Rise of gas prices and tuning

Sonic04GT · Mar 24, 2011

Anybody revert their 93 tune back to 87 due to ridiculous prices? I've seen $4.15 for 93 around here. I haven't even been to the track since I got my car dyno tuned, and I'm pretty sure all the adjustments were made for WOT.

What do you guys think?

Deleted member 38176 · Mar 24, 2011

Yup. I went back to the performance tune back around late February when 93 hit $4/gal. Hell, I sometimes put regular unleaded in with the performance tune. Gas prices are killing me.

txredgt · Mar 25, 2011

I've found that the Bama tunes are pretty conservative which isn't a bad thing for the DD. I have been using the 91 tune and using 89 in it and 0 problems. I have even used a tank of 87 but I try to keep it at 89. 93 right now is too high on my lack of cash.

PULMEOVR · Mar 25, 2011

Gas prices are the reasons why I haven't tuned my car. Gas prices here are about $4.66/gallon for 87. $5.22/gallon for 91. It's ridiculous.

Deleted member 38176 · Mar 25, 2011

PULMEOVR said:
Gas prices are the reasons why I haven't tuned my car. Gas prices here are about $4.66/gallon for 87. $5.22/gallon for 91. It's ridiculous.

LOL damn, you win.

BlownStangGT · Mar 25, 2011

Ill be putting 93 in my car....stopped driving my truck to work and back unless its raining and started driving my car. I find it funny reading old threads on guys n/a with bolt ons getting tons worse mpg then my blown car gets lol

nancygrl · Mar 25, 2011

Glad we don't live in Europe. I did some quick checking and conversions and they're paying $8.99/gallon for their 98 octane and $8.84/gallon for their low grade 95 octane.

N8Dogg98 · Mar 25, 2011

I am going to be getting a tune after my cam install and since I don't DD my car I really don't care much about 91 prices. That said, I've considered doing an e85 conversion

e85 is only $2.76 around here and you have the added benefit of the 100+ octane rating.

Dark04GT · Mar 25, 2011

Sonic04GT said:
Anybody revert their 93 tune back to 87 due to ridiculous prices? I've seen $4.15 for 93 around here. I haven't even been to the track since I got my car dyno tuned, and I'm pretty sure all the adjustments were made for WOT.

What do you guys think?

My tuner told me w/ my 93 tune that if I was willing to drive like I cared about saving gas money (he had me cracking up when he said that)(definition: sub ~3.5k rpm, nice smooth steady starts) than at stock compression our cars run just fine with 87- in otherwords- no need for a separate 87 tune. I made a 1000 mile trip with the cruise control set just a couple weeks ago entirely on 87 after he told me that and I saved a couple bucks.

From that, I think if you follow the same advise with your bolton car you should have no problems with lower octane. But that being said- every tune is different, it would probably be a good idea to run it by your tuner and see what they think, just spreading what I've heard and seen.

I am going to be getting a tune after my cam install and since I don't DD my car I really don't care much about 91 prices. That said, I've considered doing an e85 conversion

e85 is only $2.76 around here and you have the added benefit of the 100+ octane rating.

Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't E85 have much less energy per unit volume than gas? I have read that w/ E85 you should expect the loss of a couple mpg so the savings at the pump and the power gains (being NA) may not be as much as you think. I think the midwest is trying to trick us all with their wonderfully high octane promises!

Deleted member 38176 · Mar 25, 2011

Dark04GT said:
Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't E85 have much less energy per unit volume than gas? I have read that w/ E85 you should expect the loss of a couple mpg so the savings at the pump and the power gains (being NA) may not be as much as you think. I think the midwest is trying to trick us all with their wonderfully high octane promises!

You're correct. E85 contains less combustible energy as gasoline per unit of volume. E85 may offer a bit more power since it's so highly oxygenated, but MPG's are horrible and it may actually end up costing you more money in the long run as opposed to regular gasoline.

Sonic04GT · Mar 25, 2011

Thanks for the input! Do you guys forsee any issues doing a roadtrip on a canned Diablo 87 tune with longtubes? Is Air/Fuel an issue with the LTs or is that minimal?

Dark04GT, what about going WOT? There's gotta be some point where you'll want to floor it driving 2600 miles round trip haha Does he still feel it'll be ok filling 87 on the 93 tune?

kyle_99gt · Mar 26, 2011

Your all lucky you dont live in canada gas price is over $1.30 a liter here in vancover right now for regular 87. Which is like 4.92 a gallon and that was a week ago when i filled up im scared to look at what its now.

Dark04GT · Mar 26, 2011

Sonic04GT said:
Thanks for the input! Do you guys forsee any issues doing a roadtrip on a canned Diablo 87 tune with longtubes? Is Air/Fuel an issue with the LTs or is that minimal?

Dark04GT, what about going WOT? There's gotta be some point where you'll want to floor it driving 2600 miles round trip haha Does he still feel it'll be ok filling 87 on the 93 tune?

Haha, no WOT on 87 for me. If I start having that feeling then I fill up the tank w/ premium and have a couple bursts of fun. On long trips it is not a big deal just to cruise. Around town in San Antonio I can't stand driving slow especially with everyone sucking at driving, I fill up with premium every time when I am home.

bhuff30 · Mar 26, 2011

Just this month, I was running E85 for a couple tanks. I got 19.8 mpg on E85, and my normal is 21 mpg on 87 octane. While this is the winter blend of E70, it is still at least 70% ethanol. That is a loss of less than 10% in mileage. So if E85 is 10% or less expensive than 87 octane, it is worth it. If you compare that to premium, then the difference is even more aggressive. Especially considering E85 has an octane of 105. Around here, E85 is 2.89 while regular gas is 3.49. That's right around the 10% break even point. If you enjoy an aggressive tune which requires premium, then E85 is quickly more economical.

I didn't loose as much mileage as I expect actually. I've read studies that show E85 can improve the burn characteristics such that you get a more complete burn. That will result in improved gas mileage. If you actually tune for E85 by increasing the compression and timing advance, then you could recover nearly all of the mileage loss.

Nightfire said:
You're correct. E85 contains less combustible energy as gasoline per unit of volume. E85 may offer a bit more power since it's so highly oxygenated, but MPG's are horrible and it may actually end up costing you more money in the long run as opposed to regular gasoline.

03_TrueBlue_GT · Mar 26, 2011

All of February I had the car on the 93 tune and I loved it... THen when gas started going up to $3.50 or so I switched to 87 and used that tune for about 2 weeks in March... God I hated it, felt like the car was such a slug.. I guess I had gotten used to the 93 tune so much lol.. Also I noticed I was getting the same mileage and nothing better than the 93 tune, except on the highway but I think that was my driving habits... So i said fuggit and went back to 93 tune at $3.59 a gallon... Only cost me 49 bucks to fill up when the low fuel light cam on... *btw as soon as it cam on I topped the tank off so dont worry* So I figure Im driving a mustang not a prius, i own it to have fun end of story..

04GTMustang · Mar 28, 2011

ehhhh gas prices dont bother me. Im actually selling my mercedes and putting more money into the stang and will just drive that as a commuter car. I do have a bike to for the nice days. Might as well just hammer on it and drive it with the 93 tunes because gas prices are not gonna come down a whole lot with this finally finishes. this is a trend with gas prices they sky rocket everyone freaks then it drops slightly then we relax with the higher than before permanent price.

Just drive your cars cause its gonna stay this way from now on you will probably always see premium fuel in the upper $3 mark.

and I agree with 03 trueblue GT he is right on that we own mustangs not civics lol

bhuff30 · Mar 28, 2011

That's exactly the attitude that I think most people in this country take. Just look at sales vs price and thus far, there has been little effect on sales as the price has doubled and even tripled from 15 years ago. However, I would say that is completely the wrong attitude to take. Expect prices to increase because demand is increasing, but production isn't. There is a limited amount of oil on this planet and we are using it quite quickly. Yes, there are still a lot of oil sources out there, but they are getting more and more difficult to access and suck the oil from economically.

Personally, I am looking at alternatives so I am not stuck paying rediculous prices as politics, economics and wars have their way with gas prices. While I don't see electric or hybrid vehicles as being cost effective or fun, there is some good stuff going on with turbochargers and direct injection. I've also tuned for and run E85 in the vehicles I have.

04GTMustang said:
ehhhh gas prices dont bother me. Im actually selling my mercedes and putting more money into the stang and will just drive that as a commuter car. I do have a bike to for the nice days. Might as well just hammer on it and drive it with the 93 tunes because gas prices are not gonna come down a whole lot with this finally finishes. this is a trend with gas prices they sky rocket everyone freaks then it drops slightly then we relax with the higher than before permanent price.

Just drive your cars cause its gonna stay this way from now on you will probably always see premium fuel in the upper $3 mark.

and I agree with 03 trueblue GT he is right on that we own mustangs not civics lol

patman0911 · Mar 28, 2011

bhuff30 said:
Just this month, I was running E85 for a couple tanks. I got 19.8 mpg on E85, and my normal is 21 mpg on 87 octane. While this is the winter blend of E70, it is still at least 70% ethanol. That is a loss of less than 10% in mileage. So if E85 is 10% or less expensive than 87 octane, it is worth it. If you compare that to premium, then the difference is even more aggressive. Especially considering E85 has an octane of 105. Around here, E85 is 2.89 while regular gas is 3.49. That's right around the 10% break even point. If you enjoy an aggressive tune which requires premium, then E85 is quickly more economical.

I didn't loose as much mileage as I expect actually. I've read studies that show E85 can improve the burn characteristics such that you get a more complete burn. That will result in improved gas mileage. If you actually tune for E85 by increasing the compression and timing advance, then you could recover nearly all of the mileage loss.

If I were building an engine, and I was reasonably sure that the ethanol lobby was going to be successful in keeping it in the pumps and cheap, I'd be tempted to build a really high compression motor to take advantage of it.

In the mean time, I'm not backing down my timing for 87. There's not a big enough spread in price between regular and premium to worry about the dollar or two it adds to a fill-up. I save a lot more by not leaving work at lunch time in the car and walking or taking the campus busses - I can double up those savings by bringing a lunch with me and not eating out at all.

Sonic04GT · Mar 31, 2011

Well my only issue is, I really don't think I'm gaining much performance-wise on the 93 tune. The dyno numbers seemed pretty damn close before and after, but I'm also a noob.

Then again, maybe he messed around with some stuff in the tune before I saw the first numbers, and the second run was a little more tweeking that didn't affect the power much.

bhuff30 · Mar 31, 2011

When advancing the timing, there is certainly a diminishing returns effect. The first few degrees of advance you add in, you may get 2-4hp per degree of timing and still be perfectly fine running 87 octane. As you keep adding more timing, you gain less per degree of timing... so maybe you would gain .2-.5hp per degree. At this point, it isn't worth trying to gain the last 1-2hp by increasing the timing, but I suspect a lot of the '93' tunes do just that and require the higher octane gas. In that respect, you might be surprised how much power you gain from an aggressive 87 octane tune, and how little gain you would see beyond that taking 93 octane to the limit (talking about fixed compression, NA engines). Personally, I try to tune mine to the limit of 87 octane, but it's a daily driver and not a toy.

Rise of gas prices and tuning

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