Which location did you go to? I'm always scared to use the higher octanes out in the sticks since that fuel tends to just sit there for long periods. I only venture to three specific stations unless on a road trip. If your not having any issues I'd be willing to try the same location!

Back in 2004, My two buddies, one who owned a 2003 G35 coupe with only an intake mod, wanted to see how it would hold up to my other buddies 2000 M3 roadster.

They took the two cars to the drag strip and the 2003 G35 won by two car lenghts... they gave this a couple tries, and it was the results the 3 times they tried.

A month later the 2000 M3 wanted a rematch. So away they went to the drag strip, but this time the M3 had 100 or 104 race gas, I cant remember. However no one knew he had put race gas in, he just told everyone he added a intake to the car.

Low and behold... the M3 beat the G35 by about two car lengths.. everyone includeing myself was pretty shocked... back then in 2004 we had only heard of the Subaru's having ECU's (stock) which would advance timing to better gas..

Point of this story I've seen it myself with M3's and Subaru's so I believe it..:tiphat::tiphat: I can't wait to try this myself.

There's a YouTube video showing about 15whp gain by using 100 octane race gas. I'll find it and post it later.

That was some sort of oxygenated blended fuel -- not just higher octane.

I hate to say it, but without hard data (e.g., timing log, dyno run) there's no way to know if it's in your head or not... the ECU does so much adjusting over the course of a normal drive due to ambient temp, intake temp, oil temp, etc. it's really tough to say.

Also, the pump gas in other parts of the world may have fewer impurities, but it is NOT generally a higher octane -- they just use RON instead of the RON+MON/2 = AKI we use in the US, and RON is scaled several points higher for the same actual octane. A good rule of thumb is to multiply RON by .95 to get approximate AKI equivalent (i.e., 96 RON = ~ .91 AKI).

FWIW, I would say if you are ready to spend over 8 bucks a gallon to fill your tank, pick two days when the weather will be about the same, and schedule 3 dyno pulls on each of those days at the same shop.

Run three times each day, allowing cool down between runs for approximately equal oil temps (will pull a little timing over 205* F or so I'm told); one set of runs on 93 and one set of runs on 100. Use SAE correction.

If there's a measured difference found -- great! If not, then you'll more than make back the money spent on the dyno runs in savings on fuel.

If you do it, send me the drf's and I'll even make up the dyno comparison charts for you.