Pump fuel vs Blue book race fuel
Discussion
Afternoon everyone,
Has anyone ever tested super unleaded pump fuel against say 100 RON Sunoco race fuel that is still classed as pump fuel in the MSA blue book?
I know it's only 1 RON more in most cases but seeing the huge cost increase to buy I am wondering if it's worth it for championships that are tightly regulated or one make championships with identical specs to make that little bit of difference?
Thank you
Has anyone ever tested super unleaded pump fuel against say 100 RON Sunoco race fuel that is still classed as pump fuel in the MSA blue book?
I know it's only 1 RON more in most cases but seeing the huge cost increase to buy I am wondering if it's worth it for championships that are tightly regulated or one make championships with identical specs to make that little bit of difference?
Thank you
It depends on your engine. Higher octane won’t make it produce any more power, but it MIGHT enable you to run a bit more advance, or run a higher compression ratio, which will give you more power.
If you are running a reasonably standard motor then it almost certainly won’t make a difference, if you have a highly modified knocker with sky high compression, chances are you won’t be able to run without it!
If you are running a reasonably standard motor then it almost certainly won’t make a difference, if you have a highly modified knocker with sky high compression, chances are you won’t be able to run without it!
bltamil1 said:
It depends on your engine. Higher octane won’t make it produce any more power, but it MIGHT enable you to run a bit more advance, or run a higher compression ratio, which will give you more power.
If you are running a reasonably standard motor then it almost certainly won’t make a difference, if you have a highly modified knocker with sky high compression, chances are you won’t be able to run without it!
Not too highly modified engine, intakes/full exhuasts & manifold and a control map as per regulations. I know the power improvements from lower RON to super 99 and seeing as for instance Sunoco CMR is 100RON and am allowed to use I wondered if even with a control map you would still get some improvements as there has been instances of people caught using 'proper race fuel' before so I simply assumed there must be some benefit to it otherwise why would people bother, if you see what I mean?If you are running a reasonably standard motor then it almost certainly won’t make a difference, if you have a highly modified knocker with sky high compression, chances are you won’t be able to run without it!
I used 100 octane race fuel rather than the usual Super Unleaded 98/99 octane. Not because I thought it gave me a performance advantage purely on the 1 or 2 octane and the oxygen content (I think there probably is a 4 or 5 hp in a 220hp engine) but because it's a known quantity.
Depending on the turnover of the station where you get the super unleaded from it can be sitting in the tanks for months and once it's pumped it's shelf life is far shorter than proper race fuel regardless of how old it was to start with.
I remember reading about an Isle of Man TT team that was struggling massively with the bikes down on power and it wasn't until they got them back to a dyno and tried different fuel that they realised the fuel they had bought from the station on the island was past it's best.
Yes it's a lot more expensive but a wasted weekends racing or a damaged engine is expensive as well.
Depending on the turnover of the station where you get the super unleaded from it can be sitting in the tanks for months and once it's pumped it's shelf life is far shorter than proper race fuel regardless of how old it was to start with.
I remember reading about an Isle of Man TT team that was struggling massively with the bikes down on power and it wasn't until they got them back to a dyno and tried different fuel that they realised the fuel they had bought from the station on the island was past it's best.
Yes it's a lot more expensive but a wasted weekends racing or a damaged engine is expensive as well.
JoelH said:
I used 100 octane race fuel rather than the usual Super Unleaded 98/99 octane. Not because I thought it gave me a performance advantage purely on the 1 or 2 octane and the oxygen content (I think there probably is a 4 or 5 hp in a 220hp engine) but because it's a known quantity.
Depending on the turnover of the station where you get the super unleaded from it can be sitting in the tanks for months and once it's pumped it's shelf life is far shorter than proper race fuel regardless of how old it was to start with.
I remember reading about an Isle of Man TT team that was struggling massively with the bikes down on power and it wasn't until they got them back to a dyno and tried different fuel that they realised the fuel they had bought from the station on the island was past it's best.
Yes it's a lot more expensive but a wasted weekends racing or a damaged engine is expensive as well.
That's a very good point actually that I hadn't considered. I normally use Shell V power as traditionally that was the highest regarded but not sure if that's still the case.Depending on the turnover of the station where you get the super unleaded from it can be sitting in the tanks for months and once it's pumped it's shelf life is far shorter than proper race fuel regardless of how old it was to start with.
I remember reading about an Isle of Man TT team that was struggling massively with the bikes down on power and it wasn't until they got them back to a dyno and tried different fuel that they realised the fuel they had bought from the station on the island was past it's best.
Yes it's a lot more expensive but a wasted weekends racing or a damaged engine is expensive as well.
My thought process was a grid of identical cars in tightly regulated identical spec could the race fuel make enough of a difference to make it worth while, just a little tiny extra performance. Similar power to you mentioned, 230 bhp K20
Just remembered that a book I used to have (Four Stroke Performance Tuning by Graham Bell) had a section on fuels and there was a comparison table there.
From memory he thought it only worth doing for performance if you were permitted to tune the engine for the fuel which might not be the case in a stock series.
From memory he thought it only worth doing for performance if you were permitted to tune the engine for the fuel which might not be the case in a stock series.
Eligibility scrute here
Talk to this guy – Anders Hildebrand
https://aaoil.co.uk/about-us/
He supplies many championships with fuel and knows the topic intimately.
In discussions with him in the past, extra octane fuel makes no difference unless, as stated above, the engine is modified to take it into account.
To run the sort of fuels you need to make any difference in power, you normally require a lot of additional things in the brew. Your fellow competitors will smell it and will then tell us if you are running something “of interest”.
Talk to this guy – Anders Hildebrand
https://aaoil.co.uk/about-us/
He supplies many championships with fuel and knows the topic intimately.
In discussions with him in the past, extra octane fuel makes no difference unless, as stated above, the engine is modified to take it into account.
To run the sort of fuels you need to make any difference in power, you normally require a lot of additional things in the brew. Your fellow competitors will smell it and will then tell us if you are running something “of interest”.
bucksmanuk said:
Eligibility scrute here
Talk to this guy – Anders Hildebrand
https://aaoil.co.uk/about-us/
He supplies many championships with fuel and knows the topic intimately.
In discussions with him in the past, extra octane fuel makes no difference unless, as stated above, the engine is modified to take it into account.
To run the sort of fuels you need to make any difference in power, you normally require a lot of additional things in the brew. Your fellow competitors will smell it and will then tell us if you are running something “of interest”.
Ah absolutely if running 'proper' race fuel. There was never an option - wouldn't go down that route as that's not in the regs. 100 Octane is allowed in the regs though so I was wondering if the jump from 99 to 100 Ron would actually make any difference. Like you say ideally we would be able to map for the fuel, unfortauntely there is a control map which is put on to make use of the engine mods allowed so it's not a standard map so I wonder if that would be enough to make use of the extra Octane anyway. Talk to this guy – Anders Hildebrand
https://aaoil.co.uk/about-us/
He supplies many championships with fuel and knows the topic intimately.
In discussions with him in the past, extra octane fuel makes no difference unless, as stated above, the engine is modified to take it into account.
To run the sort of fuels you need to make any difference in power, you normally require a lot of additional things in the brew. Your fellow competitors will smell it and will then tell us if you are running something “of interest”.
Tcars01 said:
Ah absolutely if running 'proper' race fuel. There was never an option - wouldn't go down that route as that's not in the regs. 100 Octane is allowed in the regs though so I was wondering if the jump from 99 to 100 Ron would actually make any difference. Like you say ideally we would be able to map for the fuel, unfortauntely there is a control map which is put on to make use of the engine mods allowed so it's not a standard map so I wonder if that would be enough to make use of the extra Octane anyway.
The only way you would see a benefit here is if the ECU is detecting any ‘knock’ and retarding the ignition to suit. I would say that’s pretty unlikely, but not impossible.If you have the time/resource you could put it on a rolling road that can interrogate the ECU to see what’s happening? But I’m not sure it’s worth the bother.
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