Does 100 octane fuel serve any purpose?

[Yetiman]

For a daily driver, I mean...or at least a car that has been set up to run on, say, 93-94 octane fuel.


In that case, no, there's no advantage.

BUT, if you were to use the higher octane fuel you could run more ignition advance and potentially make more power. but it depends on your engine build. If you have a fairly tame motor to begin with and have relatively low compression etc. there will be little or no advantage to be gained.

If however you have a much more stout engine build, and are cranking the timing back in order to be able to run on pump gas (and the motor is showing signs of not liking it) then there is a lot to be gained.

Around here the 100 octane race gas is the unleaded stuff, and there is also 110 octane leaded available.

Do not run the leaded stuff if you have catalytic converters or an oxygen sensor or you will ruin them almost immediately.

My motor was built around 93 octane gas, and there is very little to gain from race gas (except in very hot weather when the engine is more prone to detonation and I mix some in for added protection).

I have a nitrous setup on though, and the few times I have used it I was running race gas as a safety margin against detonation.