Gas. No Premium. Help

[AxiOn419]

For those of you living in Georgia, or the southeast for that matter, you know that at the moment there is a gas shortage. In my area, it is near impossible to find a gas station that actually has gas. If you do find a gas station that has gas, the lines are RIDICULOUSLY long.

Here is my situation:

I am currently on or right below E. I know this means I have about ~1 gallon of gas left. If I find a gas station with gas and all they have available is regular unleaded gas (no premium), what should I do? I have heard that stations are only getting shipments of regular, not premium. I sure as hell do not want to get regular and run it in my rb20. I am quite certain there is no knock sensor that will adjust the timing accordingly, right? Without the timing being adjusted accordingly I would get detonation on my cylinder heads which = holes on top of my cylinders.

Is octane booster that they sell at Autozone and Advance Auto a viable option? Not really sure how good of an alternative that is.

Yeah I know I should not have run my tank down so far but I did, cant change that now. Usually it would not be a huge deal but with this gas shortage (no premium) it puts me in a bad situation.

Thanks for any advice.

AxiOn

[240z4u]

I had the same thing happen, except I was very tired and not paying attention. I put freaking 89 in my car.

No problems, drive like an old lady and you will be fine. How hot is ambient temperature there right now?

If you have a boost controller, back off the boost as much as you can. Stay OUT of boost as much as possible. Don't climb long hills that will bring up EGT's and could invoke knock.

I am assuming your on a stock ecu? It will pull timing on its own from what I understand.

Evan

[gawdzilla]

87 should work, just give it 1/4 throttle max, putt around and don't build any boost. if it knocks your stock ecu will pull timing, but i wouldn't test that feature if i were you

[Sil240]

Yeah I would just put regular or the highest you can get and just be easy on the boost.

Those "Octane boosters" Are all crap read the package.They increase a "point" which is like .10 of a actual octane point (ie 87-89)Big waste of $$$If I were you I'd look into Toluene.I read about it a year or 2 back.There's a thread on here about it.

[mello88]

Go research how to mix your own high octane, out of 87 pump plus Xylene or Toulene. You can buy at Home Depot, etc, but it's pretty expensive.

Alternatively you could probably retard your timing via the CAS and run on 87, albeit with less power. I wouldn't suggest that method though.

[AxiOn419]

Thanks for all of the replys guys.

Yes I am running a stock tune on a stock ECU. Ambient temp lately has been anywhere from 60-85f. I really do not care to test the ECU's timing adjustment feature, I did not realize it had one. My assumption was that the rb20 does not have a knock sensor which is how the ECU would get the information about knock and then adjust the timing accordingly. I have seen a couple gas trucks drive by lately so I will just hope they have some premium after I wait in line for 45 minutes,

Thanks

[240z4u]

Best of luck man!

Evan

[KA720]

same problem here, there's no 93 to be found anywhere in milledgeville, but I've ran 87 in my rb20 before without any problems, if you're worried just stay outta the gas a little and you'll be fine.

[PorkChopExpress]

it has 2 knock sensors

[Carl H]

stock ecu will compensate for crappy gas.just dont boost on it if you can help it...8.5:1cr will keep detonation down, but to a certian extent.

[jdmae86]

find a small airport near you... most very small airports sell 100 octane... im sure they have tons of it since it cost so much... lol

get half a tank of 87 and half a tank of 100... see what happens

[StricNyne]

run alcohol

[AxiOn419]

Update! After a 45 minute wait I got a full tank of premium. Hopefully this shortage issue is resolved soon.

[Mr. S13]

if all else fails, there is the ol' mothball trick, but i would NOT recommend that... its hell on your injectors, etc. but it will shoot your octane up