Fuel requirement?

[ltomn]

Does this 6.2L NA LT2 run on regular or does it consume premium fuel? It would seem to me that releasing this vehicle with the capability of running it on regular fuel would make it very popular in Europe where fuel is significantly more expensive then in the US. A huge boost to it's viability, desirability, would be created this way. Who has the inside skinny on this topic??

[ABorC]

a V8 car in the UK and EU is already a non-starter with this car. my .02 says that requiring 91 is the least of the concerns for sales in those regions.

Also, Octane ratings are computed with a different formula outside the US (i don't remember what it is), so there's another consideration.

[ZORA 69]

Regular fuel is 87 octane , so NO And if one is buying a Corvette in the EU remember they are paying alot more than we do when their crazy duty is applied maybe 30 to 50 percent more . So, if one pays that much for a car the cost of fuel should not be an issue.If one has to consider the cost of fuel in Europe they can not afford the car.

[ltomn]

GM has stated that the C8 will be available in both RH and LH drives! This suggests they are setting their sights on a more international audience for the new Stingray. With regular fuel being over $6/gallon throughout Europe and premium well over $7/gallon the lure of regular gas might be quite high for sports minded car lovers. Gas costs a similar amount in Australia as it does in California and Japan is about another $1 higher then the tax laden state. Sheer distances between destinations and origination is also a factor. Europe is considerably closer together, as may be Japan but Australia? I think this is a bigger concern for some then others but Europe might well include the gas requirement in a decision to buy.

[Ace]

Octane rating for Europe and US are pretty different, here a comparison:
US 87 = EU 91
US 90 = EU 95
US 93 = EU 98

Usally the lowest fuel offered in Europe is 95 (US 90), so it should be fine. But since the C7 Corvette always came with the Z51 at a starting price of 80k€ I doubt that buyers will care about how much the fuel costs. At least I don't see the point in reducing the actual power of your engine by using cheap fuel if you have the money for a sportscar.

[ltomn]

The Octane ratings are confusing as they are derived differently is Europe and Far East then in US. This explanation comes from www.hondaswap.com:

In Europe 98-octane gasoline is common and in Japan even 100-octane is readily available at the pumps, but this octane nomenclature is misleading to Americans as foreign octane ratings are derived entirely differently from our own... So, like every other measurement system it seems that everyone else uses a different scale than we do, but unlike most other instances where we have had the good sense to create different units of measure in this case we all use the same name...
Japan and Europe use a system called RON or Research Octane Number to determine the octane rating of their gasoline, while stateside we use a system called AKI or Anti-Knock Index to determine gasoline's octane rating... Interestingly, to further complicate things it would seem that our own AKI system is actually derived from the average of the RON system and another more complicated system referred to as MON or Motor Octane Number... So, to recap our methodologies for measuring gasoline's octane rating are different, but share some common elements...
So, with the commonality of RON in mind a good rule of thumb is as follows, multiply the foreign RON Octane rating by 0.95 and you will have the US AKI equivalent.

( RON Octane Rating x 0.95 = AKI Octane Rating )
98 RON Octane x 0.95 = 93.1 AKI Octane (US measure)
100 RON Octane x 0.95 = 95 AKI Octane (US measure)

So, as you can see the 93 or 94 octane fuel we are all paying an arm and a leg for is actually quite comparable to the higher octane fuels found in Europe and Japan. The people whom have to worry about low octane rating are our friends out west in places like California that are subjected to substandard 91 octane.
91 AKI Octane (US measure) = 95.5 RON Octane

[Ace]

Just as additional info: RON 98 is offerend on every gas station here, but most people just go for the RON 95 since they don't see the benefit of better fuel (most people don't think about better fuel resulting in better mpg). But the big stations offer RON 100+ too. That's why I (and a lot of sportscar drivers I know) are going for the membership deals of a big stations, where you pay a fee to get the RON 100+ fuel for 12 months for the price of the RON 95 stuff.

[ltomn]

It's nice to have the view of someone that is actually there. Thanks for contributing!

[jsmatt]

I'm in Luxembourg currently and was in Germany last week, 1.60/L Germany v.s.1.20/L Luxembourg, from country to country its the taxes that vary. By the way I put RON 98 in the rental since I'm driving a lot. It does perform better in a 1.5 L turbo car.

[ltomn]

We diverge! Does this LT2 require the higher octane or is it suggested it runs on regular?

[John]

GM has stated that the recommended fuel for Corvettes is premium. Since we know that the cars will run on regular gas, everyone has that option. I choose to only get Chevron, Shell and Texaco premium.

[meyerweb]

Just as additional info: RON 98 is offerend on every gas station here, but most people just go for the RON 95 since they don't see the benefit of better fuel (most people don't think about better fuel resulting in better mpg). But the big stations offer RON 100+ too. That's why I (and a lot of sportscar drivers I know) are going for the membership deals of a big stations, where you pay a fee to get the RON 100+ fuel for 12 months for the price of the RON 95 stuff.

Unless the car is designed to make use of higher octane fuel, higher octane won't result in better mpg.

[Frenzy36]

Interesting article on Rating Fuel Economy and Mileage Which gasoline brand provides the best fuel mileage?

• All gasoline comes from the same refineries. What matters is the additive that each brand adds to the gasoline. Good standard brands are Chevron, Texaco and then Mobil.
• It's true. All gas comes from the same distributor. Different brands, Shell/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, Diamond Shamrock, etc. chemicals are then added after the tanker truck is filled.
• All the octane does is slow down the burning of gas. Cetane on the other hand, speeds up the burning of diesel fuel.
• Gasoline's will give similar gas mileage, but some have additives. Some cars need higher octanes to run better.
• Octane is a unit of measure. It describes the burn rate of gasoline as compared to pure Octane. Octane burns at 100% and 87 octane gasoline produces 13% less energy than pure octane. Octane is an eight carbon chain like methane (one carbon) or propane (3carbon chain). The octane rating of pure gasoline is around 55, the manufacturers add components like benzene to boost the octane rating to what engineers designed the engines to burn. So the higher the octane rating the faster the gasoline will burn.
• The answer where it was stated "ALL OCTANE DOES IS PREVENT YOUR CAR'S ENGINE FROM PINGING" is generally a pretty good answer to this. Octane truly is the gases ability to resist "knock". Knock is a technical term used to describe premature detonation due to compression. What this all boils down to is that certain high performance vehicles has high compression within their cylinders. This high compression squeezes the gas so much that it ignites before it is supposed to. Your cylinder is supposed to fire near top dead center when the pistons upward motion is almost stopped. When you have "knock" the piston is still traveling very fast upward and the combustion of gas forces the piston to move back down when it doesn't want to. This is what creates the "pinging" or "knock" that you hear from inside the engine. The best example I have of this is imagine that your fist is a piston and you punching something statiopnary is the motion of the piston. If you just stand there and punch something the impact is rather low and your arm wont hurt very much. Now imagine punching something that is coming towards you at a fast rate.... the impact is much greater and it will hurt your arm. That is a good way to vision what is happening during engine knock and why it is bad for your vehicle. So the octane rating determines its resistance to this premature detonation. A higher rating will not ignite as easily under compression. The higher rating WILL NOT, I repeat, WILL NOT increase your vehicles efficiency. That is not part of its design and is a common misconception that could save people a lot of money. That being said, If you car is supercharged, turbo charged or says it "recommends super unleaded" then please DO use it, as you can cause severe engine damage if you don't, as stated above.

[Ace]

Unless the car is designed to make use of higher octane fuel, higher octane won't result in better mpg.

Absolutely. But at least for the LT1 have seen some dynos and spoken with some tuners and all agree that the car is designed for the best fuel. So I'm pretty sure the LT2 will be running best with 100 octane too

[MikeC8]

93 is what I use on all my sports cars. Most say 91 on the door but in Atlanta it’s either 89 or 93. Can’t imagine what petro cost in Europe. $6.00 a gallon and they sell by the liter which is 1/4 a gallon. That’s what it was back in 2012 when we were in the Amalfi coast. Beautiful just beautiful area of Italy. Ferrari’s everywhere. Food to die for and no fat people anywhere.