinced about the Tuners on the Impreza scene, I mean people have been tuning RS's for years and there's still bag loads of blown up RS's around. What happens when you throw a whole new engine into the mix ?, or people tinkering with the boost / timing themselves. IMHO knock sensors are not a reliable way to tune an engine, which seems to be what (no names) some of the DIY re-maping things seem to do.
IMHO It's to early too say whether the remaps the guys on the board are using are going to be reliable, you can have knock and not know anything about it until an end goes etc.
I've yet to hear of any real power being produced from a Scooby yet either, this does not comfort me.
Maybe I leave it standard when it comes (Yeah right !)
Yet again, excuse my stupidity (Re pinking stuff
)We'll I'd like to volunteer for an Ahmed upgrade - only I don't own a scooby (yet). If Ahmed's on the case it's gotta be good, you seem to know something about it, any more info ?
I'm still not convinced about the Tuners on the Impreza scene, I mean people have been tuning RS's for years and there's still bag loads of blown up RS's around. What happens when you throw a whole new engine into the mix ?, or people tinkering with the boost / timing themselves. IMHO knock sensors are not a reliable way to tune an engine, which seems to be what (no names) some of the DIY re-maping things seem to do.
IMHO It's to early too say whether the remaps the guys on the board are using are going to be reliable, you can have knock and not know anything about it until an end goes etc.
I've yet to hear of any real power being produced from a Scooby yet either, this does not comfort me.
Maybe I leave it standard when it comes (Yeah right
!)
11 July 2000, 04:17 PM
#33
Gary,
Ahmed has three WRX engines that he will deliberately take to their limits and then beyond to see what abuse the components can / can't take. As soon as he has done this development work, he will then try swapping over ancilliries (i.e. certain cars have better turbos etc) until he gets the best power characteristics. Once he has achieved the limit of "bolt on" bits, he then intends to go internal to see what can be done with a fully modded engine. Expect to see a genuine 400bhp Scooby in the not so distant future. Several people have come close to donating their cars, but the initial cost has been the biggest hurdle (the correct ECU for the job is £2.6k).
Obviously Ahmed won't do ANYTHING until he knows what can and can't be done. However, he doesn;t recommend touching a UK car as they do not have strong enough internals.....
Best regards
Mike
Ahmed has three WRX engines that he will deliberately take to their limits and then beyond to see what abuse the components can / can't take. As soon as he has done this development work, he will then try swapping over ancilliries (i.e. certain cars have better turbos etc) until he gets the best power characteristics. Once he has achieved the limit of "bolt on" bits, he then intends to go internal to see what can be done with a fully modded engine. Expect to see a genuine 400bhp Scooby in the not so distant future. Several people have come close to donating their cars, but the initial cost has been the biggest hurdle (the correct ECU for the job is £2.6k).
Obviously Ahmed won't do ANYTHING until he knows what can and can't be done. However, he doesn;t recommend touching a UK car as they do not have strong enough internals.....
Best regards
Mike
11 July 2000, 04:21 PM
#34
Thanks for the info mike, pretty specialist app you saw the increase on but i am always open to another point of view as long as it can be backed up with genuine tests.
(lead still kills a lambda sensor though)
Our Group A rally car runs on the ELF Turbo FIA fuel and when we swapped over to this from 98RON super we gained 1.5 seconds/mile in speed. Just think about that. Most of our rallies are 50 competitive miles duration, its the diference between winning and coming 10th on our events!!
Pesonally i wish they would ban the stuff as we would save a fortune in fuel costs, all the top runners use it, you have to if you want to win.
A word of caution if you fancy trying ELF Turbo FIA, its a bloody good paint stripper, dont spill it.
As to Ahmed and the scoobs, cant say out, not for me to do so, sorry.
(lead still kills a lambda sensor though
)Our Group A rally car runs on the ELF Turbo FIA fuel and when we swapped over to this from 98RON super we gained 1.5 seconds/mile in speed. Just think about that. Most of our rallies are 50 competitive miles duration, its the diference between winning and coming 10th on our events!!
Pesonally i wish they would ban the stuff as we would save a fortune in fuel costs, all the top runners use it, you have to if you want to win.
A word of caution if you fancy trying ELF Turbo FIA, its a bloody good paint stripper, dont spill it.
As to Ahmed and the scoobs, cant say out, not for me to do so, sorry.
11 July 2000, 04:28 PM
#35
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Blast,
I was going to order a UK Impreza, not realising there was that much difference internally, I heard some STI's are blue printed (ooh wavy term, could mean not much that) but not much else. I'm sure the turbo's are all the same size as well.
Whats going on, the RS engine basically stayed the same ( - smaller turbo) for it's entire life, what are Subaru playing at ?
Whats put me of a Jap car is the 100 Ron to 95/7 Ron thing, maybe it's me but this seems like a meltdown waiting to happen.
Sod it, where the hell is that Focus Cosworth for 20K I'll buy one of those instead
I was going to order a UK Impreza, not realising there was that much difference internally, I heard some STI's are blue printed (ooh wavy term, could mean not much that) but not much else. I'm sure the turbo's are all the same size as well.
Whats going on, the RS engine basically stayed the same ( - smaller turbo) for it's entire life, what are Subaru playing at ?
Whats put me of a Jap car is the 100 Ron to 95/7 Ron thing, maybe it's me but this seems like a meltdown waiting to happen.
Sod it, where the hell is that Focus Cosworth for 20K I'll buy one of those instead
11 July 2000, 09:58 PM
#39
with all respect MTR i am not on this board to answer every question you ask.
I originaly posted on this subject because i was concerned that people would read what you put up and use the fuel.
That would lead to a bunch of rather pissed off owners of scoobs who would have to buy a new lambda sensor.
Of course any engine can have a diferent ECU instalation and throw away the MAP and Lambda sensors if they wish to utilise a fully mapped system.
I was trying to protect the majority of people from damaging their cars by using your advice.
I am not going to explain in detail how this substitution of an ECU can be acheived as i will be here all night and quite frankly no one in there right mind would use my details to carry out a DIY swap anyway.
Keep on putting up new topics we can discuss, just be carefull about how you word some of your statements, because they can read as fact when you may not actually have all the corect detail to hand.
best regards
john
I originaly posted on this subject because i was concerned that people would read what you put up and use the fuel.
That would lead to a bunch of rather pissed off owners of scoobs who would have to buy a new lambda sensor.
Of course any engine can have a diferent ECU instalation and throw away the MAP and Lambda sensors if they wish to utilise a fully mapped system.
I was trying to protect the majority of people from damaging their cars by using your advice.
I am not going to explain in detail how this substitution of an ECU can be acheived as i will be here all night and quite frankly no one in there right mind would use my details to carry out a DIY swap anyway.
Keep on putting up new topics we can discuss, just be carefull about how you word some of your statements, because they can read as fact when you may not actually have all the corect detail to hand.
best regards
john
11 July 2000, 11:16 PM
#42
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Regarding the use of leaded petrol:
There is a very interesting (and highly disturbing) feature on leaded petrol in this months (August) Car Magazine.
You can also read the article at:
There is a very interesting (and highly disturbing) feature on leaded petrol in this months (August) Car Magazine.
You can also read the article at:
11 July 2000, 11:57 PM
#47
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Well this is smoking !!
Ok John I take your point - you were not being an **** on purpose
I find what you say very very interesting if a little long winded
Paul - no it was not a turbo Calibra - sadly
I would still like to know how long lead would take to render a lambda sensor useless .... mine lasted for 6 years and when I sold the Calibra 2 years ago it was still running great .... it still has no CAT and has not had the lambda sensor replaced - so that makes it 8 years old now
I would suggest that the lambda sensor may get killed off - but not in the lifetime of the normal car ( and who cares if you melt two?)
Keep smiling all
Pete
Ok John I take your point - you were not being an **** on purpose
I find what you say very very interesting if a little long winded
Paul - no it was not a turbo Calibra - sadly
I would still like to know how long lead would take to render a lambda sensor useless .... mine lasted for 6 years and when I sold the Calibra 2 years ago it was still running great .... it still has no CAT and has not had the lambda sensor replaced - so that makes it 8 years old now
I would suggest that the lambda sensor may get killed off - but not in the lifetime of the normal car ( and who cares if you melt two?)
Keep smiling all
Pete
12 July 2000, 12:17 AM
#48
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I agree with Anders!
The amount of valuable time and effort John puts into this BBS he deserves a gold medal, not that he would want one any way, being a modest fella, he's just a genuine enthusiast, who knows a hell of a lot about cars, tuning, motorsport, driving, life, IT. "have I left something out" oh yeh good food ;-)
Cheers John for all the time you spend helping us out. - salt of the earth mate.
H
BTW.
Silcone spray, the type for dressing up the black plastic bits on the car if used in the vicinity of the air intake with the engine running also contaminates the lambda and causes it to malfunction. I found out the hard way after preparing my Corrado G60 for a show - oops, took me ages to diagnose the bad running of the car, eventually traced it to the oxygen SENSOR (lambda - MTR ;-)) £160 for a new proper vw one!
The amount of valuable time and effort John puts into this BBS he deserves a gold medal, not that he would want one any way, being a modest fella, he's just a genuine enthusiast, who knows a hell of a lot about cars, tuning, motorsport, driving, life, IT. "have I left something out" oh yeh good food ;-)
Cheers John for all the time you spend helping us out. - salt of the earth mate.
H
BTW.
Silcone spray, the type for dressing up the black plastic bits on the car if used in the vicinity of the air intake with the engine running also contaminates the lambda and causes it to malfunction. I found out the hard way after preparing my Corrado G60 for a show - oops, took me ages to diagnose the bad running of the car, eventually traced it to the oxygen SENSOR (lambda - MTR ;-)) £160 for a new proper vw one!
12 July 2000, 09:54 AM
#51
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MTR
Thanks for your reply. I'm not suggesting UL is any better than leaded fuel. In fact, for the first time in my life, I actually wrote an email to Car Magazine and suggested they do a follow-up article on the use of benzene in UL fuel.
What is more disturbing is that the article says that lead was never actually needed in the first place. There were (and still are) much better (read cleaner, less poluting and less dangerous) additives than lead.
Its a long article, but well worth reading.
Chris
Thanks for your reply. I'm not suggesting UL is any better than leaded fuel. In fact, for the first time in my life, I actually wrote an email to Car Magazine and suggested they do a follow-up article on the use of benzene in UL fuel.
What is more disturbing is that the article says that lead was never actually needed in the first place. There were (and still are) much better (read cleaner, less poluting and less dangerous) additives than lead.
Its a long article, but well worth reading.
Chris
12 July 2000, 12:47 PM
#53
You are trying to wind me up aren't you MTR.
It aint working i am afraid.
As for meeting me in a dark alley. I am one of the nicest blokes you will never have the pleasure of knowing.
It aint working i am afraid.
As for meeting me in a dark alley. I am one of the nicest blokes you will never have the pleasure of knowing.
12 July 2000, 01:09 PM
#54
Thanks guys
H, you forgot aircraft (i have flown gliders solo in my youth), firearms (i am trained to military marksman standard) and skydiving (done a bit and son of british record holder) so if you really **** me off i can fly over your house, jump out and land without you hearing me coming and then take you out from 200yards away in the bushes. LOL
H, you forgot aircraft (i have flown gliders solo in my youth), firearms (i am trained to military marksman standard) and skydiving (done a bit and son of british record holder) so if you really **** me off i can fly over your house, jump out and land without you hearing me coming and then take you out from 200yards away in the bushes.
LOL
12 July 2000, 01:44 PM
#58
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Classic Banta lads! LOL
Hey John, did n't recognise you at first the other day in your smart "work" gear - without the old cap, you must have been working undercover
H
BTW. When my Corrado developed running problems, poor mpg, hotter engine , sluggish response, as part of diagnosing the lambda problem I ran the car with it disconnected from the ECU for a while the result was the car behaved more like normal.
When I replaced the probe with a new one, having reset the ECU, I did a further check with the probe disconnected and again there wasn't much difference than with it connected, slight increase in fuel consumption, and slightly less repsonse of boost from the s-charger.
[This message has been edited by Howie (edited 12-07-2000).]
Hey John, did n't recognise you at first the other day in your smart "work" gear - without the old cap, you must have been working undercover
H
BTW. When my Corrado developed running problems, poor mpg, hotter engine , sluggish response, as part of diagnosing the lambda problem I ran the car with it disconnected from the ECU for a while the result was the car behaved more like normal.
When I replaced the probe with a new one, having reset the ECU, I did a further check with the probe disconnected and again there wasn't much difference than with it connected, slight increase in fuel consumption, and slightly less repsonse of boost from the s-charger.
[This message has been edited by Howie (edited 12-07-2000).]
12 July 2000, 04:16 PM
#59
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Umm, this is going to make me look really dumb, but how can you have less response from a supercharger? From a turbo, I could understand it, but a super is mechanically driven. Mebbe I'm just missing something....