Any danger in high octane fuel in a 550?

Watch out for 'leaded' high octane fuel.

Otherwise u should be ok.

 

The manuals I've seen say it should have 95 RON "minimum".

You should aim to use 98 whenever you can.

I've used Elf LMS racing 102 RON, which is unleaded, with great results.

 

I was just thinking of posting an octane thread. It seems to be so controversial. I've heard from some that their cars run better on 89. But at the same time I've heard that anything over the minimum rating doesn't matter; filling the car with the minimum is the only thing nessecary. I've also heard of engines "seeing" that the fuel in the tank is a higher octane than minimum and adjusting timing to create 10 more hp or so. I think this was for some Honda. I can't remember to be honest. Of all that though I really don't know which to believe. There's so much conflicting information.

Octane is the resistance to knocking, or exploding from the heat and pressure of the combustion chamber rather than from the sparkplug. I don't understand how a extremely high performance high compression engine could run better on a lower octane as it would be extremely suceptible to knocking under high-load circumstances. I don't know if i answered anything but Wikipedia is always helpful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_rating

I don't think anything higher than recommened would be bad though just based on terms. Afterall, they state 95 as a minimum.

 

We just had a similar discussion in a thread in the Canadian section.

The consensus was that high octane fuel doesn't hurt the 550, as long as its unleaded (of course). Although anything beyond the requirements of the engine would be wasted...as opposed to being magically converted into extra HP.
Weirdly, both the local Ferrari and Lambo dealers have recommended Shell "V" power premium as the fuel of choice...especially for 12 cyl. cars. Although the explanation for this was not provided, it was advice definately recieved by both Lambo and Ferrari 12 cyl. car owners...any ideas as to why?

Regarding the "octane ratings", it was my understanding that 95 RON equated to a lower "octane" level...at least here in North America,...I believe it was 91 octane? The listings at gas pumps differ from Europe substantially.
In Europe, 95 at the pump means 95 RON, where here, it is the actual octane rating (RON+ROM/2...I *think*)..so that 91 octane on a gas pump here would roughly equate to 95 RON. Please feel free to correct me, Im not to sure of the conversion (or the above formula, for that matter...)

 

I think the V-Power recommendation has something to do with Shell's longtime sponsorship of Ferrari's racing efforts.

 

We had assumed that as well....but why the rec. from the Lambo dealer? For 12 cyl. cars specifically?

 

95 RON is 91 octane here in North America

~

“I dont sell cars, I sell engines. The cars I throw in for free since something has to hold the engine” - Enzo Ferrari

 

...Hmm, I wonder how could that work or have you possibly got it the other way around.

Some engines have knocking sensors which retard the timing or something to take away the knocking and therefore the engine makes less power but seeing the octane would be something different.

 

Engine management systems do not 'see' octane ratings of the fuel--the latest systems as fitted to the Ferrari are able, via feedback from various sensors , to maximise the engines tune within preset parameters to ensure the best performance available from the fuel used up to a certain point. The limit is the original map programmed within the main ecu which sets the upper and lower limits for fuelling and ignition timing. As already stated the engine will run as much advance as it can by relying on the knock sensor to tell it when there is too much-it also relys on the lambda sensor to keep it informed of fuel mixture ratio but other factors can and do affect these settings-engine temperature for example.therefore the ECU can within preset limits tune the engine to extract the most performance from the fuel used as long as all the sensors are working correctly-there is also a limit to how much improvement you will gain-going up higher and higher on the octane will not keep increasing the power and may well lose power at very high octanes as these fuels require vastly different maps for them to be of any use.One of the benefits of a good higher octane fuel is that of improved throttle response-in that the engine feels zippier when revved off load and needs less throttle to acheive a given rate of acceleration umnder load.Even high compression engines have a limit to what octane they can make use of---a 308 engine we build with 13.5:1 compression (2 valve) make no more power on the dyno by changing from 102 octane to 105 or even 112 buit the driver did report a marked improvement in throttle response /feel even though he was not told we had swopped fuels during a test day.
So--to finish my ramblings using the highest octane road fuel available will do absolutely no harm to your car and if you take the time to reset the ECU's will actually cause it to run as Ferrrari Spa intended it to-lower octane fuels will make your engine produce less power and higher octane (within the limits)will allow your car to run to its full potential as designed

 

Yeah I know, I read it and it didn't make sense to me either. But it wasn a decently credible source so I figured I'd post it. But again, I am wrong occasionally.