Ah! The never ending debate continues everytime we see a new Accord generation rolling out. Well, here are my thoughts:
1. It takes a few gas tanks of the good stuff (high octane) to notice any difference in performance. One tank won't do anything... and yes there are noticable performance changes.
2. First thing you notice after a few high octane gas tanks is the knock sound is down by a lot (shell and petro Canada, especially petro Canada 94 oct makes the engine run more quiet, still don't know why).
3. You stick to higher octane gas and your engine won't need de-carbonizing as much as you fill up with the recommended octanes. Higher octane gasolines have enough detergent in them to keep carbs out!
... or at least this is what I have discovered over the past 10 years with a '98 v6 and a '03 v6. However now we have a new engine here. The 3.5 with cylinder deactivation. That part is what scares me. No idea how lower or higher octanes will react in that engine with that mechanism of deacticating cylinders. No idea how timing may or may not change due to higher octane and how timing is related to the cylinder deactivation. Lots of questions, no answers yet.
