$15 a Gallon.... from the local gas station

[73tiiDavidPA]

Never seen this before, at a local gas station that is.  I've seen race fuel at the track, right out of the pump, but also no 118 octane.  I do live near a drag strip (Darlington, SC) is about 10 miles away.  I think it really just more of a promo / marketing / brand thing for Sunoco.  

 

Wonder how it would run in the tii.... ?  Not even sure what the octane was back in '72 - '74

 

(the 118 octance can of 5 gallons was like $78)

[jrhone]

On an older car you may notice no difference or it may run a bit better or even worse...the reason is your tune, advance etc...would need to be adjusted to take the extra octane into consideration and get full benefit from it.  Its why I run the supreme gas, its tuned for that.  Now on modern cars, the ECU may advance the timing enough to benefit from it.  I used to put race fuel from the pump in my Porsche 996 occasionally.  Absolutely made 10% more HP.  Not that it really needed it.  

[Simeon]

Remember, higher octane fuel is actually harder to ignite. If you don't need it and can't use it then it won't help anything. Most likely to give you a bad idle. 

[markmac]

I used to fuel up my 73 tii that had AlpinA fuel injection and 300 sport cam at a 76 station down near John Wayne Airport (Orange County, CA for those not familar).  That car loved it with 10.0 CR pistons.  You can get it still at the pump in various locations. This is a listing for some of the locals in SoCal,...more than a few outdated and many not there now....still, you can still get the stuff if you want it. I am sure there is something similar for other states/locations.

 

http://www.davebarton.com/Unleaded_Racing_Fuel_in_SoCal.

Edited May 8, 2017 by markmac

[Preyupy]

You can't legally run that in a street driven car ( doesn't mean we don't) there is no highway tax on that plus it has a lot of lead in it. Unless you are having detonation issues with your current tune and fuel the best this will do for you is run just as good as it does on your current fuel. The fuel it's self does not make any more power (well maybe about 1.5% more because of the lack of the ethanol).  Unless you are up well over 11.5:1 in compression ratio or blowing a lot of boost you can't efficiently utilize more than about 100 octane.

 

 If you have a new car that has active knock sensors and O2 sensors that constantly try to run the engine as lean as possible with as much ignition advance ( on the ragged edge of detonation at all times) as possible then you might see a slight improvement because the ECU will keep trying to keep it on the edge and will probably advance the timing a lot. 

 

We we used to have a small generator we took in the race car trailer just in case we needed lights for a late night engine swap or to charge a battery if there was no ground power available. We ran it out of gas and all we had was 108 race fuel.  It started and ran just fine when it was hot. Next time we needed it it would not start cold, we changed the fuel and it lit right up, not enough compression or spark when cold to fire the fuel. 

 

I just happen to have a chassis dyno at my disposal and have tried my 1999 Ford V10 tow vehicle (rated to run on regular unleaded) on regular 87 octane, mid grade 89 octane, and premium 93 octane (all with 10% ethanol) and have found less than a 5 hp difference from top to bottom ( this is less than a 1.5% change and less than the margin of error based on the dyno accuracy)

 

Edited May 8, 2017 by Preyupy