When I filled my R56 yesterday I noticed a new octane choice: in addition to 87, 89, and 91 octane, the station now offers 100 octane. Price was around $8/gallon.

Has anyone tried 100 octane in their MINI?

 

I have not tried it, but I don't think you are going to get $8 a gallon worth of extra power from it. Since the Mini was designed to run a max of 91, I doubt you will really see any difference. The higher octane is useful for higher compression engines.

 

You need tuning to properly see the advantages of race gas

 

understand what 'octane' is / means and you'll see that running a higher octane than you car needs is dumping money in the toi toi

Google 'octane' and even start at Wick' ..... ++ 'tane in a -- motor equals wasted dollars

Here's why!!! Did you know that higher octane technically burns SLOWER

OMG

 

What gas station is this!?

 

Its at a 76 station in Saratoga, CA.

Don't get me wrong -- I am not the least tempted. As a chemist, I know a bit about octane, combustion, etc. I was just surprised; I've never seen such a high octane at a gas station.

 

Add me to that club.

 

And at $8 a gallon?!!

 

There's a gas station near San Jose that has had 100 unleaded for quite a while (I think it's also a 76 station). I don't remember the 100 unleaded being $8/gallon, but I haven't been there for a while. I think it was $5-6/gallon about a year ago, when the 91 was roughly the same as it is now.

I ran a tankful of it for grins, but I didn't notice any difference. Of course, with no significant engine mods, I wasn't really expecting to.

 

Here we go again........

 

run mine on 98 but thats quite common here in the uk lowest we have is 95

 

The differences are from the way the various countries denote octane ratings on the pump. The pump markings in the UK are "Research Octane" ratings. The pump markings in the US are called the "Anti-Knock Index", or AKI, which is the numerical average of the Research Octane Number and the Motor Octane Number.

98 RON (what you're using in the UK) is roughly equivalent to 93 AKI here in the States. 95 RON would be about the same as 89 AKI.

 

Thanks for the info ScottRiqui guess you learn something new every day

 

You're welcome - I always used to wonder why most of the world seemed to have higher-octane gasoline than the U.S. until I realized that they were just rating the gasoline differently.

As an example, Shell Optimax (I believe it's now called "V-Power") has a RON of 98.3 and a MON of 86.9, so it would be marketed as "98 Octane" in Europe, but it would be marketed as 92 or 93 AKI in the U.S., since the average of 98.3 and 86.9 is 92.6.

 

esonwood,

I notice that you live in the United Kindom. Is this the new, republican-friendly version of the old United Kingdom?

 

I doubt you'd see any gains unless you had an ecu tune for said octane.

 

United Kingdom is always friendly to republicans and democrats

 

Very Good Answer.