James Isbell writes:<Along those lines, I have another question. I have a
1.8 Liter VW water
cooled engine in my Lola T540. It has 10:1 pistons in it, a hot cam and two
DCOE 40 Webers. I run 113 octane leaded. Since you run only 104, am I
wasting money on 113?>
Team Escargot runs 10:1 compression in its 850 Honda S-800 engines and has
excellent power and reliability on pump 93 octane fuel. We have been told
that race gas will do more, but if the engine doesn't produce detonation at
optimal spark advance, what gains will come from increasing the octane?
Regarding the question of when to "freshion up" a race engine, the usual
response would be to consider 1. oil consumption, 2. significant loss of
compression on one or more cylinders, 3. significant increase in leak-down
%, or the usual, when the rods exit the block sideways. BTW, we have had
our sweet little twin-cams go as long as 4000 TRACK miles between major
rebuilds, while revving regularly to 10k rpm. When doing that rebuild on a
race engine, it's probably cheap insurance to replace the valve springs and
timing chain.
Paul Meis #31 NTM-Honda D-sports racer
"The problem with my team is: I have an idiot for a mechanic and a fool for
a driver, and we're all the same person"
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