Roe Supercharger and Octane

[SUN RA KAT]

While I'm waiting for the Roe VEC2 to be sent to me in a few weeks, I still drive my Viper if/when the road conditions are safe for a short jaunt of 50 miles or so to charge the battery up.

I've made a discovery concerning octane. Normal premium gasoline in Ohio is 93, a few stations sell 92, and Sunoco sells 94 octane. I normally fill up with 93 octane of pure gasoline - no ethyl alcohol diluted gasolines for me*. I have my VEC1 set to 0/0 and the MSD Boost Retard box set to 1.5 to 1.67 to eliminate pinging. There is a noticable loss of performance going from 1.5 to 1.67, but I started to get a slight ping at 1.5 so I adjusted the MSD to 1.67 to eliminate all traces of ping.

I decided to try Sunoco 94 octane at my last fill up and found out that I could adjust the MSD to 1.33 without any pinging. I also experienced a quite noticable increase in performance. My Viper also sounded much more mean to match the new found power.

The lesson learned is that high octane means less ignition rertard and more power. I probably will tune my Viper for 93 octane, though, since Sunoco gas stations aren't always when and where my tank needs to be filled up and other states may not have 94 octane even at Sunoco.

* I found out many years ago (in the 1970's) that alcohol has half the BTUs of gasoline and it lowered substantially the gas mileage of my 1970 Duster 340. I've tried to avoid gasoline diluted with alcohol since then.

 

[Skip White]

Kenny, I have used octane boost for years in cars, and have always had improved results. Especially for cars that had just a little to much timing. A good octane boost is all it takes usually to kill that light ping, that is not so good for the motor, and performance also. I have heard that some types of octane boost will cause a build up on the plugs, and possably in other places to. I am an Amsoil dealer and they make an octane boost, so I thought I'd try it since I am running the VEC and I believe it to be an improvement. I called the factory tech dept. and asked them a few questions about this product. They said it would not leave deposits. I asked them how much it will raise octane, and they spoke the truth. They said one bottle if added to 15 gallons of 93 octane fuel will raise the level to 94,but they said in most cases that is very good for the average street rod, since it only cost about $5.00 to do this. I'm sure it would provide a great margin of protection on the SC Viper, or the Viper that's running advanced timing. I may be wrong but for a few bucks, why not. There are no drawbacks that I know of.