85 octane
 

Ive previously posted that my cars performance and mpg is the same on 85 or 91 octane (lowesr and highest in CO due to combustion in our elevation). Ive been going back and forth between both. However i saw a video on YT that stated if you premix, which i do, that you need to use hi test only. Any validity to that statement?

Since the premix slightly reduces octane, I suppose it is on the safe side to use a higher octane fuel when premixing.

good question... the octane rating refers to the resistance to pinging and detonation. the reason many run 91+ octane is because the high compression and rotary heat factor. being that premix is there to lube the seals thus creating LESS heat id reason it wouldnt matter which octane you use. but id be curious to see if theres something else im not thinking about? perhaps the premix has a "lower octane" persay, thus requiring 91. deffinatly looking forward to a responce from someone with more experience.

Renesis is high compression by NA rotary standards, but 10:1 is not that high. My old Accord Coupe V6 has a compression ratio of 10.5:1 and runs just fine on 87. Newer Mazda Skyactiv-G runs at somewhere between 13~14:1. Now that's high compression for an NA gasoline engine.

Given the rest of the engine designs, my theory is that the car is just tuned to run on 91 to squeeze out the most power from the engine.

Premix lowers the octane, but probably not by much if you go with the ~250:1 ratio recommended.

fair enough. that makes me wonder though if 91 is recommended for the lower compressions rotarys that premixed? granted our engines stock have very poor heat managment even for rotary standards

I don't think the heat reduction due to premix is noticeable or even measurable. That's not where heat comes from.

The octane reduction is similarly not a factor. Run what you want, especially in rarified air, if you're not pushing the car. If you race it, high octane is cheap insurance.

Curious...in what way does hi octane act as insurance? I do drive the car very hard.

If you're racing and running hot, always at full load, the risk of detonation is higher. Detonation at low load is meh, whatever. Detonation at high load is instant death.
So there's absolutely no win in saving a couple of bucks per tank by running low octane.

Been away for the holidays. Got to ask...detonation???? Are you saying the engine will blow up?

Engine detonation means you can have fuel ignite before you properly ignite it with spark plugs. That's very bad for the engine.

Knock sensors are there to adjust the timing so it will ignite the air fuel a bit earlier in the compression cycle, but that reduces power.

What you described is actually pre-ignition, when to much heat and pressure combined cause the a/f mixture to spontaneously combust before spark ignition happens, which is incredibly destructive to any engine. Detonation is when combustion occurs after the spark has ignited the mixture which cause and uneven, uncontrolled flame front, for example the spark ignites the mixture but before the flame front spreads through the entire chamber a pocket of unignited a/f mixture at the bottom of the rotor tip ignites, it will cause these two seperate flame fronts to colide with one another reducing the pushing force of the initian combustion event. With pre-ignition your lucky to service it happening once, a few more times and you will end up with a big fat paperweight, detonation while still horrible for your engine is generally more forgiving than pre-ignition.

Pre-ignition is often colloquially referred to as "detonation".

Yep, there is a difference between the two, but I still confused them. :Freak_ani

Since RX-7 NA days, I have ran low octane. My RX-8 is 13 years with 87 octane and dino oil diet. Did experiment with 91 since the manual called for it. But after a few months didn't feel any measurable differences and have switched back to 87. Vancouver, BC weather is fairly mild even in the summer. Original engine with occasional Italian tune-up. YMMV.
There are some good rotary literature that discusses gas requirements specific to normally aspirated rotaries. Suggest to read them up to get educated and make your decision.