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On 15 Oct 98, at 8:09, James MacNaughton wrote: > Righty-o. I am of the opinion, though, that while you won't necessarily > get any 'power' from super gas, most engines will run better. To continue > the simile line, if you eat chili dogs and soda you'll stay living, but a > balanced diet will make your digestive tract happier. It (higher RON) > also helps in extreme conditions; heat, big hills, etc. I'm reasonably > sure of this, but I will gladly stop roasting myself alive in the summer. There's no rational support for your opinion, but the gas companies will love you for it because you're one of those people who will volunteer to give them a bit more of their money for no real reason. Using higher octane gas when you don't need it also wastes resources because it takes more crude and/or energy to produce a gallon of 87 than a gallon of 91. Roasting yourself alive is pointless. Detonation is a low RPM phenomenum, even more common in a cold engine where the mixture is denser. Engine cooling has nothing to do with it, and even if it did, cooling the heat exchanger more or less has no effect on combustion chamber/head temps. Top this all off with the fact that turning on the heat in the interior doesn't even have an effect on heat exchanger temp. "Most" engines these days are configured to run just fine on 87 octane ([RON + MON) / 2] gas. Of course there are exceptions, but they are still exceptions. Our older cars are among the exceptions unless one has taken the prudent step of modifying the CR when the engine is rebuilt. If you think it is just being prudent, would you also recomend that I buy flood and hurricane insurance even though I don't live on a flood plane or near the east coast? My engine is 1600 cc, rather mildly modified, CR ~ 7.0, FI, stock cam, and yet I believe it will whip any 1600 on this list. Plus it is 5 years old and has another 10 good years on it (will probably need a valve job in 60k miles.) Jim - ******************************* Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, Wisconsin, USA ******************************* ------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe? mailto:type3-request@vwtype3.org, Subject: unsubscribe