Question about fuel octane level.

[Zoe Saldana]

I've had an '03 1500 with the 5.7 and now have an '08 2500 still with the 5.7 and tried all grades and seen absolutely no difference in either mileage nor performance. Now, that being said, I will run 87 for my daily routine stuff, about 80% of the time and will run 89 when pulling my 8k lbs 5ftwheel camper 2 weeks a year to make sure to prevent preignition knock.

High compression engines can be damaged using fuel with low octane. Octane is a measure of how well the fuel resists detonation. The high compression engine will detonate using low octane fuel.

 

[BossHogg]

Other than subjective answers you get here, you'd have to obtain a good scanner with flight recording function, drive the truck through a drive cycle, and read all the data germane to fuel management and correction. Otherwise, go by the manufacturer requirement to be safe.

Adding actual results to the argument would have kept this thread to a few posts.

 

[nascar72]

High compression engines can be damaged using fuel with low octane. Octane is a measure of how well the fuel resists detonation. The high compression engine will detonate using low octane fuel.

I kinda knew about that already. But tanks anyway. The 5.7 hemi can run just fine on 87. I've seen many way over 250k and mostly ran on 87 and worked hard. Mine has 160k. So yeah, agree about the high compression, turbocharged or supercharged and the "suped up" engines needing higher octane but as for the hemi it'll be just fine on 87. And by the way we also have a 2014 Ford Escape with the famous Ecoboost engine and manufacturer states it can run just fine on 87. So that's how my wife and I have been running it on 87 for 265k. Go figure huh... So even if the engine starts having issues, I'll still be damn satisfied it did what it was meant to do and that's being driven.

 

[Sherman Bird]

Adding actual results to the argument would have kept this thread to a few posts.

Maybe, in your viewpoint. My life experiences have been that people LOVE to argue to be right, not to get to a level playing field of understanding based upon mutual understanding.

My post is spot on to that point, but one would have to step back and be curious as to the source of accurate data. I merely pointed out the obvious (to me).