Station with >92 Octane in Twin Cities?

[jimberg]

Does anyone know of gas stations that carry more than 92 octane in the Twin Cities area? Preferably the northwest suburbs.

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351W 89 Mustang GT Convertible

[Rev]

Jimberg, if there are any drag strips close to you, they will usually have race gas of varying octane. Maybe 100-106. Do you really need it?

Rev

[jimberg]

We have no dragstrips nearby.

I'd be happy with 93 or 94 octane just for a little extra insurance.

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351W 89 Mustang GT Convertible

[Unit 5302]

There is a Holiday east of the 55/494 junction at Campus Drive. Hehe, it carries E85. Technically, that has a higher octane number than 92, although if you actually could run your car on it, I wouldn't recommend it.

[PKRWUD]

Jim,
You don't have any dirt circle track racing? Sprint cars? IMCA Modifieds? There's gotta be a track somewhere! Sprints and Mods run Alcohol, but Street Stocks run 110 octane. They'll have it.

Take care
~Chris

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Retired Moderator
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[Skeeter]

Try http://www.knight-rider.org/mn-dsm/local.html
There's a list of gas stations about half way down the page. I don't know how acurate the list is, but you could always call some of them.

[Unit 5302]

Originally posted by PKRWUD:
Jim,
You don't have any dirt circle track racing? Sprint cars? IMCA Modifieds? There's gotta be a track somewhere! Sprints and Mods run Alcohol, but Street Stocks run 110 octane. They'll have it.

Take care
~Chris

The closest circle track to him is undoubtedly Princeton. What's that, maybe 40mi? As far as drag strips, Rock Falls, WI, Brainard International Raceway, and Moorhead are the closest that I know of. They are all between 2 and 3+hrs away.

[jimberg]

True, Unit. Doesn't it suck here?

I'm just looking for a little more octane that's close by. I don't need racing fuel or anything.

Skeeter, thanks for the tip. I still haven't been able to connect, though.


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351W 89 Mustang GT Convertible

[Rev]

Jimberg, I was looking at your user rides specs. I couldn't see why you need more than the 92 octane. Does the car ping or do you suspect detonation at WOT when you can't hear it? Any signs of detonation on the spark plugs? Why do you think yo need the extra octane? What's the compression ratio (static)? Sorry for all the questions but they just came to mind.

Rev

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'66 Coupe, 306, 300 HP, C-4, 13.97 e.t., 100.3 mph
1/4 mi.

[This message has been edited by Rev (edited 08-20-2001).]

[jimberg]

Rev, I've recently noticed something that sounds like pinging. It will usually occur when it's hot out, the engine temp is up, and I'm in fourth gear starting to accelerate (WOT) at like 2500 rpms. If I just took off like I was in a race or something, there's no problem that I can hear. My plugs always look fine when I take them out.

One big change I've made recently is that I use Amoco Ultimate instead of the Sinclair non-oxygenated premium. I can't say for sure if the change coincides with the occurance of the problem.

I figured that getting higher octane fuel would at least help me isolate it to the engine and not just some external rattling somewhere. I was hoping that someone would have a quick answer and I'd just go get a fill up there and see how it works.

Skeeter, BTW, gave me a great web site. There's a station with unleaded 100 octane about 7 minutes away from where I work. I'm hoping that it's just pure gasoline, and if it is, should I just try it out once and see if there is an improvement? And if there is, I can start figuring out what to do about it so I can use the 92 octane.

I kept my compression fairly low with the idea of going with a power adder at some point, so it's 9.4:1 or thereabouts. My base timing is at 14 right now giving me total timing of 34. Trick Flow recommends 34-36 so I would like to try to move to 16 at some point or at least take it to a dyno and see what timing gives me the best performance.

I am also just curious if any stations have better than 92. For some reason all the stations in the north suburbs of Chicago carry 93 octane while Twin Cities stations only have 92.

Thanks for any help you guys can offer.

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351W 89 Mustang GT Convertible



[This message has been edited by jimberg (edited 08-21-2001).]

[jimberg]

That 100 octane gas is $2.99 a gallon. Hmmmm.... I don't think I will try it.

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351W 89 Mustang GT Convertible

[Unit 5302]

Switch back to the non-oxy fuel. You'll pick up fuel economy, and it could very well be the reason your car started pinging.

The Super America in Champlin offers premium non-oxy as well.

When they say oxygenated it really means "ethanol 10%+". Since ethanol has roughly 1/2 the energy that gasoline does, when you use a 10% ethanol blend, you're actually running 5% leaner. That coincides with a drop in fuel economy for EFI cars as the computer compensates. Or new pistons if you have a snowmobile or other 2cyl engine.

Ethanol is garbage. Totally useless, except as a renewable reasource. Since we live in a state chock full of corn farmers, getting rid of the oxy fuel is pretty damn hard, the farmers really like those artificial subsidies.

[jimberg]

I think I will, Unit. I did notice that fuel economy drop whenever I tried something like Blue Earth at Holiday. I stopped using the Sinclair stuff because there is this annoying ricer guy who keeps asking when I plan to paint my car and they don't take Diners Club.

That site of Skeeter's has a list of all the non-oxy stations in our area. It's pretty cool.


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351W 89 Mustang GT Convertible

[Skeeter]

Unit - thanks for the info on oxygenated vs. non-oxygenated. One of my friends has a sled (Arctic Cat) w/ a setting to switch between the two. He always had to switch it up north bc alot of the gas up there is non. We were trying to figure out the diff last winter. Thanks. Does it have to be labeled one way or the other at the pump? I've never really paid attention.

[302 LX Eric]

jimberg - There are no Sunoco or Shell gas stations in your area? Here in Columbus, these stations all carry 93 oct. (Shell) and 94 oct. (Sunoco). Good luck.

E

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1991 5.0 LX Coupe - 38,000 miles

13.17 @ 106.14 mph w/ 2.138 60'

[Rev]

Thanks jiomberg for the explanation. Have not had any experience so far with "gas-o-hol".

I did try a home made "methanol injection system" on my carbureted 306. Didn't really hurt, but didn't give the results I had hoped for either. Cost me $100 and a few hours, nothing big.

If it sounds like detonation, I would be really careful. You, and the rest of us, know that it can be a killer.

Rev

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'66 Coupe, 306, 300 HP, C-4, 13.97 e.t., 100.3 mph
1/4 mi.

[Unit 5302]

Originally posted by Skeeter:
Unit - thanks for the info on oxygenated vs. non-oxygenated. One of my friends has a sled (Arctic Cat) w/ a setting to switch between the two. He always had to switch it up north bc alot of the gas up there is non. We were trying to figure out the diff last winter. Thanks. Does it have to be labeled one way or the other at the pump? I've never really paid attention.

The pumps that dispense non-oxy (good) gas are labled on the pump itself. That is required by law. It will have a white label next to the premium octane dispensing gun. It will read "The gas dispensed from this nozzle is not oxygenated and is intended for use in off road vehicles only, or in collector cars." Or something to that effect.

Here's the scoop on Minnesota's clean air acts and what non in regards to Oxy fuels.

You may have noticed recently that emissions testing here in the metro has been discontinued. That is because federal testing of our air has determined that we have a low enough level of pollutants present that we no longer qualify for the manditory emissions testing.

The state had originally decided ethanol was the key to help lower emissions, and clean the air. Mostly due to lobbying from whiney farmers. The truth is ethanol does NOT help emissions. It's true, gallon for gallon, ethanol pollutes 1/2 as much as gasoline, but as I stated earlier, and will restate now, ethanol only has 1/2 the energy of gas. Which means you burn 2x the ethanol with has 1/2 the pollutants by volume burned, giving you 2/1 x 1/2 = 1 or 100% the same amount of pollution. All you are doing is burning more volume of fuel. In that case, really you are adding MORE greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere than you would by burning straight gasoline. On another side note, this "reformulated gas" gives the oil refinery's and producers an added excuse when they price gouge us. I know, we've had a debate on this before. Bottom line is, here in MN gas at the pump is $1.59 for 87. I just got back from Oklahoma, gas there is $1.27 for 87. Our $1.59 would, as in the past 3 times, instantly drop 20-30 cents per gallon as soon as somebody in congress babbles about investigation into this matter.

Back to MN. Minnesota passed a state law requiring oxy fuels in addition to the federal requirement placed on us during the emissions testing period. Now the federal government has lifted it's requirement of oxy fuels here, but, the state law is still in effect, which is why we get oxy fuels here right now. The reason some "few" stations in the metro currently offer non-oxy fuels was because a lot of people know the truth and hate them, the state then granted exemptions to a few metro gas stations to sell non-oxy fuel.

Ethanol affects 2 stroke engines more profoundly than 4 stroke engines because of the way 2 strokes work. Not only are two strokes FAR more likely to burn a hole in the piston when running lean (simply because they fire every time) but they are also more tempermental in general when it comes to air/fuel ratio's. Arctic Cat, the only sled maker that seems to have mastered the use of EFI on it's products has a switch for that specific reason. No matter how many times the ethanol people will jump up and down saying ethanol doesn't burn sleds down, no matter what lobbiest runs around screaming bloody murder when that point is brought up, people on the inside know. I've seen my share of burnt down sleds that were running ethanol, that had never had a problem before. You take a nice -20* day and a sled jetted for 0*, add in ethanol and you go from lean to new engine real quick. In Arctic Cat's case, they even knew the EFI engines were subject to that, even with their computers adjusting for air temp. Before they offered the switch, you could buy and aftermarket chip for the EFI sleds, dating back to 1992 (first real year for their EFI).

Ethanol isn't an answer to pollution, it's simply a way to send a kickback (subsidy) to the farmers who can no longer compete in a capitalist marketplace. If you live here, you know how fast land value is skyrocketing, and how large companies buy up farmland and increase the efficiency of those fields resulting in very low profit, but huge revenue to compensate. Based on those two problems, MN small town farmers can't compete, unfortunately, that's the name of the game in capitalism.