[irobles3680]

Has anyone tried running a higher octane on there 2.0 camaro? I bought a octane booster called Boostane, going to test it out and see if any noticeable gains.

According to their chart based on our engine compression 9:5.1 they recommend 98 octane. Highest I have here is 93, mixed in the Boostane with 93 to get 98 and going to try it out.

Just want to here opinions or thoughts of anyone that tried higher octane like racefuel or even octane boosters

[Ryephile]

It's never that cut-and-dry. Compression ratio charts are really crude rules of thumb. In the case of your engine being forced induction, the 9.5:1 is static compression ratio not accounting for the boost pressure. A better way to generalize would be to use Brake Mean Effective Pressure [BMEP], which is a calculated mean combustion chamber pressure that allows us to compare across engines and induction methods. Even then a particular BMEP on Engine A could result in knock or even LSPI in Engine B, it just depends on the details. From the BMEP it comes down to mechanical and chemical quench of the combustion chamber and the fuel used. This circles back to your question; is more octane better?

Likely that octane booster is using RON. Here in the USA we use [R+M]/2 octane calculations. 98 RON = 93 octane seen at the pump in the USA. Your 2.0T was tuned from the factory for 91 octane, however with its knock strategy it can adapt to lower octane. Depending on the particular tune it can also take advantage of the slow combustion speed of higher octane and advance the ignition timing to make more power. Given these engines are using a torque-targeting algorithm, it's likely already be making the torque it's targeting and not change anything.

The TL;DR is, don't waste your money on fuel additives. Using top-tier premium gasoline is easy and what your engine is designed for.

"Race" fuels have to be particularly scrutinized, as some of them contain lead, which shortens oxygen sensor and catalytic converter lives by a factor of 10. Again, your engine isn't designed for them. Unless you had an aftermarket tune that was calibrated specifically for a fuel like Sunoco's GT104 [unleaded], you'll likely gain essentially nothing with the stock tune.

An alternate would be investing in an E85 flex fuel setup [hardware and ECU tune], where you can run anything from 87 unleaded to E85 and everything in between, and the ECU would blend its tables to give peak power regardless of the fuel in the tank. Running straight E85 is often worth roughly 10% more power over 93 octane with boosted engines. The downsides are E85 pumps are few and far between, and the fuel economy is significantly worse than premium gasoline. That said if you want fuel economy over power, just fill up with premium. That's the beauty of flex fuel.

[Evil-Bee-NH]

Originally Posted by Ryephile

It's never that cut-and-dry. Compression ratio charts are really crude rules of thumb. In the case of your engine being forced induction, the 9.5:1 is static compression ratio not accounting for the boost pressure. A better way to generalize would be to use Brake Mean Effective Pressure [BMEP], which is a calculated mean combustion chamber pressure that allows us to compare across engines and induction methods. Even then a particular BMEP on Engine A could result in knock or even LSPI in Engine B, it just depends on the details. From the BMEP it comes down to mechanical and chemical quench of the combustion chamber and the fuel used. This circles back to your question; is more octane better?

Likely that octane booster is using RON. Here in the USA we use [R+M]/2 octane calculations. 98 RON = 93 octane seen at the pump in the USA. Your 2.0T was tuned from the factory for 91 octane, however with its knock strategy it can adapt to lower octane. Depending on the particular tune it can also take advantage of the slow combustion speed of higher octane and advance the ignition timing to make more power. Given these engines are using a torque-targeting algorithm, it's likely already be making the torque it's targeting and not change anything.

The TL;DR is, don't waste your money on fuel additives. Using top-tier premium gasoline is easy and what your engine is designed for.

"Race" fuels have to be particularly scrutinized, as some of them contain lead, which shortens oxygen sensor and catalytic converter lives by a factor of 10. Again, your engine isn't designed for them. Unless you had an aftermarket tune that was calibrated specifically for a fuel like Sunoco's GT104 [unleaded], you'll likely gain essentially nothing with the stock tune.

An alternate would be investing in an E85 flex fuel setup [hardware and ECU tune], where you can run anything from 87 unleaded to E85 and everything in between, and the ECU would blend its tables to give peak power regardless of the fuel in the tank. Running straight E85 is often worth roughly 10% more power over 93 octane with boosted engines. The downsides are E85 pumps are few and far between, and the fuel economy is significantly worse than premium gasoline. That said if you want fuel economy over power, just fill up with premium. That's the beauty of flex fuel.

Flex fuel is still a work in progress for us Mr. V8 guy but you can still make a race tune for E85.

[irobles3680]

Thanks for the feedback, all I found was people praising boostane, I kind of didn’t believe it would work but for $30 bucks said why not, I would essentially need a tune to see any gains like you said but even then it’s better to tune for E85 its cheaper and cleaner for pistons