Scot,
There is a lesson to be learned from this topic. Horsepower costs more than money. It can be agrivating. When I was your age and even younger I can remember spending many many hours under car hoods cause it "just didn't feel right" when I slammed my foot to the floor. Right now your car gets you where you need to go and it gets you there on 87 octane. If you ever feel the need for speed, get a crate engine that will put out 350 to 400 HP on 91 octane. Or build one that will do 300 to 350 on 89 octane. Get the seat of the pants feel with transmission and rear gearing.
Sorry Rick, just had to sling in another 2 cents. BTW will I see either Scot or Rick in Hershey?

The more 2 cents the better, after all, isn't that why were all here?

I can't agree with Glenn more in regards to modern V8's, technology is an amazing thing and we're all dealing with 30 year old technology. Even the newer C3's are based on 30 year old technology, they just refined the pre-existing designs.

I consider my little 350 to be a fairly hot motor and, even with high compression, a hot cam, high rise intake, high octane fuel, headers and a four speed, as much as I hate to admit it, I can still be smoked by a camaro running 87 octane. Even the big blocks that have the sheer torque can't put the power to the ground like today's cars. The crate motors Glenn mentioned are fantasticly powerful and trouble free. I know several rod owners that have them (ZZ4's mostly) and they are hard to beat. But then horsepower and acceleration aren't the only things that matter!!! (at least that's what I tell myself when I see that 87 octane camaro!!)

Unfortunately I won't be making it to Hershey this year, any chance you'll be making it to Bloomington?

Many of these trips like Bloomington are a goal set for when the wife and I are both retired. Hershey is close enough I could actually drive there Saturday morning and go home that night and return Sunday morning. I've done that often enough for Corvette Carlisle. Anyway, no I won't get to Bloominton, at least not this year and the N.C.M. is a future trip also. The NCCC convention is this year in Haggerstown, Md, which is pretty much a hop, skip and jump from here but won't make that one either.
Sigh !!!

I guess I'm lucky, Bloomington is less than 2 hours away for me.

I just read this in the July issue of Corvette magazine and since it pertains to this topic,I thought I would share an excerpt from the article.
"As a rule, other than preventing preinition in those relatively rare engines that were intentionally designed to require it, 'premium' gasoline does absolutely nothing for an engine's performance, behavior or health. To put it another way, if an engine doesn't literally require high-octane fuel to prevent it from knocking, premium fuel is of utterly no value". They go on to say that Corvettes with Electronic Spark Control will perform differently between regular and premium gas because the ESC detects preignition and retards timing by as much as 20 degrees.
I might be wrong but unless the 82s had ESC, none of the other C3s had it.
Sooooo, after reading the whole article, I am left with the opinion that unless you have an L88 car or some other special edition that carries a sticker demanding premium fuel, you should not need anything over 91 octane ( in a C3 anyhow ).
Hey, wadda I know. Go buy the magazine and read the whole article.

I just read this in Corvette Car and Parts:

Corvettes built before 1972 were engineered to run on high-octane gasoline, like 103-octane Sunoco 260 right from the pump. The higher the octane the slower and cooler it burns. A slow burning, high octane gasoline results in more complete combustion, which, in turn, delivers more energy to the pistons. Using octane boostr and lead additives may help, but it is just a Band-Aid repair to a much more complex problem. Some Corvette owners adjust their timing to try to prevent the knocking and/ or pinging that results when a high-performance engine doesn't receive the high-octane nourishment it naturally craves.

I think all Corvette engines, even base engines, are high performance. They out perform most engines in passenger cars.

This is probably why I am fine running at 107.

|UPDATED|5/7/2003 3:04:53 PM|/UPDATED|

Hi guys, thanks for the input.

Glenn, the article you quoted mentioned "those that were intentionally designed to run on 'it' (high octane fuel)". Since octane levels at the time the early C3's were designed for 98 to 105 octane levels I would definitely say that they were designed to run on high octane fuel. That's why compression was dropped from 11:1 ('69 L-46) after 1969/1970 when GM's execs mandated that stock engines run on the new 91 octane fuel. The ESP developed later was an effort to deal with the ailments of lower octane (pinging & knocking) by retarding timing. Remember though, retarded timing = lower horsepower/torque. A reduction of 20 degrees would have been a tremendous reduction in seat-of-the-pants feel. They are however correct in that an engine designed for 89 octane will not benefit from 93 octane. By the way, the L-88's had a minimum octane requirement of 103 and I am willing to bet that the L-46 had a minimum requirement in the high 90's.

Larry - I suspect that we have a similiar feel for the high octane fuel. I've always looked at it this way, the slower the burn the longer the downforce on the piston. By today's standards, the stock engines from the 68-71 years are high performance engines. Retarded timing cheats the C3 owner out of the performance that the original cars were designed with.

By the way (jsrische), why would a small block suffer less from the lower octane than a big block?

With all the discussion above, I figured I'd give the 110 octane a try with 1/2 tank. I have a local airport near my home. Unfortunately, when I got there I was told that CT law will not allow them to dispense aviation 110 to anyone without a registered plane. Anyone run into this before? A little palm grease needed ??? ~ Joe

Guess you could always take a nice sunny Sunday morning cruise to your airport and hang around the area where the little single engine planes are. Try to meet one of the pilots before they go up for a nice early fun cruise. Explain you like to take your Vette on nice sunday morning cruises also but need to get some high octane fuel. Make a new friend and get them to buy it for you.

You'd probably stand a better chance if you have a couple of gas cans so that nobody sees you pumping it into a car. Also, if you have a racetrack near you its an excellent place to start. A lot of times the guys at the local shops where they build performance engines will know where to find it too.

Remember to advance that timing for more punch!