[FACT OR FAKE #18] Using Petrol With Higher RON Will Increase the Performance of My Car
Does it? We have put together this weeks's fact or fake story with videos, pictures and sources about whether or not it does. Let's get to the bottom of the truth.
By Judith Yeoh — 06 Sep 2013, 06:34 PM — Updated almost 11 years ago
First things first, it's important to know if your car needs high mileage oil
It's also important to know what's in the petrol, its quality and your engine's technology
RON as a measure of a fuel's tendency to burn in a controlled way, cannot be seen in isolation. It should be considered in tandem with the fuel additives and the engine technology. In addition, modern additives can help to lower fuel consumption.
Cars equipped with knock sensors are able to adapt to fuels that have slightly lower RON than the minimum specified for the cars. The sensors will allow the engine to adapt to the lower RON but the car will use up more petrol and lose some power as well.
driverstechnology.co.ukIf your car requires premium gas: Then you need premium gas. Your car has a high compression ratio and, moving to a lower grade will likely cause knocking, which you really don't want.
lifehacker.com
Fuel and vehicle engines are both complex systems. Understanding how fuel components work and interact with the engine and behave during the combustion process are keys to developing performance fuels.
How to check what your car needs
"You can check the fuel lid cover for information on minimum octane rating for the respective vehicle."
The performance of a fuel depends on crude oil composition, available refinery streams, refining technology and performance components or additives. With about 200 constituent parts in a petrol recipe, advancing motorsport fuel technology requires extensive research and development expertise.
What about mixing RON95 and RON97 in your tank?
In Malaysia, Shell retails FuelSave (RON95), V-Power (RON97) and Diesel with Fuel Economy as its main products. It also sells V-Power Racing, a top-end fuel, which it would only described as having a RON rating "above RON97".
Mixing RON95 and RON97 does not have any detrimental effect as long as the fuels meet or exceed the minimum RON required by the engine.
You should not allow the tank to become empty, and then add 50% of lower octane, followed by 50% of higher octane. The fuels may not completely mix immediately, especially if there is a density difference.
querycat.com
What about mixing petrols of different brands? Will it decrease performance or damage my engine?
Although some drivers are known to swear by fuel monogomy, there’s no record of cars being damaged from having a cocktail of brands swirling in the tank. The most important thing to note with petrol is to use fuels that comply to the minimum grade (e.g. RON 95 and above, etc) for the engine to operate efficiently.
RON stands for Research Octane Number
Unleaded fuels carry a RON (Research Octane Number) rating. Put simply, RON determines petrol's 'anti-knock' quality or resistance to pre-ignition; or if you want to put in another way, the Octane Number denotes its resistance to detonation.
themotorreport.com.auThe higher the octane number, the more compression the fuel can withstand before detonating. In broad terms, fuels with a higher octane rating are used in high-compression engines that generally have higher performance.
The most common type of octane rating worldwide is the Research Octane Number (RON). RON is determined by running the fuel in a test engine with a variable compression ratio under controlled conditions, and comparing the results with those for mixtures of iso-octane and n-heptane.
FACT: Your car only needs what it says it needs to perform at its optimum. If your car is not made to consume RON97, using RON97 will not increase its performance
Petrol with a higher RON rating will deliver better performance and better fuel economy in engines that are designed for such a fuel. The combustion in these engines will release more energy from the fuel as a result of higher compression in the combustion chambers.
A common misconception is that power output or fuel efficiency can be improved by burning fuel of higher octane than that specified by the engine manufacturer. Fuels of different octane ratings may have similar densities, but because switching to a higher octane fuel does not add more hydrocarbon content or oxygen, the engine cannot develop more power.
INFOGRAPHIC: How can we 'make' our cars more fuel efficient? Here are fuel saving tips (click for full infographic)
INFOGRAPHIC: How can we 'make' our cars more fuel efficient? Here are fuel saving tips
Image via amazonaws.com