2.3 ford performance tune and fuel octane?

[EruptionEnvy602]

Forgive me but I am not clear on this. My understanding is that on the 2.3 you can run 92 and the engine will adjust, providing more torque/hp.
When looking at the numbers on the 2.3L tune (https://performanceparts.ford.com/part/M-9603-B23), it says premium fuel "required." Is the premium fuel just required to hit the higher outputs, or does it mean you can no longer run 85/87?

We travel regularly to Mexico and some of our favorite places (bahia de los angeles) occasionally find themselves without gasoline, or more commonly they only have the "verde" which is 87. Being able to switch to lower octane fuel without damaging the engine is something I'd like to preserve.

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[hemiblas]

Forgive me but I am not clear on this. My understanding is that on the 2.3 you can run 92 and the engine will adjust, providing more torque/hp.
When looking at the numbers on the 2.3L tune (https://performanceparts.ford.com/part/M-9603-B23), it says premium fuel "required." Is the premium fuel just required to hit the higher outputs, or does it mean you can no longer run 85/87?

We travel regularly to Mexico and some of our favorite places (bahia de los angeles) occasionally find themselves without gasoline, or more commonly they only have the "verde" which is 87. Being able to switch to lower octane fuel without damaging the engine is something I'd like to preserve.

Once you add the new tune you can no longer run less than 91. Without the tune, it does adjust for the octane level as you mentioned.

 

[LethalPerformance]

With the Ford Performance calibration you can run lower octane than what's recommended. What happens is that you won't fully benefit from the tune until higher octane is put in and the knock sensors adjust. You'll just be at a less aggressive timing table until higher octane is sensed.

A good example of this would be if you are running the Ford Performance cal and you're traveling to where you only have access to 87 you can still run the 87 without any issues. You'll just make less power the same way as if the Bronco was stock and you needed to run a lower grade fuel for some reason.

Let us know if you have any other questions.

Thanks!

 

[Brnzbronc]

With the Ford Performance calibration you can run lower octane than what's recommended. What happens is that you won't fully benefit from the tune until higher octane is put in and the knock sensors adjust. You'll just be at a less aggressive timing table until higher octane is sensed.

A good example of this would be if you are running the Ford Performance cal and you're traveling to where you only have access to 87 you can still run the 87 without any issues. You'll just make less power the same way as if the Bronco was stock and you needed to run a lower grade fuel for some reason.

Let us know if you have any other questions.

Thanks!

@Lethal … what about running E15 with the Ford Performance tune? Would be a good YouTube video to test E15 vs 93 octane??

 

[LethalPerformance]

@Lethal … what about running E15 with the Ford Performance tune? Would be a good YouTube video to test E15 vs 93 octane??

Most pump gas has E10-15 already mixed in. If you look at the pumps, they'll declare what content they have (typically in a range). Now, E50 would be a different story (of which requires a custom tune).

 

[ytuvbnhgyrv]

When discussing performance tuning with other enthusiasts, the topic of fuel octane always seems to come up. Some people argue that using a higher octane fuel is a waste of money and doesn't provide any real benefits, while others swear by it and insist that it's essential for getting the most out of your engine. Where is the truth?

 

[Lèòn]

When discussing performance tuning with other enthusiasts, the topic of fuel octane always seems to come up. Some people argue that using a higher octane fuel is a waste of money and doesn't provide any real benefits, while others swear by it and insist that it's essential for getting the most out of your engine. Where is the truth?

Ford says so themselves: 30hp difference between 87 and 93, and I can confirm it as I feel the difference.

My question is how does the 93 tune react to say 94?

 

[Kevin Scarbel]

With the Ford Performance calibration you can run lower octane than what's recommended. What happens is that you won't fully benefit from the tune until higher octane is put in and the knock sensors adjust. You'll just be at a less aggressive timing table until higher octane is sensed.

A good example of this would be if you are running the Ford Performance cal and you're traveling to where you only have access to 87 you can still run the 87 without any issues. You'll just make less power the same way as if the Bronco was stock and you needed to run a lower grade fuel for some reason.

Let us know if you have any other questions.

Thanks!

I'm guessing here...........thinking back to the days of 49-state and California emissions-tuned engines, and noting my 2.3s are 50-state engines...........I'm thinking that from a CYA perspective, Ford says to use "premium fuel" (91 or higher?) because running 87 and 89 octane would result in exceeding California emissions levels.

So I'm assuming there would be some performance and MPG benefit to adding the performance calibration while using 87 or 89 octane.

Thoughts? CARB has ridiculous and unreasonable goals that I do not agree with.

 

[Brian_B]

Older thread bump but:

To start - octane rating and e rating are two different numbers. Octane has to do with the fuel’s ability to resist premature detonation (ping, or knock). E rating is the percent “renewable” mixed into the fuel (ethanol).

Second - knock is bad. It can damage your engine. I’ve seen cases where it has burned holes in the side of cylinder walls, pitted piston heads, and damaged rings and plugs. Your engine is built for a controlled detonation with the valve timing carefully calibrated to handle the transients — when knock happens, all of that precise engineering goes right out the window.

Higher boost values, advanced timing, leaner burns and higher compression ratios help to get more power and efficiency out of an engine. They also make it more likely to knock.

Modern engines have knock sensors - basically fancy microphones that can listen for the tiny pings of pre-detonation before it turns into heavy knocking. If they detect the engine is starting to ping, they can protect themselves - usually by retarding the timing or limiting the boost, or in very extreme cases going into limp mode. That cuts your power. It makes these adjustments in real time - milliseconds.

So there is the factory default map for boost and timing and all the various engine things for your engine. It’s mapped with an assumed value of 87 octane. It has a limited ability to ramp more aggressively if it doesn’t detect any pinging. This is where you get a horsepower gain running higher octane fuel with no tune at all, and how the engine knows (roughly) what octane rating of fuel you used - it can see it in the combustion performance data coming into the ECM

The Ford Performance tune, and almost every other tune - assume a higher default knock rating. They run much more aggressively out the gate assuming that you actually read the directions and put the proper fuel in. If you still drop down to 87 anyway - well, the computer will see the pinging almost right away and retard this all back, but you run that risk of jumping from mild pinging to heavy knocking since the engine started out so much more aggressively and has to ramp itself back to be safe, rather than starting out safe and tip toeing up to the limit.

Back to e rating - ethanol has a much better knock rating than gasoline - which is why the industry uses so much of it. They can blend a small amount of ethanol to low octane gas and boost the knock rating up. However, it has less energy than gasoline - so if you crank that percentage up too much your apparent mileage goes down. Ask anyone that’s tried to run e85 in a Flex Fuel vehicle how the mileage is when running it.

So it’s not fiction - it’s all about knocking.

 

[brkdncr]

Older thread bump but:

To start - octane rating and e rating are two different numbers. Octane has to do with the fuel’s ability to resist premature detonation (ping, or knock). E rating is the percent “renewable” mixed into the fuel (ethanol).

Second - knock is bad. It can damage your engine. I’ve seen cases where it has burned holes in the side of cylinder walls, pitted piston heads, and damaged rings and plugs. Your engine is built for a controlled detonation with the valve timing carefully calibrated to handle the transients — when knock happens, all of that precise engineering goes right out the window.

Higher boost values, advanced timing, leaner burns and higher compression ratios help to get more power and efficiency out of an engine. They also make it more likely to knock.

Modern engines have knock sensors - basically fancy microphones that can listen for the tiny pings of pre-detonation before it turns into heavy knocking. If they detect the engine is starting to ping, they can protect themselves - usually by retarding the timing or limiting the boost, or in very extreme cases going into limp mode. That cuts your power. It makes these adjustments in real time - milliseconds.

So there is the factory default map for boost and timing and all the various engine things for your engine. It’s mapped with an assumed value of 87 octane. It has a limited ability to ramp more aggressively if it doesn’t detect any pinging. This is where you get a horsepower gain running higher octane fuel with no tune at all, and how the engine knows (roughly) what octane rating of fuel you used - it can see it in the combustion performance data coming into the ECM

The Ford Performance tune, and almost every other tune - assume a higher default knock rating. They run much more aggressively out the gate assuming that you actually read the directions and put the proper fuel in. If you still drop down to 87 anyway - well, the computer will see the pinging almost right away and retard this all back, but you run that risk of jumping from mild pinging to heavy knocking since the engine started out so much more aggressively and has to ramp itself back to be safe, rather than starting out safe and tip toeing up to the limit.

Back to e rating - ethanol has a much better knock rating than gasoline - which is why the industry uses so much of it. They can blend a small amount of ethanol to low octane gas and boost the knock rating up. However, it has less energy than gasoline - so if you crank that percentage up too much your apparent mileage goes down. Ask anyone that’s tried to run e85 in a Flex Fuel vehicle how the mileage is when running it.

So it’s not fiction - it’s all about knocking.

do you have any sources or references or is this just how you think it applies to these two engines?

 

[Brian_B]

do you have any sources or references or is this just how you think it applies to these two engines?

I'll start here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_knocking

There's a lot of other sources if you don't want to take my word for it and care to educate yourself further. I'll freely admit I'm not an auto mechanic, but I do deal with combustion engines on a different scale and see a lot of the same strategies and problems.

 

[arwhite]

I don't say this often, but that's a good wiki page! Lots of references. Good stuff!

 

[brkdncr]

I'll start here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_knocking

There's a lot of other sources if you don't want to take my word for it and care to educate yourself further. I'll freely admit I'm not an auto mechanic, but I do deal with combustion engines on a different scale and see a lot of the same strategies and problems.

i ask because there are many different methods of engine management. Does the ecu use a rolling average to deal with timing? Maybe it doesn’t wait for knock before it pulls back, and instead uses a wideband o2, exhaust gas temp, and injector duty cycle to determine max power output before knock

modern engines are doing a lot more then what there were doing back in then90’s.

if we don’t know then let’s make it clear we’re just guessing.

 

[Kevin Scarbel]

Older thread bump but:

To start - octane rating and e rating are two different numbers. Octane has to do with the fuel’s ability to resist premature detonation (ping, or knock). E rating is the percent “renewable” mixed into the fuel (ethanol).

Second - knock is bad. It can damage your engine. I’ve seen cases where it has burned holes in the side of cylinder walls, pitted piston heads, and damaged rings and plugs. Your engine is built for a controlled detonation with the valve timing carefully calibrated to handle the transients — when knock happens, all of that precise engineering goes right out the window.

Higher boost values, advanced timing, leaner burns and higher compression ratios help to get more power and efficiency out of an engine. They also make it more likely to knock.

Modern engines have knock sensors - basically fancy microphones that can listen for the tiny pings of pre-detonation before it turns into heavy knocking. If they detect the engine is starting to ping, they can protect themselves - usually by retarding the timing or limiting the boost, or in very extreme cases going into limp mode. That cuts your power. It makes these adjustments in real time - milliseconds.

So there is the factory default map for boost and timing and all the various engine things for your engine. It’s mapped with an assumed value of 87 octane. It has a limited ability to ramp more aggressively if it doesn’t detect any pinging. This is where you get a horsepower gain running higher octane fuel with no tune at all, and how the engine knows (roughly) what octane rating of fuel you used - it can see it in the combustion performance data coming into the ECM

The Ford Performance tune, and almost every other tune - assume a higher default knock rating. They run much more aggressively out the gate assuming that you actually read the directions and put the proper fuel in. If you still drop down to 87 anyway - well, the computer will see the pinging almost right away and retard this all back, but you run that risk of jumping from mild pinging to heavy knocking since the engine started out so much more aggressively and has to ramp itself back to be safe, rather than starting out safe and tip toeing up to the limit.

Back to e rating - ethanol has a much better knock rating than gasoline - which is why the industry uses so much of it. They can blend a small amount of ethanol to low octane gas and boost the knock rating up. However, it has less energy than gasoline - so if you crank that percentage up too much your apparent mileage goes down. Ask anyone that’s tried to run e85 in a Flex Fuel vehicle how the mileage is when running it.

So it’s not fiction - it’s all about knocking.

Thank you for taking the time to write a very extensive and informative post. And a warm Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.
While my background is commercial truck engineering, I do know much of what you are saying relating to gasoline engines.
That said, I still suspect that Ford, in creating a 50-state engine in lieu of a 49-state engine (you know what I mean), doesn't want engines sold into California being modified resulting in a 49-state emissions engine. CARB wants the automakers to design unmodifiable engines when it comes to emissions.
I recall reading some posts on 6G where members had to use 87 octane, with no noticeable effect. That got me to thinking that, perhaps, Ford wants 91 octane or better for emissions compliance.

 

[Brian_B]

That said, I still suspect that Ford, in creating a 50-state engine in lieu of a 49-state engine (you know what I mean), doesn't want engines sold into California being modified resulting in a 49-state emissions engine.

It’s a federal crime to tamper with any emissions system.

You aren’t wrong that emissions plays a big part into a lot of this - but it doesn’t have much to do with the octane rating you buy at the pump - there are other standards that gasoline refineries need to meet, and that engine manufacturers assume are in place when they engineer their products - but all of that is transparent and not ready distinction of what you can select to purchase at the pump (the winter vs summer blend, as one example)

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