Word to the wise. Here is a situation for you to consider:

Your 7 is running great. Boost is perfect, vacuum at idle is rock solid. While blasting down the highway, you notice that you're running low on gas. Get off the highway and fill up with 93. As you proceed to merge back on the highway, you can feel something wrong with the car. Seems to hesitate a bit on boost, doesn't pull as hard as normal. Hmm, weird. You get off at the next exit and stop at the first red light you come to. It's at this point that you notice that telltale chugging idle and see that your vacuum has went to ****. Time for another rebuild! Hey, at least you can port the motor more, right?

Guys, it happened to me about a year and a half ago at an Exxon in NJ. Still have the receipt--f&*king 93 octane, ha. Brought the car to KD and Dave said mine was the fourth case he'd seen. Gas came out of the tank looking nasty as hell and there was no other explanation.

Perhaps some of the wonderful tanker drivers don't pay attention when they fill the tanks and put the gas into the 87, 89, 93 tanks in a 93, 89, 87 order. I pumped gas for years at the station where this little incident happened and can attest to the fact that many of the dudes filling the tanks aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. I'd been beating the **** out of the car for the month prior and changed nothing except for the gas station I went to, and now I had a 7 that sounded like it was cammed out at idle.

Point is, if Sunoco 94 is available, use it. If you can toss a few gallons of race gas into every tank, do so. You don't think it'll happen to you until it does.

If you ever experience these symptoms, don't take chances. Immediately pull over and whip out your trusty AAA card that every smart FD owner should never be without. It's a helluva lot cheaper to drain the tank and put in some fresh gas than go in for yet another rebuild.

happy rotoring boys--

 

i like sunoco but i've used just about every type of name brand gas without a problem. guess i'm lucky

 

Same thing happened to me. It was Shell gas which I never use. Just stopped there cause I needed gas bad. Filled up, pulled out of th elot. Made it to the next light, motor let loose in the middle of second. I wasn't too pissed though, the coolant seals were already dead.

 

So I should stop filling up with Arco 87?!?!?!?

 

whoops, sorry, double post...

 

Since we only have ethanol-diluted 91 octane over here in CA, I always put in 5 gal of Sunoco GT104 unleaded race gas with every tankful. I buy 30 gal drums at the local distributor for $135 or so. As far as I'm concerned, it's cheap insurance against incidents like this, and the car runs noticeably better with the Sunoco race fuel in the mix (in fact, the more GT104 I put into the ratio, the better the FD runs...).

 

So what are you supposed to do? Can you put some of that octane booster in whenever you fill up just to make sure? I am going to need a rebuild eventually, 68K w/ 11.8 vacuum, but I can't afford to do it right now. Is there any other way to prevent this?

 

Yup! Don't drive

 

very good advice Rich, and thanks for looking out for your fellow rotor heads!

Is Sunoco available nationwide? I don't think I've seen a Sunoco station since I moved from PA.

Chris at Rotary Performance recommends Chevron 93 octane for those of us in the South. He did a test of some sort, and found that Chevron was the best gas available in the Dallas / Ft. Worth area. Call him for specifics, 972-530-3335

 

This is something that I have thought about quite a few times recently...We can baby our cars as much as humanly possible, but one bad tank of gas and bye-bye engine.

I doubt the companies hold liability if you get 87/89 from a 93 pump, though, correct? I mean if you have the receipt for the 93 octane, it wouldn't be worth beans?

 

No sunoco up in NorCal. Best we got is the big names, a very few of which carry race gas. My friends have always had the best results with 76 and Shell...strange that even Chevron has been causing them trouble.

 

Yup, no Sunoco down here either
Let's not forget our 91 octane version of premium either

 

Used to use Sunoco 94, but damn gas prices too high.

 

Over here in MD, we get 94 at Sunuco too. But Goodfella makes a good point (again, heh). A good while ago, the pumps at this one station I went to, had the fuel by octane levels arranged 89-93-87. I found this out AFTER I had filled up with the wrong octane fuel (89). Luckily though, I caught that before I left the pump, and took care of it.

 

Anybody using Octane Booster? Here in Nevada the best I can get is 91. Back in the old days (I AM a geezer) we'd mix half a tank of low test with half a tank of high test and the suburban legend was that would boost the overall octane level to a little higher than the high test; wouldn't want to try it with my FD, though.

 

The best we have in town is 93 octane, but the same place also offers 110 race gas. What about putting in a few gallons of 110 with 93 every fillup? Would that in any way be bad for our cars?

 

I always use Amaco(BP) 93. The one time i used Shell 93 (which contains ethanol) BOOM.

 

Is it leaded? If so, it can shorten the life of your o2 sensor and also your cat. I'd recommend using it (maybe 3 gallons per fillup) as cheap insurance (esp if you're running a midpipe), o2 sensor be damned .

Rich

 

If you've accidentally filled up with low octane fuel, you can always buy a gallon of Toluene from the hardware store to kick up the octane rating. Toluene has a RON octane rating of 121 and a MON rating of 107, yielding a (R+M)/2 rating of 114... It's also good stuff to add even if you fill up with 93/94 and want to hit the track if racing fuel is unavailable.

-Scott

 

You know if you filled up with 87 by accident...

Big deal.. just drive like a normal human and don't use boost and the car will be fine... just keep your foot outta it for a few miles

Now if the gas is F*%($ed up and it is severly contaminated to the point where the car runs poorly even just tooling along... I agree... get that drained out ASAP and refill with "good stuff".

One time my mom went to full service at the station and the guy put DIESEL in her Civic. That crap gummed up everything and made it pretty much not run.

Brian

 

Maybe I'm missing something here, but what's to stop someone at Sunoco from accidentally putting the 89 or other into the 94 octane pump?

 

That is the point Goodfella is trying to make.

 

Well, the wifey took my FD out this afternoon, low on
gas. She stopped at Costco fueled up with 94 octane.
I usually only put Exxon in it. Anyway....I came home took the car out, seemed to run fine. I stopped at a stop light and noticed the idle was hunting between 500-700 rpm or so. My vacume was poor as well. I did put MMO in it after the fill up, maybe the plugs fouled a little?? But...
Car seems to run fine, just poor idle & vacume. What now Rich.

 

nissan claims that no additive should be ran through their injectors. they use nippondenso just like mazda. hmmmm. . . octane boosters might not be the greatest idea, but i dont have any hard proof that it tears up injectors. . . so my post is worthless. haha

paul

 

Holy ****, I wonder if thats what happened to my engine? I had just filled up the tank when it blew. The very first time I got on it at all the engine blew, I hope it wasn't the gas. **** that would **** me off. I should have KDR drain it and put good stuff in there just to be sure. Glad I saw this post...