Car people: Looking at a car, give your opinion.

[Esco]

I am looking at a Saturn Ion Redline. 2.0 DOHC Supercharged, 205 HP, top speed 144. Has 43000 miles which is exactly average for a 2004. I have them worked down to $12,000. NADA Blue Book is $15k and change, Kelley is at 17,000 and change with the features on it. Do you think I have them at the bottom? I can get one for $15K with 12,000 miles on it. Let me have it.

personally if you want a daily driven car with a little pep, i'd just go with an ls1 f-body. they can be had for less than that, and get near the same gas milage with 320-ishhp.
i have a 98 z28.

 

[zix]

let see if i get this strait , in the states premium gas is 93 ?
here is 98 and regular is 95 and now we are getting 100 but more expensive. i use daily 95 on my bike and cars ,only if i go ride whit some budys on the wills i put 100 , it responde better

 

[ewurm]

let see if i get this strait , in the states premium gas is 93 ?
here is 98 and regular is 95 and now we are getting 100 but more expensive. i use daily 95 on my bike and cars ,only if i go ride whit some budys on the wills i put 100 , it responde better

Most premium gas here is 91 octane, you can find 93. Never seen higher than that in MN.

 

[JD_MAN]

Most premium gas here is 91 octane, you can find 93. Never seen higher than that in MN.

There is a gas station by my house that sells 105 or 108 octane. I can't remember which it is.

BTW - Nice looking ride there wurm.

 

[ewurm]

I took a curvy onramp today, decided to see how well it handles in tight turns. It handles a lot better than I can drive! My Grand Am was losing stearing capability due to the warn out shocks, this thing can take whatever I dish out.

 

[ewurm]

personally if you want a daily driven car with a little pep, i'd just go with an ls1 f-body. they can be had for less than that, and get near the same gas milage with 320-ishhp.
i have a 98 z28.

I always wanted a Camaro, but to get one with similar mileage would cost more than this car. Also, my parents have a firebird, and the windshield is huge, but the actual view is small. I like the large view of the road.

 

[RyanS]

I always wanted a Camaro, but to get one with similar mileage would cost more than this car. Also, my parents have a firebird, and the windshield is huge, but the actual view is small. I like the large view of the road.

Camaros are the devil in the winter, be glad you didn't get one.

There are a few stations that sell 100+ octane fuel here. The station at 70th and Robert did, it's been awhile since I've been there though. The sleezy stop at 35W and Hennepin sells leaded race gas! LOL

 

[Jesse]

let see if i get this strait , in the states premium gas is 93 ?
here is 98 and regular is 95 and now we are getting 100 but more expensive. i use daily 95 on my bike and cars ,only if i go ride whit some budys on the wills i put 100 , it responde better

You're probably referring to the research octane number (RON) octane rating. In the U.S. pump octane, aka anti-knock index (AKI), is the average of the RON and motor octane number (MON). In general RON and MON differs by around 8-10 points, which means that AKI is roughly 4-5 points lower than the equivalent RON. Here's an explanation:

http://www.ibmwr.org/otech/octane.html

 

[Zoodiver]

I'd love to see your car.

Nice pics for your new car. I plan on having mine back together in the next week or so. (Undergoing major renovation for next season).

As for fuel, it's only as good as your tune. If you have a car tuned from the factory for 87 octane, and you run higher octane, you're not doing yourself any favors.

Forced induction motors require higher octane to prevent detonation as a result of the timing changes made to optimize the power adder. Nitrous users deal with the same thing (assuming they pay attention to doing it the right way).

We'll still have to get together sometime. Maybe this weekend we can meet up at the Aquarium. Until mine hits the MSP streets again, here's some old shots. Same style blower you have from Eaton, just a little bigger.

 

[Jesse]

As for fuel, it's only as good as your tune. If you have a car tuned from the factory for 87 octane, and you run higher octane, you're not doing yourself any favors.

Agreed. However, 91 octane is recommended for the Saturn Redline Ion. As I mentioned earlier, run the lowest octane recommended or, if detonation occurs at that rating, the lowest octane at which detonation does not occur.

Ignition timing and load also play a big role in determining minimum octane. Retarding your timing will allow you to run lower octane at the expense of hp. Advancing your timing will generally produce more hp, but also more heat and detonation. As far as load is concerned, the higher the load, the higher the octane demand. For example, a 1600 dual port VW Type I engine in a 1,800 lb. bug or 1,900 lb. Karmann-Ghia should do just fine on regular, but that same engine in a 3,000+ lb microbus will require premium. About 15 years ago, I traded a friend motors from my ghia and his bus. He had a 1776 cc that needed a rebuild. I gave him my fairly fresh 1600 cc in return. I popped in a few extra shims under the barrels to increase deck height and lower compression ratio down to 6.5:1 (down from around 7.5:1) so he could run regular. Yeah, it only made like 45 hp, but it never pinged.