Being that my dealer and I couldn't come to an agreement on a deal for the DBS they had I'm keeping my Vantage S. Through various conversations today I found out that the ECU in the Vantage S automatically adapts timing and fuel/air mixtures with higher octane fuels. This leads me to believe that I can run race gas in the car without issue. Although I'm not far from where I can get race gas, I know Torco makes a well-respected additive that can boost octane as high as 107 without knocking.

Has anyone tried running very high octane gas in a V8VS? Does anyone know for sure if it can be safely done?

 

I don't think boosting octane (unleaded fuel) will hurt the car it might not help if it's not tuned for it, but don't think it can hurt.

Knock sensors prevent detonation when lower octane or poor fuels are used in the car....if you are going up in octane this does not apply since you are well above the nominal octane specifcation required for knock sensor compliance to begin with.

 

It isn't that it automatically adapts to make more power with higher octane fuels, more that it can adapt itself to make less (retard the ignition timing) in the presence of lower quality fuels. So the initial settings can be made more aggressive = more power.

 

Would there be that much an advantage running race gas in the Vantage?
I don't think it would make a noticeable difference in power. I suppose you could dyno to see any gains - Stuart have you done this?
I run 100 race gas in my 211, but see no need to run 107 or anything higher.

 

There is zero gain in using anything above 93 octane in a street car. You're just pissing money away. It will make no difference.

I use GT100 Unleaded race fuel in my race car, because it has no cats and long tubes into a rear resonator, plus it's tuned for unleaded race gas, and I see no need to run any higher... and it's an off-road use only vehicle which is trailered to and run only at the race track, where GT100 race fuel is available.

 

The only real reason to run race gas is if your car can be mapped specifically to optimize it, or if you are running a higher compression ratio or higher boost levels on forced induction engines. I haven't had the chance to investigate this properly with the AM's yet. We did have this on the schedule but ran out of time while we were working on some other projects. I have a couple of people bugging me for race gas maps for their Vantage so we will get to it eventually. The main advantage is in being able to achieve additional spark advance without detonation, but of course, even with the highest octane fuel there will come an 'optimal' point where additional spark advance actually causes output to fall off. To be perfectly honest, I haven't got the knowledge or done the testing to know what the optimum spark advance is for the V8 Vantage given no detonation constraints from Octane. It is possible that no BHP could be gained by spark advance beyond what is optimum for 93 Octane, although I think there is still some power there.

 

Looking at the maps in the 2007 vantage and datalogging spark, it appears that the car runs on the borderline knock table with mods for air and coolant temp. The knock strategy allows timing to be advanced to the MBT table. Within the limits of the knock strategy, the car will advance the timing if you use higher octane gas. At high RPM and load there is between 2 and 7 degrees of "extra spark" between borderline knock table and MBT table.

 

Most ecus will gain power up to about 96 octane (just enough to ensure the stock ECU maxes out timing. Anything beyond that is a waste. Just go buy some Toulene in 1 gallon jugs from local Sherman Williams and put 2 gallions worth in your gas tank, then fill up the tank, that will give you close to 96 octane and will help the car run its smoothest with the most aggressive timing. 107 is waste of money as stated before