SMH as well.I'm still wondering why the gas is making his car shift better?
This could have been a MotorVac service you saw. The chemicals in a MotorVac Carbon Clean service are proven to remove carbon from the intake valves and from the combustion chamber. Also the chemicals will make the catalytic converter operate more efficiently. I have tested this many times with a 5 gas analyzer and have always seen an improvement in the tailpipe emissions after performing a MotorVac service, even if the car was blowing very clean before the service. Part of the service is the chemical that is injected into the intake manifold and allowed to sit for about 20 min. on a hot engine. When re-started they smoke like a MoFo and that stuff stinks badly!I've seen some stuff (I can't remember what it was called) that comes in a can that you connect to your fuel rails.
You hang it from the open hood like an IV bag and run the car from it until it's empty and the car dies. That stuff, is supposed to be good at cleaning combustion chamber deposits. Maybe someone will come along that knows what it is.
Last time I saw it, was at a Firestone. Lots of smoke!
This could have been a MotorVac service you saw. The chemicals in a MotorVac Carbon Clean service are proven to remove carbon from the intake valves and from the combustion chamber. Also the chemicals will make the catalytic converter operate more efficiently. I have tested this many times with a 5 gas analyzer and have always seen an improvement in the tailpipe emissions after performing a MotorVac service, even if the car was blowing very clean before the service. Part of the service is the chemical that is injected into the intake manifold and allowed to sit for about 20 min. on a hot engine. When re-started they smoke like a MoFo and that stuff stinks badly!
I always bang my head with octane discussions. Just because 93 is more expensive than 87 doesn't mean better. Is it better for the engine? Depends on a ton of technical engineering criteria.
Personally, i view fuel the same way as i view oil. What was the engine "designed" to use, and stick with it. Now, since we modify our cars with higher compression, advanced timing, boost, etc, we tend to run higher octane gas in order to prevent detonation and ruining our cars. But still to issue a blanket statement and say higher octanes are better is incorrect.
My daily driver is a premium "recommended" car. That means for max performance it is recommended by the manufacturer to run 91+ octane. It will still run on 87 octane, but performance will be lesser. I drive nearly 500 miles a week, so i decided to experiment. I ran 93 octane for a month, then ran 87 octane for a month. I noticed zero difference at all in pickup, the way the car behaved, or fuel economy. At this point, i just grab whatever nozzle i feel like putting in the car now. However some coworkers have balked at me for putting "cheap, crappy gas" in and "ruining" the car.
I used to love commuting in my '03 GT. Took 87 octane and 26MPG highway. I missed that.
The first part of the service the engine is run with the fuel/chemical mix from the MotorVac, the stock fuel lines are disconnected and stock fuel pump disabled so the engine runs on just the MotorVac system. After that service the intake cleaning chemicals are added to the intake manifold, usually through a vacuum port until the engine dies, then let sit for 20 min or so and re-start engine with stock fuel system hooked back up and run until the exhaust blows clean, sometimes this takes a while and more rpm is needed to clear all of the chemical out of the intake track and plenum.That's a pretty good description of what I saw. The only difference there might be is that saw these guys hook it up to the fuel rails.
I'd be interested in seeing some real-world results of using 93 with increased timing and 87 with standard base timing related to fuel economy. With 87 around $3.50 and 93 around $3.70 where I am, that's a 6% cost difference. If you went from 20 to 21.5 mpg that would make it a net value to use 93, provided you do bump your timing, which 93 will let you do. I can't really do the tests because my turbo '95 would blow up if I tried 87. But I wouldn't write off 93 just yet.
As for the Op's better shifting and smoother running, I think Detroit just hit a cold-spell like we have in Cleveland. We went from upper 80's in the daytime to a high of 68 yesterday. That probably has a lot more to do with it than the fill-up.
Just enjoying the show......
I'm sticking with the Tarragon 116 from Dragon Race Fuels