Hot Rods What brand of Petrol do you prefer in your baby and what Grade?

I use Arco 87 mostly, but I sneak in 89 now and then just to let her know I still love her.

Afternoon edit: from (30) miles south of Seattle, (10) miles north of Tacoma, (1) mile west of I-5. Price of 87 @ Arco= $4.49 a gal.

 

87 from where ever it’s cheapest.

 

Chevron 94 with a splash of VP octane booster.

 

My Shoebox will run on darn near anything. So....whatever is cheap is what it gets.

 

93 octane because of the 12:1 compression ratio....

 

I haven't taken any of my cars to England, so I haven't given them any Petrol...

 

Oh such a proper answer Jim!

 

My 33 pickup and Taboo get premium and some booster due to the high compression they have. The 55 can run on mid grade. I prefer 76, but I use the grocery store Fred Meyer (Kroger) stations as they usually are the cheapest gas in town. Chevron is the mort expensive in town. Will never touch Shell.

 

Everything I own runs great on 87 octane. The few times I've ran a few tanks full of a higher octane back to back, just to check, the only effect was it cost me more money. It didn't effect how any of them ran.

In this day and age, I'm also not so sure there is much difference between the different brands, but some gas stations may have underground tank issues (if the station is very near a flood plane and the underground tanks would be below the water level, I'm probably doing a pass unless there is no other choice). I try real hard not to buy gas from any station that has a tanker filling up the underground tanks at the time. All lessons learned from the days I worked at the gas stations way back when, that still apply.

 

Why not? That would be a cool thread!
Dan

 

I don’t know what ”petrol” is but my 8.4-1 compression 56 Ford runs great on 87 octane gasoline. I add 1 oz of StarBrite additive with every tank because my carburetors were manufactured in 1953. I’ve never heard it ping so I’m guessing I’m ok.

 

I don't know how Arco is now but I haven't bought Arco in 30 years since I put some in my wife's 79 caprice ex cop car and couldn't pull the grade to Tieton, wa to get to work. Too many cars I have had wouldn't run on it here in the Valley. I did a test in the 90's and Arco cost me 2 mpg over Conoco running the same route every day to work. That was then, I don't know about now.
With my 48 with the 250 if it says gas on the pump it didn't care what brand or what grade as it was the least picky about gas engine I ever owned. 20 mpg on the highway on most anything.

My brother in law used to drive a fuel truck in the Seattle area and he says that your best bet for clean gas that won't screw up your ride is Costco. They are picky and don't let the drivers stick the tanks to keep contamination out. He said that unless you are desperate don't buy gas from the old gas stations now mini marts as that is where you get contaminated gas.
I'd actually have to go to town and count but 2.3 miles from the house there are 7 gas stations that all total around 100 rigs can fill up at one time. All are high volume stations with one being on the low price in the state list (#4 today) that all seem to have clean gas. My OT car that demands premium doesn't like the Chevron now Shamrock gas buy does great on Safeway or Conoco. That cheap gas at the Shamrock might come at a performance cost.

I've found in my travels that you don't want to buy gas at those cute little photo opp stations in out of the way places if you can help it, They usually have old tanks and don't have the volume to keep the freshest gas in the tanks.

 

"Jaded" gets Costco 87 octane. Flathead don't care...

 

87 No Alcohol.

 

Nitro

 

I run mine on 87. But, a couple stations are starting to carry 88, 15% ethanol, and it's a full 50 cents plus cheaper. With a 36 gallon tank in my F150, that makes a big difference. So, what the F150 gets, every thing else gets.

 

If you did you'd find that regular fuel is 95 octane, and 99 octane is available at Shell stations. Timely thread for me as I've been wondering about my new engine as I've been cheaping out with 95, which turns out to be more than sufficient! I can now find something else to ponder!

Chris

 

Europe, Australia and others have a different way of rating gasoline octane. Something with RON and MON ratings?

 

87 here. Nothing is high performance at my house, but only use 100% gas. I'm very traditional. The mower gets 100%, too

 

Here in Australia you get 91, 94, 95 or 98 depending on where you get it. Yes, we have PETROL because GAS is what comes out when you fart unless your schinter is dodgy and then you have a cleanup.
91 is usually the only one without ethanol but I've just found out if it's less than 10% they don't have to advertise it.

 

93 Sunoco. Or race gas at the track. I have also run her on Alcohol at the track.

 

I was using Avgas and Avgas blended with 98 because I drain the leftovers from my racecar.
We can now get 100 octane non ethanol at the pump so I'll switch over to that

Lately I have not been using my car so I now use the Avgas to run my Lawnmower and Line Trimmer.
[at least the smell of Avgas makes a tedious chore tolerable]

 

Whatever the motor will run on without knocking. Most of 'em will run on 'regular' (87-88 R+M/2) so that's what they get. Locally, I buy Safeway gas as it's nearly always the cheapest plus they do a high volume so the chances of old/contaminated gas are just about nil. Second choice is Chevron/Texaco, Shell or Arco is only when I have to. I stay away from most of the off-brand fuels.

The interesting thing is lower octane gas actually contains more energy than higher octane. The difference is made by the higher compression ratios on motors that need higher octane. I've seen a mileage improvement by switching to lower octane on some cars...

 

Whatever makes my car go "Vrooom Vrooom"!

 

Depends…preferably non-ethanol 87 in my 56, but 91 or better in my Chevelle. I don’t necessarily have a brand preference. I just mainly try to avoid ethanol blends if I can which is still fairly easy in my state.

 

Gee, thanks for bursting my bubble! Did some checking around and RON is a few clicks higher than MON, so at 95 plus (RON) were in the upper eighties of RON. But it's really just numbers, and if it's running good with no predetonation all should be good! Well, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it!

Chris

 

Ditto Steve ethanol doesn’t have as many BTUs per unit either although it has a higher octane rating. As octane goes up BTUs go down. Methane has an octane of 120 and propane I think is 112 but mpg goes down with these fuels, false economy. Personally I wouldn’t run ethanol mixed gas in an older engine unless it’s set to run ethanol. Farts are at 120 octane so feed your buddy Chile and park his ass over the carb, your car should run like the dickens.
Dan

 

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RON = research octane number
MON = motor octane number
The research number is derived from theoretical numbers from the fuel components ie; natural gasoline ISO butane etc. I think natural gasoline octane is in the 70s, fuel is run in a special engine ,compression is increased until detonation occurs , this becomes the MON, in the states I think Waukesha Engines produces all the MON engines.
In the US our octane is [RON + MON] /2.
Running more octane than is needed may cause a fuel economy drop , however not enough octane and we get the dreaded knock, ping , DETONATION, every ping or knock is damage happening. Burning a hole in piston just sucks.
Oh I use Kwik Trip gas 91 non alcohol for higher compression older engine and 87 e10 for late model junk.
Dan