TeamCoconutOreo
Elio Addict
Premium fuel is used on High compression and forced induction engines to stop pre-detonation. What happens is the fuel is heated to it's flash point and will self ignite before it's supposed to. The higher the octane level the more resistant to this effect the fuel will be. There are certain things that can be done to ward off pre-detonation such as lowering compression ratios, retarding timing and/or direct injection, but all have their limitations. Ford eliminated the need for higher octane fuel by using direct injection. This allows a more precise use of the fuel at the latest point possible, this keeps the fuel cooler. Add to that a few timing changes and like magic you make good power without the premium of extra gas.
Yes, you can reprogram the computer to optimize for higher octane fuel, giving you more power, but I'm sure the lower fuel cost is a big selling point.
However, without direct injection on the Elio engine, you would be very limited on how much boost you could use without premium fuel. You would only be able to use a few pounds of boost and your timing curve would have to be so retarded that the dollar for horsepower gain potential would not be worth the time or expense.
My experience with this is taking naturally aspirated engines and supercharging them. In one vehicle I used a Roots type blower with no cooling. This limited the amount of boost I could use, the other was also a roots type blower, only this one used Methanol injection to cool the air. With similar set ups and 9.5 compression ratio in both engines I was able to run 14 pounds of boost with no cooling and 21 with the methanol injection.
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