87 Unleaded V.S 91/93 premium GAS

The ethanol is ruining lots of things. Neighbor had a big tree fell. he had a small chain saw, so I took my big Stihl over there. After I got it down and the trunk cleaned and sectioned he brought his little saw out. He fueled it up and it went right into the grass. The fuel lines simply disintegrated. I've fought this with my string trimmer fuel lines, blower fuel lines, etc. I try to find non-ethanol gas to keep in that stuff and I have had zero problems so long as I haven't violated my own rule. Alcohol and gasoline are different animals. I fly radio controlled model airplanes, and the silicone line we use for the normal ethanol-based model airplane fuel work perfectly until someone tries to (a) use that same fuel line for gasoline, which will dissolve it, or they use gasoline fuel line for the model airplane fuel, same result. E15 was apparently a way of subsidizing corn farmers at the motorist's expense. Just like the nonsensical R12 to R134a transition championed by Al Gore and his group of idiots.

 

It is burned in race cars, because it resists predetonation much better. But if you examine their flow rates, they pump a LOT of ethanol into an alcohol engine. It is just less likely to detonate under high boost or with nitrous, which is death to a drag racer. Friends of mine do this with Merc 2.5 outboards as well. But you certainly have to increase jet sizes significantly in a carb engine or modify the fuel curve an an EFI motor.

 

I have Stihl saws I cut around 10-15 cords of wood a year and have been for many years with the same saws. I fill my truck with 87 and the fuel cans for the saws at the same time I haven't had any problem with either of them. You do realize that module aircraft fuel is methanol based? Yep same basic stuff as ethanol. It depends on your line of thinking about whether or not things are nonsensical I'm guessing you don't have kids.

 

Same here. No problems using it in my Stihl lawn equipment.

And to stay on track, my truck was filled with 93 and there is absolutely no difference. Theres no way someone can feel a difference in a stock truck using 87 vs 93.

 

You can buy non-ethanol gas at non marina's in Florida but you pay for it. My outboard motor (old) cannot deal with ethanol but someone better post something with more then "my truck runs better and sounds better" with documentation because bottom line higher octane fuel burns slower then lower and the ECU just adjusts so uh, if our manual says 87 is cool then why spend $ for ?? where exactly is this performance incentive/ and or mileage increase.

 

The only difference they feel is in their wallet. Less weight in the wallet makes their truck feel faster.

 

ethanol

 

Amen

-Spoken by corn farmers nationwide

 

I buy 91 cause ethanol free

 

I would too if there was a station around here, ethanol everywhere unfortunately.

 

I put premium 91 octane in my truck last fill up for shits and giggles and got 16.5mpg. I usually use regular 87 octane and get 15.5mpg. Not sure, but I'm willing to bet the premium doesn't have ethanol. The price to mpg difference really negates what grade I choose. However one thing is certain, Tacomas dislike ethanol.

 

Yes, sorry. Methanol. My Stihl seems to tolerate E15 just fine. My honda string trimmer did NOT. I simply have to replace both lines (the one with clunk/filter and the return line) every couple of years. Ditto for my leaf blower.

Boats have had massive problems, particularly older ones that were built prior to the E15 invasion.

BTW I have two kids, although both are grown. The model airplanes have been MY hobby. R/C electric helicopters as well.

I can tell you that Poulan doesn't like E15. Brother-in-law owns one. Told him to just buy a spool of that tiny fuel line. My neighbor had a saw that was red, but I didn't notice the brand. I suppose either Echo or Craftsman or something else. Last time I fixed my honda blower they gave me an option for a new "improved" fuel line specifically developed for oxygenated fuels. I'll bet it was specifically developed to improve their bottom line because it was more expensive. I just did this last Summer, so it will take at least 2-3 years before I know whether I was a genius or an idiot for buying it.

 

Look up "the placebo effect." It will explain all. Any change you make will seem to help, if you really want it to. If you look objectively, you get a different picture. The human mind is a strange thing.

 

The benefit is knock resistance. Which actually will let the ECU advance the spark a bit more and improve torque/HP. Not a huge difference. But one you can probably measure. Is it worth it? Absolutely not in terms of pure dollars and cents. However there have been some good tests on a corvette that showed the difference quite clearly. 1/4 mile E.T.s were quite a bit worse with lower octane.

Of course we don't have that kind of compression nor horsepower to make it so noticeable.

 

The ECU has tables written into the timing advance/retard it only can go from X to X it does not add timing advance by its self the term "learning" is inaccurate it adapts it does not learn it has no artificial intelligence it only adapts to written tables. By using 93 does not necessarily mean it will adjust the timing upwards the only time it really deals with it is when it detects a ping and then it retards the timing till it goes away. Emissions are far more important to Toyota than a timing tweak for more power. Toyota has not and most likely will not say what the “flash” does but I’m betting it has a lot to do with the transmission shifting and lockup. I have not heard of many with 6spds complaining about pinging.

 

I'm a computer person by trade, been teaching computer science for 40+ years now. While I would not call what the ECU does as "learning" it CAN modify its behavior to match your driving. Then when you shut it off and restart, it doesn't have to start from scratch, but uses past history rather than watching, measuring and modifying things. Many vehicles do this. Drive 'em hard, they will shift hard, shift later, etc. Drive 'em easy and they will shift early and softly. For gas, however, this is not about "pseudo-machine-learning" at all, it simply gets a signal from the knock piezo and retards the spark until it disappears. Sort of like you might react with no cruise control and start up a hill. You would respond as needed with your right foot to hold speed.

We could spend the rest of the day quibbling about the term "artificial intelligence". As a computer scientist, I generally consider that an oxymoron. "machine intelligence" perhaps. No, these things do NOT react to things outside of their sphere of influence, like humans do. There are simply tables of things and it does nothing more than take a sensor input and look up what to do, or sometimes a couple of sensor reading to probe into a two-dimensional table to determine what action(s) are necessary. Amazingly sophisticated ideas in amazingly simple programming models.

If something changes (for the better or worse) depending on current circumstances, rather than just following a fixed "recipe" I would think you might get by calling that "intelligent" in some sense of the word.

 

Hi everybody, I just added Techron along with "unleaded plus" (89 octane) for the first time and I have to admit I did feel the truck "get up and go" on the freeway. I used this mixture for the first time to clean my fuel injectors and I have to admit I did feel a positive difference on engine performance. Am I going to continue using "unleaded plus"? That all depends on gas prices but for now this is was all done for preventative maintenance to clean my fuel injectors....that is all

 

Can't hardly compare a Vette engine to a Taco. I have to run high octane in my Mercury outboard with milled heads but we are talking 140 lbs compression. Running high octane in a Taco is just feeding the oil companies.

 

140 doesn't sound like milled heads. My 2.5 v6 block had 150 or so with stock heads. I replaced them with land and sea dual plug heads with 165psi, premium required, not optional...

Nobody is going to "feel the difference" between 87, 89, 92 or even 120 octane racing fuel in a Taco motor. That is called "the placebo effect" in that you feel what you want to feel or what you expect to feel, even if it is absolutely the same...

 

I never use anything over 87,especially at these prices.I have about 800 hours on a 50HP Yamaha outboard(2-cycle)and never had a fuel problem.I just run ring-free as needed.Someone that works on outboards told me that premium fuel use can lead to excessive carbon deposits in a motor that does not require it.I would love to find non-oxy 87,but not around here in WI.