I personally would never put anything less than the listed "premium" at the pump under normal circumstances, but I have been in some pretty remote areas where diesel or premium is sometimes at limited or no availability.

In the even that there is ever an availability issue, especially in remote areas such as I described above, we may be forced to use a lower octane fuel than we'd like. I try to hit the 93 Ultra when I can, but sometimes Sunoco isn't where I am, so I need to use 91. Is there any statement of what constitutes "premium"? Would 89 suffice in a pinch without catastrophic detonation?

If this ever presented itself in real life, I'd probably put a minimum amount of the "low test 89, then "limp" to a place that had the good stuff. Would it help to keep the boost pressure at zero or maintain negative intake pressure (vacuum)? In any event, it would be good to know how much damage we may be or may not be doing to our "micro muscle" 2.0.

Any insight would be appreciated...

 

I believe premium is defined as 91 octane or higher

 

According to GM Fuel Labs, he ^^^^^^ is absolutely correct.

 

Since the puter detects knock and responds way before you'd ever hear it, I'd say you would be safe to run 89 in a short time frame. If you know its 89 you should automatically drive accordingly.Normal driving - that is no jackrabbit starts ot lets see how fast this sucker will run ,If you are hwyway driving where your at a steady state you shouldn't encounter any adverse affects. You will notice reduced power when the knock sensor kicks in.
I say if its known its 89 is because how do you really know what you get at the pumps. My ex used to work a store and she had to deal with the fuel delievery guysand would tell me stories on how they filled the tanks. If they didnt have enough of one fuel they would just use whatever was left over to make the delievery.Don't take this to say all drivers do this, but it has happened.So, how do you really know.....

 

Just a thought here so don't flame me if I am talking out of my butt here.

Perhaps you could keep several bottles of octane booster in your car and in the event you did get stuck putting 87 or 89 in your car in a pinch, you could throw a bottle of booster in there just to keep it up to required octane.

 

^^^eh i dint know about that. Personally my car doesnt see anything but 93 octance and 91 would be the absolute lowest i would put in

 

I only put 94 in my car. I've been lucky so far that on road trips I still find 94 out in the boonies of my Province.

 

i wish we had 94 around here. It goes from 93 to 104

 

91 or higher per GM

GM recomends if you have to use regular in the 3800 SC engines to drive conservitive till you can get better gas.

In other word use it only if you have too and get better ASAP while driving very easy. They do use the words engine damage will result other wise.

I expect the same here on the stage kit. Don't do it unless you have too and then drive easy till you can top off with better gas.

 

Great idea.

My main concern when I started this thread was in the case of emergency.

Such as a scenario when taking a long trip and you had a low tank on the interstate with the only fuel station for miles that has a paper on the pump that reads "out of premium". I have seen this before, but never had to act upon it as my former car had a "recommendation" for premium, not a "requirement" as in the St1 kit.

I'm going to get a can of octane booster and keep it in the trunk for long trips.

Good tip.