Several times on American tuning websites and on videos on YouTube I've seen the power of cars quoted with 93 octane fuel.

Is that the standard fuel in America? Doesn't sound great for normal cars, let alone high powered ones. I didn't think you can even buy 93 octane here can you?

I believe the americans measure their octane ratings in a different way ,making them sound very low compared to ours.

I think you can get down to about 87 octane on their ratings.

I think the US 93 octane is more or less equivalent to our 98 octane.

I've driven a mustang in the US and have to say the petrol or gas, I put in didn't affect it's performance....

Octane rating for gasoline is measured in two ways, one is termed RON (Research Octane Number) and the other is MON (Motor Octane Number). The higher of these two is the RON and is the figure used to described the octane rating of gasoline in the UK/Europe.

In the US (and some other countries) they use something called the Anti Knock Index (AKI) which is the sum of the RON and the MON divided by 2. As the the typical difference between RON and MON is about 10, the average of these two will be approximately 5 below the RON. So if the fuel used in the US has an Octane rating of 93, it is similar to our fuel having a RON of 98.

Does that help? Jet fuel is my speciality, not gasoline

I believe the americans measure their octane ratings in a different way ,making them sound very low compared to ours.

I think you can get down to about 87 octane on their ratings.

 

Very true.

 

In the UK, fuel octane is measured in RON, 95 RON being standard unleaded. In the US fuel octane is measured differently......it is stated as an average of MON (similar to RON, but a slightly different test and hence figures to RON) and RON. And is called the AKI.  

 

So as a rough rule of thumb:-

 

87 AKI = 91 RON

91 AKI = 95 RON

93 AKI = 98 RON

 

Standard fuel in the US is 87 AKI, which sounds low but is actually about 91 RON......not as high as our standard unleaded (95 RON), but most cars will run happily on 91 RON fuel.   

Yes it does! Thank you! I had a feeling it must just be that they measure it definitely because I can't imagine them putting low quality fuel going into expensive cars!

Differently*

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_rating

 

If you want some good stuff in the UK

http://vitalequipment.co.uk/index.php?dispatch=categories.view&category_id=165

Everyone seems to have missed the most important diffrence here... Their fuel prices are less than half of ours :(

If you want some good stuff in the UK

http://vitalequipment.co.uk/index.php?dispatch=categories.view&category_id=165

 

If you want even better race fuel than that. then this is a good comparison between, Mon and Ron and octane (average of the 2).

 

http://www.racegas.com/fuel/compare

 

BTW, Demon Tweeks sells the 260 GT Plus unleaded in 25l drums for £92, which is nearly £4 per litre!

Everyone seems to have missed the most important diffrence here... Their fuel prices are less than half of ours :(

if you want to feel really ****, Stu, check out Venezuela's fuel price.

Jet fuel is my speciality, not gasoline

 

 

Can you get me some Jerry, like a tank full

My Dad lived in the States for 20 odd years, when he went there fuel was 98 cents a gallon (albeit smaller than an imperial Gallon) in 2007 he was driving his Chevrolet Suburban to work, took his foot off the throttle to slow down for the junction off the freeway and BANG! the auto box exploded all over the road, he rolled the car into a VW dealership where he was offered a decent price against a VW Passat Wagon, 1,9 PD DSG, he bought it, the best part is that he made the monthly payment for the Passat from the money saved not putting fuel in the Suburban and had some money over.

 

 By the time he died in 2010 Fuel was up over $3 per gallon which is causing problems for most people with old cars who can't afford fuel and is keeping modern economical car prices very high.

Everyone seems to have missed the most important diffrence here... Their fuel prices are less than half of ours :(

 

True, but on average their cars have less than half the fuel economy than ours! 

Can you get me some Jerry, like a tank full

Only if you run a diesel

We have a few small tanks of about 5,000,000 litres pumpable.

Jet - A Jerry? 

Jet - A Jerry?

Please don't talk like that to me , its Jet A-1 only outside of North America (actually just outside the USA) please.

iirc there was AVTUR also years ago or am I mistaken?  Before my Dad went to the States he worked for Shell at Stanlow and we used to go to Manchester airport with fuel for the aircraft, JET A-1 I remember and AVTUR but not sure what it was, might have nothing to do with planes, it was along time ago.

Its the same thing. The specification for Jet A-1 used around the world is Defence Standard 91-91. Currently at issue 7 amendment 2 and goes by the NATO code of F-35, the Joint Service Designation of AVTUR and the internationally recognised name of Jet A-1. The Stanlow refinery has since been sold by Shell to an Indian company called Essar.

Until I left my last job in February I was the technical authority for the aforementioned specification and had been for the previous 10 years. A nice role to have which has let me travel the world to some nice places and some I do not really care to go back to as well.

Thanks to JerryT for explaining some theoretically complex technical things in plain English.

Petrol is now up to $3.80 in the US.    US gallon is approx. 0.8 of an Imperial gallon, so the relative difference is narrowing.    I did work it all out when I come back from California and US prices are a little more than 1/2 our prices.

Well, you also find states where the normal price for regular is $4.27 ... and that's hard for our US friends even though we believe that it is very cheap ...