Woah.. ok let me clear this thread. I am just simply looking for octane requirements on the SR20VE and other descent motors that can be droped into the 200sx
Modified by w1ngzer0 at 12:03 AM 6/14/2005

Octane requirements. Run the lowest octane possible without pinging. You will get the most hp that way.

In my explorer I run 87 however in a built SR20 w/9.5:1 compression and 1 bar of boost, I would be scared to run anything under 93. But 114 octane race fuel would be overkill.

What Looney said. It's nice to see somebody who actually knows what their talking about

For the SR20VE (or SR20DET for that matter), there really isn't a specified octane rating to use. Reason being, is that they were never sold in the U.S. Sure, you could say they specify it in a Japanese or Austrailan or British owners manual, but it wouldn't be accurate.

The U.S. uses the R+M/2 method to calculate octane. Other countries just use the R or the M.

R stands for RON, or Research Octane NumberM stands for MON, or Motor Octane Number.

In the U.S. these two different values are averaged. In other countries, they are not. They are simply two ways of measuring Octane. Well, it's only one way, but they use two different values for RPM as variables.

In Japan you may see an octane rating of 100. They only use the MON octane rating though. But say there is a pump in Japan that sells 101 MON. This *could* be the same as 91 R+M/2. If the RON happens to be 81. However, you could have a pump in Japan that sells 95 MON, and it could also be the same as 91 R+M/2, if the RON happens to be 87.

So see, octane is all relative. To simplify, do what Looney said

A stock VE should have no trouble on 87.

With the higher compression though, mods will lead you to want to run something higher.

I wouldn't run 87 on a VE. Higher compression higher reving motor than the DE. At least 91 octane, hell why not 93 if you can get it at the pump. I run 93 in my sentra, 93 in the g20 because the timing is bumped up to 17-18*. Why chance a $1800 motor over $2-3 extra at the pump for a fill up. And to add, alot of VE's run upward of 20-21* timing on stock ECU. So you tell me you if you want 87 in there.

I didn't realize the timing advance was that drastic. I figured Nissan made it to survive on crap gas just in case, despite the compression.