Standard Vs. Premium fuel

When i first got my F last week, as you would expect the tank was nearly empty. So off to the petrol station and for once i choose to give her some premium fuel, a little more money perhaps but ive always been given the idea that if it costs more it must be better. Got curious tonight while flicking around on youtube and found this which i thought may interest some of you. Needless to say, im still not sure weather the premium unleaded is better for my 1.8i or not

Won't make a lot of difference unless your car has been mapped for higher octane fuel..

Just watched another one also by 5th gear. Asda standard unleaded vs Shell V-power, end result? 5HP more on the rolling road. But the rather lovely vicki said its not enough to notice any difference and cost just shy of a fiver extra per tank.

As DD said, unless the car is mapped for it or you have a car capable of adjusting to the the higher octane then you are wasting your money.

I couldn't agree more with you. But there must be numerous people out there who use this fuel everyday not researching it and believing they are getting some kind of benefit from it.

One of my jap cars runs a jim wolf eprom in the ecu, run it on super unleaded it runs sweet.Run it on normal it pinks and pops.
YES I AM A FUEL FOOL.
MGF run fine on normal as we all know if running a standard ecu,guess what I am pointing at is horses for courses if you don't need it don't pay the extra for it.

My engine will run via an Emerald ECU.. And independent throttle bodies.. Not a stock engine..

When the car gets set up at Emerald I'm having it set up on 97 Ron fuel.. So yes I'll be sticking to higher octanes.. Yes the car will run on 95.. But will be set up for 97+

I believe Mark at Z&F can map the Mems3 ECUs for those wishing to us only 97 Ron..

But for older Mems cars.. No point using higher octane..

If I could get 99 octane easier I'd get the car set up on 99..

It's not just about octanes, the premium fuel normally has a lot more cleaning additives.

Richard

This post over on the F-Reg made me decide what fuel to put in our car:

http://www.mgfregister.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1970

:drive:

The above link covers the subject in wonderful detail.

in essence (see what I did there?) the car is set up for 95ron at best. The only advantage of higher grade fuel is the 'possibly' better additives.

So my advice is used a good quality 95 ron unleaded.

Many moons ago my missus had a bmw mini that was chipped, had induction kit and full s/steel exhaust system.

She ran it on V power or equivalent premium fuel and it ran sweet.

Once she had to put "normal" fuel in it and it ran like a dog!!

Back on V power and it was fine.

At the time I had a corsa C 1.8sri with just a McDonald's spec spud cannon and a drilled airbox with panel filter (don't ask ) with standard ecu and I tried a tank of V power and it was really bad performance wise.

When I had my vvc I put a tank of it through and although it didn't gain anymore power it seemed to run better when reverted back to regular petrol so my thoughts are it's good as a one off unless chipped and tuned stick to normal fuel but stick some in now and again.

Also, many many many moons ago I had a Morris marina 1.3hl that wouldn't run on esso fuel!!
Any other fuel and it was fine but put esso in and it'd cough n fart and wouldn't go above 70mph.

Strange.

I run the F on 95ron, normally Sainsburys as I collect the nectar points (paid for £1000 worth of electricals and 5 nights in European hotels and a tank of fuel so far) unless the car has been standing for a while. Then I will chuck in a tank of 98 or 99 ron fuel to bring the octane level back up a bit.

When driving in Europe, especially France I'll use the higher octane fuel as 95ron has a much higher level of bio ethanol than the UK and I'm convinced this was the main reason for the massive MOT emissions fail after the first euro road trip we made in the F.