Has anyone recently tried 101 high octane gas in their 458?

I run a mix of 91 and 100 octane, and have used straight 100 octane when that’s the only thing available. Full Novitec car including ECU tune, 100 octane isn’t *that* much more so I play it safe vs sorry and run higher octane. Do I notice any difference? Nothing monumental, no. I can’t imagine on a stock car there is any noticeable difference.

 

Speaking candidly no, and I don't own a 458. But having spent a lot time in racing environments I can say it takes two things to benefit from higher octane fuel. 1. Tune for it 2. Measurement of exact one thing that's being changed, before and after, A vs B.

On a race track, if you're looking for 10ths of a second in lap time improvement, you can adjust your tire pressures, brake zones, suspension settings etc. If you're all dialed in, and you still need an extra push, great go for it. Retune your ECM for higher spark threshold and you *may* find some tiny improvement. In a very controlled environment.

For street cars and motorcycles running on normal fuel then jumping to 100/101 octane? Everyone will tell you they "feel" some benefit. Mostly its in their head, there is no discernable difference. It does sound cool though

There are two obvious benefits:

- improved times that comes from a lighter wallet.
- the other is synonymous with performance brand stickers and the addition HP slapping one on carries.

 

Does you no good without a tune for it. Does smell good though!

 

High octane DOES NOT mean more power. there are many papers on this explaining in great detail. However the higher the octane the LESS volatile the fuel is. High octane is for high compression engines (which ours are) and the high octane (less volatile) fuel is needed so that the engine does not pre-ignite(knock). Our engines are tuned/built to use 91/93 octane. Higher Octane will not give you more power.

 

I don’t think you will feel a difference between 91 or 93 octane. 101 would be a waste on money. I’ve tried this at the track...Sebring is my home track and at the track they sell 101. I turned no faster lap times on 101 or back straight faster speed. This was in a 911 (997) GTS and then a GT3. I got lazy and didn’t want to drive out of the track for 93 gas at the Shell station a few miles up the road. That’s been my experience but in a Porsche. I don’t think a Ferrari stock engine would be different. Always interesting stuff though because they sure.y use to play with fuel in F1

 

One question on modern engines is whether the electronics is set up to adapt to different fuels - I think it would be possible, and then provide different performance. In Europe most regular cars are set up to be able to run on both 95 or 98 RON (which corresponds to US 91 and 93, more or less), and one gets better performance and lower consumption on 98 (but the baseline characteristics are for 95 because it's the cheaper gas). In some cars the very same engine is also able to run on ethanol, again with higher consumption and lower performance (different engine models have wider bands of operation that the engine management can cope with; again, most are flexible between 95 and 98 but only some are able to accommodate with ethanol).

 

Winter fuel with more ethanol certainly makes my cars run less smoothly and the electronics allow the engines to manage the change.
As for high octane gas I used it periodically in my highly modified Yamaha Vmax and it helped eliminate a lot of backfires knocks and idle issues but was not any faster. I tried it in my 2 Ducati’s and there were no differences


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Once on a track, yes. More pops and smell was all I noticed.

 

Whether the 101 will work, really depends on where you live.
Some places in the US, CA for instance, is known for their poor quality fuel. This is why you hear some guys saying there's a big difference.
Indeed, if you live in a place where a 91AKI fuel has a ridiculously low MON of about 84-85, yes,, then the difference is significant. But if you live in northern Europe where even the cheapest 95 RON fuel has a.MON of above 87, then there's little to be had. A local car magazine did a fuel test using a 488 two years ago, and it was very interesting. They tested many fuels, and while I can't remember all of it, I do remember this.
They tested two very popular 100 RON fuels with a MON of 89, so an AKI of 94.5, as well as the most commonly sold 95 RON fuels with a MON of 88, so an AKI of 91.5, as well as ttwo cheap dogwater 95 RON fuel with a MON of 86, so an AKI of 90.5.
Aside from the Ferrari, they also used a Kia and a Merc for this test. All of them were modern turbo engined cars, in different segments.
While the difference between the 100 RON fuel and the 95 RON quality fuel was only about 5-10 hp in the 488, the fuels with the lower AKI really did not perform as well in either car. It was not down by 15-20 hp which one might guess on, it was down by more than 50!
It was the same story in the other cars. Not as much, as power output of the other cars were way less to begin with, but still down by the same power in terms of percentage.
So yes, while Ferrari says a minimum of 95 RON/91AKI, it should be noted that they mean 95/91 AKI of a quality fuel. If you run those low MON fuels, the engine simply senses knock and pull a bunch of timing.

As for the pops in the exhaust. That's a result of un-burnt fuel. What happens is that on the lift-off the dynamic compression gets very low, and the fuel ignites later and slower. This means that when you lift off, you get a bit of fuel going into the hot exhaust. The lower octane stuff will burn more readily under these low pressure conditions, thus resulting in less pops and crackles.

So if you live in an area with good fuel, which unfortunately is not the case for a lot of US states, then there's no need. But if you are somewhere with poor quality fuels, by all means give it a go. Note that on a car like a 458, there will also be a difference, but not as significant as is the case with the 488 forced induction engine. A good guess would be 25-30 hp down if the fuel is poor, compared to the huge drop in the 488.

Was looking for the article, but could not find it. Just fyi.

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I tried it once, didn’t see a difference and then wondered why I spent $130 for a fill up

 

The 458 ECU's are made ONLY for Octane 95. RTFM

I saw cars on the racetracks with ECU faults …. after the tanks were refilled with Ron 95, all was O.K again.

So it is not that simple ...

 

European RON is not US octane IIRC (Euro RON 95 being about US octane 91, but as mentioned above one should also factor the MON when considering the RON, because the US octane actually combines MON and RON) - so it is not that simple indeed

 

Nope, that's just the minimum requirement.

 

Indeed.
The Anti Knock Index, or R+M/2 is the average of Research Octane and Motor Octane. This is what is used in the US.

The problem with the AKI is that it allows for a low quality fuel that has the advertised AKI octane, i.e you can have a 91 AKI fuel which performs fine in a daily driver low pressure situation, but which become an issue once you push it. RON and MON is just two different methods of measuring resistance to detonation. For a fuel to really work well in a high dynamic compression situation, it needs a high MON. Most EU fuels of 95 RON actually have an AKI of 91.7-92.
Another interesting thing to note regarding some of the higher octane fuels such as the Shell V Power is this. When V Power was 99 RON, it wasn't a very interesting fuel, as the MON was very close to their 95. Then when other brands such as the Scandinavian OK Benzin introduced a good 100 RON, Shell had to up their game. Our local OK 100RON has a MON of 88.7, which makes for a pretty impressive jungle juice, and it was a bit of a problem for Shell when the expensive Shell V Power 99 turned out only have a MON of 87.9.
The current Shell 100 has a MON of 89.6, so a very good high performance fuel.

I know, I digress. Anyway, it's interesting to see what kind of standard Ferrari uses when determining a minimum requirement. And when some countries have a fuel which is by all accounts a 91 AKI, it's an issue when the AKI number is created by a high RON but an inadequate MON.
What good is a 91 AKI if the MON is 85...

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Thank you for the detailed explanation, sadly those of us that live in Ca have access to 91oct fuel only. My F12, Porsche GT3 and speedster all ping with the gas station fuel, over the years I've experimented with various types of race fuels with good results .
To all on this thread wondering if race fuel helps, the answer is absolutely it does over the pump gas we have.
Below is the list of different fuels I've used with good results.
My F12, GT3, Speedster all get driven regularly, so I blend F&L extreme 100 or VP street blaze 100, 3gal of 91 to 1gal of race fuel. No more pinging and better throttle response.

Below are the specs for the F&L and VP street blaze which is very similar.
R+M/2 RON MON RAID SPI ETHANOL
100.5....106...95.........5.2............ yes

As for my older cars which do not get driven on regular intervals , I like to use ethanol free fuel, Sunoco Optima or VP C9. I use it without blending.
R+M/2 RON MON RAID SPI ETHANOL
95....... 98......92.........7..............no

I don't think there is a need for tankfull of 101 race fuel, however our cars will benefit up to 95-96oct at best.