Stratified Flash Tune Review

I can attest to this as I've met Alex ( down to earth guy) and have seen his work space. Comfy office chairs, fancy gadgetry, Alex's tuning potion shelf


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MENTION=4300]Alex@Stratified[/MENTION], I know you mentioned that the quality of gas varies by location, but have you found the quality of gas to vary by gas station as well? It seems to me that different gas companies are putting different additives into their fuels. I'm wondering, in your experience, if you have found one station to have superior gas or if this is mostly just marketing and gas is pretty comparable in the same location (when comparing 93 to 93).

I'm not Alex but I work for him so close enough I can say that personally I have been able to tell fuel quality differences from company to company.

I generally recommend if it's feasible to stick with the same station when refilling. I know that's not possible all the time though.

^another stratified rep on the forum, this is awesome, it says Arizona are you in the states?

I need to update that, but yeah I'm in Oklahoma actually.

The land of wheel destroying roads!

I didn't know stratified had anyone in the states

That is interesting, thank you for replying. Can you recommend a few stations based upon the best quality?

Shell, and Conoco, and Chevron are generally pretty good in my experience.

Really though, I just use the one that seems to make the car the happiest, least amount of ignition corrections. I like Shell for straight gas and I've not really had any problems with any station when running an E30 mix. It's generally high enough octane that even if quality dips it's not terribly noticeable.

Is Shell still one of the best even for us 93 E10 folks? (Conoco, Chevron, Arco, Marathon, etc. are non-existent around here, as is ANY E85. )

I've always heard shell was the best.

I like Shell for E10, I've honesty never found any E0 gas I would run in my car.

I tried two different brands of E0 gas and basically had to drain my gas tank because they were both so bad.

What about Shell 91 vs Chevron 94 in BC?
Fuel seems to be a bit different compared to the grade in USA. I assume you have experience in tuning with the local fuel at Stratified?

Alex told me a long time ago, chevron is still our best bet. He can chime in if I'm recalling incorrectly.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

no,you are correct he told me the same thing!

Is this because of it's actual octane levels/energy output in BTUs, or because of the added Techron injector/fuel system cleaning additive levels they put into their fuel??

Alex?

Generally certain companies just offer better fuel, whether it be additives or just a better octane rating.

91 octane etc..varies greatly as there's some variance the the quality standard.

Locally (Vancouver Canada) what has happened is that the government has legislated ethanol out of high octane fuels. Why ... I don't know. Well I do but it makes little sense. It was because the low vapor pressure of ethanol that meant it will evaporate into the atmosphere more readily. Our 94 octane with ethanol was great ... but once ethanol was banned our current "94" octane is about as good as California 91. Yet the rating of 94 remains.

So gasoline can vary in quality greatly and it does depend on the base fuel quality as well as what is added to it and it can vary from brand to brand and region to region.

Locally I've been using 94 Chevron but recently I've found that Shell 91 can sometimes yield slightly better results but it is very close. None of them contain ethanol in Canada. Shell 92 from Washington state is much much better in terms of actual knock resistance.

Tuning thousands of cars in different states and countries I've found the same variance from area to area in spite of the rating on the pump being the same. Generally speaking avoid mom and pop shops and the more ethanol the fuel contains the more it will resist knock.

It's interesting that many people were concerned about ethanol being added to gasoline but now it has proven to improve fuel quality and performance in many cases.

Theoretically speaking if in one local area you have E10 93 and pure 93 is there any benefit in using the ethanol free fuel?

I believe that this still holds true for naturally aspirated apps, and it is ONLY for boosted apps that ethanol is very desirable.
Although maybe for stupid high compression ratio NA engines (like over 13:1) it might also be beneficial?

It was also viewed negatively since any cars made before ethanol was in full use/mandated use (as it is now) could have had their fuel delivery systems hurt/compromised by ethanol's chemical interactions with the materials used, since they were not built with it's use in mind.

That, and the slightly lower fuel economy from ethanol due to less energy content (albeit much higher natural octane numbers) than E0 fuels.

Ethanol is only desirable in cars it was intended to be used in, ie flex fuel cars/newer car, otherwise too much will harm your fuel system and engine