Fuel these days... - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

10-06-2009, 02:29 PM

We keep a drum of race fuel at the shop for a customer who drives a 700 HP 964 Turbo we built. Even he could probably get by on premium pump fuel in it's current tune, but there's certainly nothing to be gained by running a higher octane than what is needed.

HDManny · 10-07-2009, 06:24 PM

I used to get gas at a Sam's Club by my wife's work but they finally went with the 10% ethanol blended gas. I started to keep track of the type of gas I was using when my gas mileage started decreasing. The 10% ethanol gas reduced my mileage by almost 10% compared to straight gas and I found that others had discovered this also. I found this was the same with my motorcycles and one the bikes started acting up when cold, which it never had previously. What I don't really understand is, why the gas with ethanol costs the same as the gas without.

jmatta · 10-07-2009, 06:51 PM

There is a Tri-Par station on the way to Elkhart Lake WI (Road America) that I frequent every trip from northern Illinois in one of the P cars...around town it's Shell V-Power. The Box S likes it as does the '73 with carbs.

Thanks for the link...good stuff to know.

dbw · 10-08-2009, 03:01 AM

I got my 2004 Box last May and since that time have put on 22000 km. I have kept track of every single fill up. Normally here in Winnipeg I use Co-op gas because in Feb they send you a rebate cheque which last year I beleive was for approx $.16 a litre. Anyway, where I am going with this is I recently did a 5500 km road trip over two weeks and I noticed when using Shell I got at least 10% more range (10% less fuel burn) on a tank. I used Sunoco 94 in Ontario where there iss no ethenol in the hi-test and got just as good if not better - the Sunoco was hard to find. Soon as I got back to Winnipeg back to the Co-op gas and my range on a tank dropped 10%. Interesting. Maybe it isn't such a deal.

On another road trip last winter I took my Acura TSX and in one state (WI?) there is ethenol in hi-test and my range dropped 10-15% and picked back up again after I was able to get fuel without ethenol.

My thoughts are that ethenol is crap. If polutants released into the air is a product of volume burned these days then with ethenol you are putting 10 - 15% more into the atmosphere and increasing your fuel costs by a similar amount. No saving anywhere that I can see.