What octane gas do you use for your Tundra?

Alcohol carries it's own oxygen. So you are able to pack more fuel in the cylinder per stroke.

 

87. 16.99 mpg 10% ethanol. Beast mode without the tow/haul

 

So 91, right? Lmao

 

87 from Costco only

 

I'm about to take a 600 mile road trip, I got Costco at both start and end locatios. We'll see. 91 on the way there, 87 on the way back.

 

Whew can't believe I just read through this whole thing trying to figure out what kind of gas to put in my new truck

I'm pretty well researched in octane ratings and ethanol vs. non etc. when finding the right fuel for my 2 stroke dirt bike, let me try to clear a few things up.

1. Not getting less ethanol with higher-octane premium fuels. Ethanol is a cheap way to boost octane so you are more likely to get that full 10% of ethanol if you buy premium 93 unless clearly marked as non-ethanol
2. You aren't getting better gas mileage with higher octane fuels. The higher the octane rating the less combustible the gas, so if you aren't running higher compression you aren't getting as much energy out of the fuel so less mpg*
   
3. Your daily driver manufactured this century is fine with 10% ethanol gas or E10. E10 is only a problem if it sits for awhile and absorbs water or you run it in a engine that wasn't designed for it.
4. A premium fuel could be better for your engine, even if you don't need it due to lower compression, if it has better additives, better quality control, etc. but I don't know any brand of standard pump gas that makes it worth it for this reason alone.
5. E85 sucks. Just don't use it unless it is at least 30% cheaper and you don't need all of your horsepower
6. non-ethanol of a suitable octane is better than E10 by about 3% so if the price of pure gas is 3% or lower vs. the E10 get the pure gas.

The * from #2 and what I'm here trying to figure out. Some engines will retard timing to prevent knocking with lower octane fuel, which means that you aren't getting all of your performance and therefore MPG, does the MPG loss make up for the higher price of a 91 vs. 87? Ehh hard to say but I want my engine running at the peak performance it was designed for. But I've only really heard of that happening for cars that say they want 91+ but will retard the timing if you do put lower octane in to protect the engine, never really heard of them asking for 87 and always running "downgraded" and boosting timing if it has higher octane fuel

I've heard people mention that happens for the gen 3 tundra's with the 5.7, but does anyone have any definitive evidence of that?

Also while I don't plan to run E85, I can with the FFV, so i'm thinking maybe on a long road trip of highway driving, if the price is right and i'm going to burn through the whole tank in a day or two, it might be worth it

 

87 vs 93 for a daily driver i recommend 87. But if you want performance go will 93. I have the bullydog bdx and i can tell the difference fron regular and performance tune. Octane has alittle more to it than you think. Alot people say 93 is better gas or e85 is shit gas wronggg. No 93 is the same quality gas has 87 its just less prone to knock. And the timing with 87 is so retard its not even funny. Toyota recommends 87 because they design it to be safe running that octane. CAFE standards and why would they put, you need to run 91+ octane. No its truck and i think they would have less buyers out their for that reason. And e85 ethanol has less btu than gasoline but it has more oxygen which is a good thing and its has a more complete burn. 100 ethanol is like 105 octane. And e85 is about 93 octane. I run 87 octane and e15 with performance tune no pinging and more power. Better yet 93 ethanol free and e20 thats power right there before you go to the track. So running a tuner go 91+ see how it does. daily driver with no tune 87 but its where you get the gas also. Dont go to some joe shop and buy gas. Go to sunco or mobile with high quality gas.

 

3 months ago I bought my tundra and I still do not know what kind of gasoline to use.
For now I am using 89 for fear of using 87.
Many people say not to use 87 because a 5.7L engine works better with 89 or 91 gasoline.
Is there someone who can help me?

 

I looked in the manual and didn't see where it said what octane it required either. 87 is fine and you aren't getting any better mileage or performance out of a higher octane (actually less) unless the engine dynamically changes the timing when it has lower octane fuel than it was designed for. I haven't found anything definitive saying this is the case or not.

However I have the FFV version of the engine and the manual does have a procedure for switching from E10 to E85 so there is some changes happening based on fuel type, so I really don't know whats happening between E10 87 - 93

So for now i'm running 87 as I still don't think any gains in mileage, if any, would off set the higher price.

 

I was under the assumption that burning 93 in a truck built for 87 will mess things up.
Valves etc will suffer.

This was coming from someone that was an engineer at GM (I know, not saying much)

 

85 but I'm in Denver.

 

Not that I know of, I guess the gas wouldn't be burning as hot and might allow for more build up on the valves

 

Yes it does run smoother on 93 and thats probably the only gain from running higher octane in our 5.7 engine toyota recommended 87 because it runs good but not the best. Why would toyota recommend 93 in a work truck. I have a bully dog and run 93 i could tell a big difference from 87 regular tune to 93 with performance tune.

 

I got my truck 3 months ago, and have been use I gotta different brands and different octane. Cheveron 93 gives my tuck a little more power rather than 87, fuel mileage is better with 87. Arco 87 I get the best mileage with 87, 93 isn’t any different than chevron. Getting 385 miles to 24 gallons on 87 and 350 with 93. Hope it helps

 

Thats impossible 93 burns hotter and slower than 87 but it dosent do anything to the valves. And we have port fuel injection which means the gas goes over the valves rather than direct into the cylinder like ford. Only thing that matters is the quality of gas.

 

I started to use top tier gasoline, it is a higher detergent gasoline, from 87-97 octane depending on the brand. same price as the junk that chain convenient stores sell. go to there web site
they have information on locating stations. Ten auto manufactures recommend top tier gasoline. you can look in your manual.

 

You have succumbed to marketing hype. Why don't you add an $8.00 bottle of fuel additive to your tank every time as well? Tens of millions $$ worth of research by the best engineers in the world at Toyota to build an engine that runs the best it can on 87 octane and you put in 93 octane. I have tried every octane level out there along with every brand including non-ethanol and my best milage comes from 87 octane from Shell, BP and Exxon on my 5.7 Tundra. I avg 17.8mpg. My worst average was 16.5mpg using 93 octane non-ethanol. (All averages based on 700 mile trips from SC to FL and back on the interstate.)

 

You can look at my fuelly and see, road trips I run 93. Daily it's 87. I see a difference on road trips and I don't fill up on 93.

 

There could be a lot of factors involved in MPG but yes toyota did desgin our engine to run on 87 but thats not the best octane for our engines and heres why toyota yes spent lots of $$$ to make our 5.7 engines run good on 87. But the factor is why would toyota say you can only run 91 and higher like the Lexus because its a worl truck. When we put 87 in our engines they take 14 of timing when using 93 they take out 2 degree of timing with using stock tune. I dyno it myself and saw all the timing events and af on all the rpms. If you dont tow i recommend running 87 and if you do tow ill run 93 ethanol-free. Ethanol has a lower BTU then normal gasoline that's how government raises octane level using corn. If you have bullydog I recommend performance tune on 93 octane from Sunoco i think they have the best gas. Now when people say your wasting your money i agree and disagree. Our engine has a staic cr 10:2 which back in 2007 was somewhat high but dynamic compression is the kicker because whatever octane you use the ecm calculates that and changes valve timing events creating less Dynamic compression. Using higher octane gives you better valve timing events which creats more power and also dosent take away timing. Lexus has the same engine but requires 91 and higher because its a sports car trying to push out as much as possible safely.

 

mpg can be affected by temperature, wind, humidity, road conditions, traffic, using different stations, your right foot, the type of fuel, octane levels, weight, tires, a/c on or off, drafting another car and so much more but ethanol free will give you from a science view point vetter mpg

 

93 - 5.7ltr with TRD Supercharger

 

Manual calls for 87 or Higher. I run 89. I live in the foothills with a lot of low/mid speed hills. She shifts less with 89

 

I have never run anything but 87 in mine. If I was almost empty and knew I would be making several trips towing the boat I would try 93. I towed my boat 300 miles with the Tacoma and filled up once with 93 and did get a little better MPGs. Tried a couple of tanks for normal driving and never saw a difference. Have not put 93 in the Tacoma or Tundra since.

 

I use 87 and ave mpg is 15 in mixed city/highway. No tonneau cover. All stock.

 

Question:

How does the ECU know the octane rating of the fuel? Is there a sensor in the fuel line?

Last I read engines didn't know to pull timing unless the knock sensor detected an ignition event sooner than expected.

 

It seems that gaining 12 degrees of timing when going to 93 would give a noticeable performance boost in SOTP. Most stock tuning is set to use 87 and will not afford more timing even with higher octane.
bc

 

What about a flex fuel truck, a truck that can run on E85, how does ethanol free improve its performance and mileage? I'm thinking that it would not help in anyway as the truck can run on E85, so why will it run worse on E10?

Anyone know the answer to this question?

 

Ethanol has a lower btu power level than gasoline usual e85 will get worse gas mileage because the power level of ethanol is lower. But 100% ethanol has a octane rating of like 110ish around there. So e85 is more knock resistant. And a more clean combustion.

 

I understand, thanks. So what difference does it make to, especially in a flex fuel vehicle, to use ethanol free gas?

 

This is the most interesting thing I’ve read all day. I stood at my shell station contemplating whether the additional $.60/gallon for the top tier 89 (colorado) with “V Power Cleaning Agents yada yada yada” was worth it... I spent the extra $8.00 and now you’re telling me that shit is in all octanes? Seriously?