minnescoota.com ~ View topic - Drivers putting less gas in tank, then running out

Licensed Joined: 08 May 2005 Posts: 352

Actual Yahoo headline.

Then, they go vote, or maybe not - usually hard to tell who's voting (versus who ought to be) based on the results.

Un-fucking-believable.

Licensed Joined: 19 Jan 2005 Posts: 576 Location: St. Paul

You're surprised at this? People are basically irrational, even when they are trying to make a case that they are rational. Best to just accept this and just move on. Otherwise you’ll end up like Phaedrus.

Licensed Joined: 06 May 2005 Posts: 215

Nice ZATAOMM reference!

Licensed Joined: 08 May 2005 Posts: 352

Licensed Joined: 19 Jan 2005 Posts: 771

Does the act of running out of gas exemplify quality?

Here's the actual story.

Cars don't REALLY take premium! It's a lie! Just fill it up with E-85 and add a pinch of black powder (available at your best gun shops), and it's the same thing.

Licensed Joined: 06 May 2005 Posts: 215

Licensed Joined: 19 Jan 2005 Posts: 771

Is smoother better? Is rough worse? I don't know... ask Egan... he has one of those fancy European cars.

Licensed Joined: 19 Jan 2005 Posts: 1323 Location: MPLS

Ok, first:
Higher octane gas doesn't mean it makes more power than cheaper gas.
When you're refining gas, you end up with various lenghs of carbon chains. 6 carbon atoms = Hexane
7 Carbon atoms = Septane
8 carbon atoms = Octane

hexane will "spontaneously" combust when you put it under a relatively low amount of pressure.
Octane takes a heck of a lot more pressure than hexane does in order to combust.

The "Octane" rating of fuel is the percentage of "Octane" to other members of the family. The more octanes in your gas, the less likely it is to detonate when you submit it to pressure. (LIke say, inject it into a cylinder that's compessing it with air.)

86 octane gas will probably not ignite in the compression ratio you're going to find in a typical small car or scooter.

Higher compression engines (fancy european engines and turbos, etc) rely on the gas being ridiculously compressed before the spark plug fires it off. If the gas does ignite prior to the spark plug discharge (due to the compression), you end up with a 'knocking' engine.

Octanes greater than 100 = it's not really the percentage of octane any more, but the 'compression ration as compared to octane, and we've gotten to this compession ration through the addition of various chemicals and compounds, such as lead. "

So premium gas doesn't mean "MORE HORSEPOWER IN ANY ENGINE".
It means that engines that are designed to achieve high horsepower through high-compression techiniques won't tear themselves apart with mis-firing cylinders.

Yay!