chinesestunna

Before the stone throwing begins - Atlanta had a gas shortage a week ago that ran for about 2.5 weeks when there were long lines at gas stations and roving gas hordes...

I had to run on regular for 2 weeks (about 1.5 tanks) and now my engine feels like it's just anemic... I mean my mom's 4 cylinder Camery feels more lively/faster. I just can't get the car to accelerate without popping into one of lower gears.

I'm just wondering if something is wrong with the engine or will the ECU eventually realize that premium gas is back (my 2nd tank now since the shortage ended) and getting back to normal?

minhtin

the mind is a powerful thing. With that said your mind is just playing trick on you. If anything your car should feel more responsive due to less burn inhibitor found in regular gas vs premium. The bad thing about regular gas to our car is that it could cause pinging or worse detonation under certain driving habbit and weather condition. Of course this is true assuming the gas from the pump is good and not contaminated.

chinesestunna

hmm... I'm not disagreeing with you however the regular gas would've induced retarded timing to reduce ping and knocking while decreasing power output. I've notice this before and it still feels like I'm driving on regular.

Carlito Benito

Is the gas shortage still a problem? Where in ATL are you?

chinesestunna

It's good now, I live in the ATL burbs but work downtown

minhtin

To be honest, i didn't even know that Acura TL was able to adjust itself like that. I've personally been using 89 octane since i bought the car and i've never noticed any pinging or had any adverse performance on the car. I use 89 on my bike as well and both vehicles calls for premium gas.

Worse come to worse, you can always have the dealership take a look at it.

01tl4tl

If you have always used 89 -how can you compare that to a 91 octane cars performace?
When the pinging gets so loud you can hear it- its way past bad news!!!!

The computer will adjust the timing to compensate for short term use, even long term use, as long as you dont rev it over 4000 is the general consensus

Best way to clean out the residue is a can of liquid seafoam, 16 ounces, in half tank- 8 gallons of gas
That will clean the injectors- intake valves and piston tops

Then use a can of deep creep- seafoam in aerosol spray can, clean thru the intake manifold main vac port to super clean the top end of the engine!!
Its the ultra tune up in a can

That should fix you right up

If concerned about the computer picking up the change- after you seafoam and do the blow out drive- remove the CLOCK fuse- #13 on passenger side footwell or edge of dash panel
pull that fuse for a minute and reinsert- its the secret backup power to the ECU and forces a reset

I hate cars

Reset the ECU and it will feel normal again. If you don't, it will eventually adjust back to 91 on it's own but it will take longer.

All that has happened is your timing tables have changed (less timing) due to the 87 octane tickling the knock sensor. You will really feel a difference in the low end with less timing.

01tl4tl

I would imagine most of the auto adjustments are a result of the O2 sensors getting readings off their norm range, 91 octane having stuff to delay the combustion/ignition of the gas would have a different amount of whatever combustion leftovers entering, being processed and leaving the cat,
so the O2 sensor picks that up and tells the computer- which adjust various things until the numbers are in acceptable range-
it may advance or retard the timing or whatever occurs in the gonkulations of the car smart thingy
(yes there are things I dont know- please dont tell my wife)

Seafoam the gas tank and it should clean the increased carbon and crud buildup from the 87, not to mention the quality of the 87 was probably down, maybe extra water in the storage at gas station, extra crud everywhere from pipelines being shut down,,, then reopened....think backwash

I hate cars

87 octane won't affect the 02 sensor. The slower burning theory is mostly a myth. The burn rate of 87 *may* be faster in some instances but they're very close. 91 is just more resistant to compression ignition. Once they're burning, there's very little difference.

I wouldn't be surprised if the "91" is actually still 87. They've busted tons of stations doing this. I've had my turbo car tuned to the edge on 92 and filled up with gas and picked up tons of knock retard with no other changes. I would say every 10th tank did this.

minhtin

I've driven my co worker 05 tl with 6mt as well and as far as I can tell there aren't any performance difference as we can tell and he uses 93 octane religiously. This however might change once the summer comes around and the weather gets into triple digit with 100% humidity.

However my tl is my daily driver so I seldomly pushes it. Rarely do I go wot or red line the tach so that might also be why I am not experiencing what you are experiencing.

I don't know how much of a difference there is between car and bike engine management but on the track my cbr can drink 89 and perform just as good as the guy feeding their bike with 93 on the track. The only difference is I save about 30 dollars at the end of the weekend race. And we all know how high of a compression these bikes got.

nfnsquared

There you go again. Re-read his post, he never said anything about comparing 89 octane performance to 91 octane performance.


Oh boy, I knew that one was coming. That 89 octane gas really plugs up a car so one must go out and spend $15 on Seafoam products. Holy cow, all those other cars out there running 89 octane are a gold mine for the Seafoam company!

chinesestunna:

Just give it another few days for the ECM to relearn or just reset it. Everything will be fine. You don't have any extra gum in your system because of the 89 octane.

I hate cars

It's really apples to oranges with bike vs car. They get away with 12.4:1 compression on low octane for many reasons, head design, much, much bigger cams which lower dynamic compression, and different timing maps. My friend used to run his 12.7:1 396 Nova on 87 octane with the timing retarded as hell.

For the TL, I've proven over 1,000s of miles that it undoubtedly gets better mileage with 91 over 89. It's enough to more than pay for the cost of premium. If you're running less than 91 octane, you're paying more for gas period. I also drive mine very easy since just like you, my other vehicle is pretty fast, but the difference in mpg is seen even when driving very easy. In fact, it seems more noticable in the lower rpms before vtec kicks in.

minhtin

It might a contaminated gas situation and I deffinently had my fair share of bad gas. Best thing probably you can do is just pay the dealership for an hour of diagnostic and see what they say. If it is bad gas, you can always have that gas station pay for the damages and diagnotic.

minhtin

I will have to give premium a try then as I am pro for saving money.

Will Y.

One other note: the TL has an adaptive transmission and ECU- it will adjust to your style of driving, so if you drive like a granny, it will adjust for it.

Try resetting the ECU- that may be your answer.

nfnsquared

I have a different experience. Here in North Dakota, you have a choice of 89,90 (10% ethanol), or 91 octane. I've never seen 93 octane in ND. The one exception that I've found is that the base sells 92 octane. Go figure. 89 and 90 are the same price and 92 (or 91 off base) cost 30 cents/gal more than 89/90. I've run multiple full tanks of 90 and 92 and can tell no diffence in mileage or performance. I've taken the engine into vtec equally with both and had no issues. It's not worth the extra $4.50 per tank for me to buy the 92 (or 91) octane when 90 performs equally. I know you're comparing 89 to 91, and I'm comparing 90 to 92. Maybe the cutoff in mileage and performance is at 90 octane? I don't know.

I hate cars

For me to see the difference I kept strict logs of my fuel usage. I did the same trip back and forth twice a week from Bakersfield to Vegas (180 miles one way). I alternated tanks, did 2 tanks of the same octane back to back to eliminate contamination, alternated which octane I ran in each direction, cruise always set at the same speed and the same driving pattern. There was more than enough difference for the 91 to pay for itself but it's subtle enough that if you're not keeping records, you probably won't notice. The exception is the 100+ degree summers here, the car pings so bad driving around town, mileage goes down about 20% on 89 vs 91. Cooler climates probably won't suffer as much.

I should add that on my weekly commute, the difference in octane stood out much more on the uphill direction than the downhill direction.

01tl4tl

hahahaha I wrote my post- playing extra dumb- hoping to stir some conversation

Unless someone has done specific testing and has run 87 or 89 all the cars life, they are in no position to state there is no differance with 91 or long term effect on engine

Buy Tier1 gas at name brand stations and avoid the 87 in the 91 tank scam-
(when its not a national emergency time when they have to put reg in all the tanks to meet demand of consumers fleeing the area --yadayada)
chevron shell 76 many more are tier1 level- thats additives that have extra secret sauce in them

Interesting thing about bikes- their forums love seafoam and run it in the gas to clean carbon buildup, glazed carbs- floats, jets etc. all the time!
Have to call seafoam and see its ok to use in the oil on bike with trans and engine sharing the same oil supply-
yes folks it finally happened!!
In an attempt to be more eco-friendly and reduce my overall carbon footprint,
01tl has gone 2 wheels
If you dont see me here much - I am out making straight lines out of round corners~

minhtin

thank god my bike is fuel injected hehe. I've never heard of this seafoam thing. Is it some kind of additive they add to gas to break up carbon build up?

01tl4tl

try using the search feature here- or scroll thru the threads- or google it,
and bike and boat forums love it-
yes it cleans everything and wont harm anything in the process-
its hi detergent oils! can even be used as emergency starting fluid!!

Until you try it- you really cant grasp how well it works when the directions in the DIY are followed- better mileage- performance- accelleration- all reported by millions of users- engines are crud factories and all the bad stuff sticks to the parts inside

not just a few ziners think its good- been around since 1940- try it!

vinnier6

iTrader: (1)

i have used 89 in my car for a few weeks, and i didnt notice any performance difference, but what i did notice is fuel economy was far worse with the 89...

after doing some simple math, 89 octane was costing my more money due to the worse gas miliage than the 91, so i have been non stop 91...period...due a test for yourself and you will see what i mean...

now your bike on the other hand was probably designed to use 87 octane, so 89 is a waist in that too....i know the owners manual on every sportbike i have ever owned up to my last R6 called for 87....

minhtin

What year are your bikes? Both my 05 600rr and 06 1000rr calls for premium. Even said so on the sticker on the gas tank hehe.

01tl4tl

my bike wants 91- just like the acura- Vtwin motor makes big compression big torque
So it will get the same Tier1 gas stations, seafoam in the tank,
a bit of deep creep thru the air filter inlets
and away we go~