Does anyone use premium fuel? If so, do you notice any kind of difference (other then the difference in your wallet)? My friend seems to to think I'll see a big difference, but I'm not totally sold...

 

What car do you have?

If your car isn't required to take premium, then it's not tuned to use that gas and it won't detonate properly. People that buy the more expensive gas when their car doesn't require it, actually has the engine not detonate the fuel at the right time, and they are just wasting money.

 

If your car does not require premium fuel, its a waste....to the best of my knowledge the only Monte engine that requires premium is the 3.8L Supercharged, and the 5.3L V8 in 06-07 SS....

If you have the 3.5L Flexfuel which means you can run on E85, I read in the owners manual that when using E85, a slight increase in performance may be noticed...IDK though, cause i've never used E85 in mine. But I just found a Chevron station that sells it, so I plan on trying it just for the hell of it.

 

a side note on your E85 it will decrese you miliage a little...requires more fuel to be pumped in... but if im mot mistaken it either 110 or 111 octain

 

Your 100% correct! Yea, owners manual states 21-31 gasoline, and I forget exact numbers, but around 16-24 E85...And yes the E85 is 110 octane.

But its also cheaper than regular gas, so I guess it kinda makes up for the MPG loss...when I looked at it, regular gas was $3.09 and E85 was $2.39 which is a pretty big price difference...This was a couple weeks ago, so i'm not sure if E85 went down now that normal gas is down to $2.89 per gallon....

 

yeah when gas was nearin $4 here i put E85 in my 89blazer worked fine... just didnt like cold mornings....also ran it in my 85monte... it worked for the most part...mainly becuase the monte is carbed

 

my budy also ran it in his 85buick w a 350 in it, his 74 blazer,and planes to run it in his 84 monte wen he gets done with the ground up resto

 

if your carbs aren't jetted properly for E85, you will be running super lean and destroying your engine. since E85 has less BTU's per gallon (27% less energy) than gasoline, it takes more of it to combust to get the correct A/F ratio as stated above. it's also a good idea to make sure all seals, o-rings (on especially on fuel injectors), hoses, etc will hold up to the alcohol because most of them on those older vehicles will NOT hold up. it's not as easy as just pumping it in the tank and letting 'er rip.

as for the initial question above, everyone pretty much hit it on the head. if your monte isn't SC or the 5.3 LS4, you don't need premium fuel. 87 octane is all you need, period. however, you could get your engine tuned for 93 octane, that's the only exception i can think of...

 

yes any carbed car needs to be jeted and tuned to the gas no arguement there...and as fuel injected no go unless you are driving a flexfuel most will barely/wont run....so not a good idea

 

also i agree unless your needing to run 93 becuase of engine..or sc there is no benificial gain unless tuned for it