syncro87
Senior Member
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2016
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- Location
- KLXT
- Vehicle(s)
- '16 Civic sedan EX-T, '18 Prius Two, '09 Scion xB, '88 R100RT
Weeeelll...not exactly.Also... remember the SPORT and SPORT TOURING models are both designed to run on 91-OCTANE fule... not 87!
The LX / EX / EXL are designed for 87-octane.
This is because the Sport / ST ECU fuel mixture is hard-coded to expect 91-octane.
If you put in lower octane fuel, you are more prone to knocking, or the engine skips cycles to prevent knocking... which lowers your performance.
The computer can/will/may retard ignition timing slightly to compensate for lower octane fuel if knock is detected. The system is plenty sophisticated and capable of preventing any harm to your engine running 87 fuel. You will not damage your car if you run 87 octane. The engine will not "skip cycles", whatever that means.
It's not a fuel mixture thing. It's an ignition timing thing. Higher octane fuel burns slightly less easily, allowing the computer to advance ignition timing slightly, producing a small power bump. It is a minor gain, really. If the computer detects knock, it will retard timing slightly to reduce it. This will result in a slight power loss.
The key word here is "slightly". 91 to 87 octane is a pretty small difference. The gain you'll see on a Sport model is fairly minor, because we are talking economy cars here, not exotic high performance machines, and in the best case scenario, the hp bump from premium fuel on the sport cars is modest. That hp gain could be mitigated partially by the larger rotational mass of the sport wheels, in the real world. But I digress...
You aren't going to harm your Sport Civic by running 87 octane gas. There might be a minor performance loss if you're doing 0-60 runs. Most people don't operate their car at 100% of peak power capacity during their daily drive, so any performance drop will be minor under typical conditions.
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