High octane fuel - leaded petrol

Introduction
Today after about 20 years of a transitional period the majority of the cars and a rising
ratio of motorcycles we use have a catalytic converter. However the cars and bikes that they
haven't one are still significant and their users are skeptical about what kind of fuel to use.
In the early 90s the unleaded petrol was introduced in parallel to the conventional leaded
one. Some years ago lead was completely banned and leaded petrol was replaced from LRP (lead
replacement petrol). In this article we will try to explain the reasons behind the use of leaded
petrol or LRP and when and if this is necessary.
Also another source of confusion is the relatively recent availability of high-octane fuel.
This more expensive petrol may give power or fuel economy advantages or even reduce wear
inside the engine. In the following pages we will explain the mechanism behind the fuel usage by
the engine and the areas where high-octane petrol could (or could not) be beneficial.

High Octane Gasoline
Fuel quality depends on many factors but as a commercial product, gasoline is judged
mainly (even only) from octane-rating. But what exactly is the meaning behind that number and
what is its use?
Octane rating is a conventional measure that shows how much a fuel mix can be
compressed without self-ignite. Iso-octane has very good resistance to auto-ignition and n-
heptane on the contrary ignites easily when compressed. The octane rating of a gasoline fuel is
the ratio of a mix consisting of iso-octane and n-heptane in such analogy in order the mix and the
respected gasoline fuel to have exactly the same resistance in auto ignition when compressed (the
auto-ignite at the same pressure).
For example, 95 octane gasoline has the same resistance to self-ignition as a mix of 95%
octane and 5% heptane.
But why do we need fuel with high resistance to self-ignition under pressure? The answer
is simple, the efficiency of the engine depends of the compression ratio, thus how much the air-
fuel mix will be compressed before the ignition. If in a given engine we use gasoline with lower
octane rating than necessary we will cause a lot of damage. Not only the fuel-air mix will ignite
early but also that ignition is sudden and uncontrollable. There will be multiple flame fronts and
sudden pressure spikes instead of a controlled ignition that we normally have with spark plug.
The main parameters that dictates what kind of fuel is suitable for every engine are three,
the geometric compression ratio, the electronic fuel and ignition management and the existence
or not of a supercharger.

1).The geometric compression ratio is defined from the ratio of the cylinder volume with the
piston at the TDC to the cylinder volume with the piston at the BDC. The geometric compression
ratio is fixed for a given engine and can only be change with mechanical alterations (ex piston
change).

2).The electronic fuel and ignition management is a more complicated matter.
In a piston engine theoretically the ignition should take place when the piston crown reaches the
TDC. If the fuel-air mix ignites earlier the exhaust gases will provide a resistance at the -still
going upwards- piston, if it ignites after the TDC pressure potential is wasted during the distance
that the piston has already travel downwards.

(engine with separate ignition coil per cylinder and advanced electronic ignition management -
photo SAAB)

The world, 'theoritically' we used in the previous paragraph is very important. It implies that
combustion occurs instantly in zero time, which may be almost the case in very low revving
engines but the usual car and motorcycle engines behave differently. The optimum timing for
ignition is to take place without decelerate the ascend of the piston to TDC and without waste
downward piston travel (after the TDC) and energy.
The fuel-air mix needs a certain time to fully combust and the available time the piston stays
around the TDC decreases the more the engine spins in higher revs. The optimum ignition time
is the one that will give the maximum gas pressure when the piston is in the TDC, thus in high
revs the ignition must start when the piston is still ascending to give time for the pressure to build
up until it reach the TDC. The adjusting mechanism of the optimum ignition timing is called
'Timing advance' and in modern cars and bikes is electronically controlled from the electronic
ignition.
If the electronic ignition is advanced and there also is a knock sensor an engine even if it is set up
to use 98-octane fuel can also operate safely with slightly lower octane rating gasoline. In that
case the ignition takes place earlier during the ascend of the piston. That may reduce the
efficiency and the power of the engine but it also prevents fuel mix self-ignition and engine
wear. Contemporary engines can tolerate lower octane fuel or take advantage of high-octane fuel
to a point.
In reality even a very advanced electronic ignition can do much by itself. A normally aspirated
car with indirect fuel injection has almost insignificant power benefit from higher-octane fuel
that borders in the statistic error when measured in a dynamometer. A high-revving motorcycle
engine with a high compression ratio may have some benefit but small nonetheless.
One can tune an engine to exploit high-octane gasoline and thus be more efficient and powerful
but then the use of regular 95-octane unleaded may damage it.
Direct injection with pilot fuel injection, multi-phase injection and stratified charge have more
ways to exploit a better fuel and even if they are tuned for high-octane fuel use are very flexible
with normal gasoline. Dynamometer tests show a detectable and sometimes significant benefit
from high-octane fuel use in those engines.

3).Supercharging.
In non-normally aspirated engines the maximum fuel-air mix compression is dictated by the
existence of the turbocharger(s), supercharger (or both if that's the case). The supercharging
system's flow adds to the total mass of the air-fuel mix that is entering the cylinder. Although the
geometric compression ratio is fixed, the fuel-air mix is subjected to higher pressure (relatively
to a N/A engine) because it was already under pressure when initially entering the cylinder. The
resulting compression ratio is relative to the flow of the supercharging system and can reach
much higher values than the geometric compression ratio of the engine.

(direct injection engine with exhaust turbo from Audi TT RS - photo Audi)

Depending to how advanced the supercharger system management is (with the use of by-pass,
pressure valves etc) and of course in cooperation with the electronic fuel and ignition
management and the injection system, an engine can have substantial benefits from the use of
high-octane petrol. If all those parameters and system work correctly an engine can be very
flexible (much more than a regular indirect injection engine). It can regulate the pressure inside
the cylinder at every given time in order to work safely and efficiently with regular fuel and have
power and efficiency advantages from high-octane fuel.
Comparative dyno tests with regular and high-octane gasoline in engines with advanced
supercharging and direct injection show significant increase in power and those cars are probably
the only road cars (at least in stock form) that the use of this more expensive fuel is meaningful.

Conclusions for the use of high-octane fuel:
As we can deduce from the above every engine has an octane-rating span that can operate
safely or benefit from the fuel. For example a car that its maker suggest the use of 95-octane
gasoline can operate safely with 91-octane fuel (with lower octane rating it will break down
eventually) and can exploit fuel of up to 98 octane-rating with some actual benefit (more and
there will be no diffirence). The 91-98 span is of course an example, we don't suggest that any
95-octane rated car can operate safely with 91 ron fuel or have any advantages with 98.
Most car/bike makers focus this span towards safety thus most engine can work safely with
lower quality fuel instead of being able to exploit more expensive gasoline.
It is worth mentioning that apart from octane rating this 'premium' fuel is usually of a
higher quality or have improvement add-ons. Some brands distill their premium fuel separately
and distribute it as a closed product. If you only use this petrol you may reduce the chances of
using bad quality gasoline or benefit your car from the higher overhaul quality of the gasoline
even without any power increase. However those things are extremely hard to measure and most
of the times hardly worth the extra cost.
In some cases users have report a decrease in fuel consumption with the use of higher-
octane petrol. The only way that can be occur is the increase of the engine power that for a given
power requirement from the driver leads to milder use of the gas pedal and finally lower fuel
consumption. Even without any power increase, the possibly higher quality fuel can have a
similar effect. Other users report increase in fuel consumption but this has more to do with
psychology (the car is most powerful so I can go faster etc). In most cases the power benefit is
zero or insignificant and even if it is actually there one should justify a slightly lower fuel
consumption (ex -0.5%) with the higher price of the fuel (ex +20%).
As a final conclusion we can say that if you have a normal family car chances are there is
zero benefit from using high-octane fuel. If you have a powerful motorcycle or a direct injected
car you may see a small power increase, but the only cars that the use of such fuel has any
significant effect are super/turbocharged cars with advanced engine management or specially
tuned ones.

Lead.
Lead (Tetra-ethyl lead - TEL to be precise) as a gasoline additive was used for two reasons, as an
anti-knock medium and as a lubricant. It boosted the octane-rating of a fuel by increasing the
pressure that the gasoline would eventually self-ignite and with residues formed especially in the
valve seats reduced wear inside the engine.
The problem with use of lead is primarily it is a dangerous and toxic poison and also it
destroys the catalytic converters that most cars use the last 20 years. Catalytic converters were
introduced in the late 80's and today exist in almost every car and in many motorcycles. With
catalytic converters the unleaded petrol was introduced alongside the regular one (super as it was
called in Greece).
Unleaded petrol instead of lead has other anti-knock mediums like aromatic
hydrocarbons like benzene. These substances by themselves are harmful to human but an engine
with lambda sensor and catalytic converter can reduce them to simpler and mostly harmful ones
like carbon dioxide or monoxide.
For the older non-catalytic cars the regular leaded petrol was still available for many
years in the market until it was replaced after the lead ban from LRP (lead replacement petrol).
The fuel type of such vehicles is an interesting subject that can be examined from two
viewpoints, engine wear and atmospheric pollution.

Pollution.
As we mentioned above, unleaded petrol contain aromatic hydrocarbons, a family of very
harmful for man substances. A catalytic converter equipped car doesn't allow them to reach the
atmosphere, it reduces them to simpler and -mostly- harmless ones, but a non catalytic car allow
them a lot of them to escape to the atmosphere through the exhaust gases. At the time unleaded
petrol was introduced the regular petrol was still available, there was a common belief that it is
criminally ignorant to use unleaded petrol in a non-catalytic car because of the pollutants it
produced. However there are two big misunderstandings.
With the introduction of unleaded the amount of lead in the regular gasoline started to
decrease. Lead was used simply as a lubricant were a tiny amount is sufficient and as an anti-
knock medium the same substances that unleaded fuel used (aromatic hydrocarbons) were added.
Thus a non-catalytic car that consumed regular leaded fuel just before the lead ban emitted in the
atmosphere about the same amounts of benzene etc as if it used unleaded gasoline. Of course
after the lead ban and the introduction of LRP the aromatic hydrocarbons emissions either with
LRP or regular unleaded were exactly the same, because LRP is regular unleaded petrol with the
addition of some small amount of engine lubricant substances.
However even today that LRP is almost universally discontinued many consumers
believe that it is irresponsible and dangerous to use regular unleaded in a non-catalytic car (even
if the engine has no problem using it).
The second misunderstanding was how dangerous the aromatic hydrocarbons were in
comparison with the toxicity of lead. Most studies converge to the fact that lead is orders of
magnitude more dangerous than aromatic hydrocarbons. It would probably be better if lead had
never been used in fuels from the start, other anti-knock additives would be much safer. Of
course aromatic hydrocarbons are still very harmful but they are the lesser of two evils. Even
when unleaded was first introduced it would be much safer for any car (even without a catalytic
converter) to use it despite the fear that many journalist or magazines inspired to the public.
During that transition period many non-catalytic cars (ex Nissan) or motorcycles (ex Piaggio)
were sold with the permission and incitement of the constructor for use of unleaded gasoline.

Engine wear.
Lead was also used as an engine lubricant, especially for valve seats. That is the main
reason that a small amount of lead was retained in the regular leaded petrol even when aromatic
hydrocarbons were added as a main anti-knock medium. That is the main reason for the
existence of LRP after the lead ban. LRP had lubricant additives for the older cars that needed
them for their valve seats. It was nothing else than regular unleaded with some add-ons.
However most non-catalytic cars or motorcycles we use today doesn't need any special
fuel, their engines have all the required alloys and treatments in order to operate safely without
any special lubricant from the fuel. Also, many engineers say that the wear from lead residues
from the use of leaded petrol was much worse than the wear from the lack of lubrication and that
even in those cars regular unleaded would be preferable to leaded petrol.
If however your car needs this lubricants even after the discontinuation of LRP (less than
3% of the cars needed it) there will be on the market separately sold additives that you can put in
the gasoline in small doses and have the same effect with LRP.
Another possibly important fatctor is the octane-rating. The commonly used leaded petrol
("super") had 98-octane rating and now the regular unleaded and LRP have 95. Some older cars
may need 98-octane petrol and cannot operate correctly with 95. In these cases you can use high-
octane petrol without problem even in mix with regular unleaded or LRP.


Conclusions
Here are the conclusions in brief from what we analyzed in the previous pages:

-For non-catalytic cars/motorcycles:
You can use regular 95-octane unleaded unless -according to the previous pages- you
believe that high-octane fuel will have a substantial benefit in power and also justifies the
extra cost.

-For cars/motorcycles with catalytic converters:
Today you have 3 choices, regular unleaded, LRP, or high-octane unleaded. From a
pollution point of view al three are almost equal. If we have to choose the cleaner one
that would be the regular unleaded, the other two are regular unleaded + add-ons.

Thus whatever choice you make the pollutants your car will emit will be at least
those of regular unleaded use.
From engine wear point of view, if your engine needs the lubrication use LRP or
the separately sold add-ons, if it needs the extra octane rating use high-octane unleaded.
If your car needs both you can use high-octane fuel with the add-ons or mix it with LRP.













Nama :Purna Satria Nugraha
NIM : 1220623042
Matakuliah : Teknologi Pembakaran
Dosen : Agung Sugeng Widodo
,ST.,MT.,Ph.D.