If your van is knocking on any fuel .......... lay down under your van
and kiss your heads goodbye. Detonation alone will ruin your heads and
pistons if the valve seats don't drop out first.
All vanagons with stock configuration will run on standard unleaded fuels
if the AFM, timing, points etc are set correctly.

Stan Wilder
83 Air Cooled Westfalia

On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 20:25:11 -0800 gary hradek <hradek@YAHOO.COM> writes:
> Chris,
>      If your van is knocking on regular and you add a
> higher octane and it stops knocking what does this
> tell you about your combustion chamber?   If your van
> is not knocking on regular, burn regular and save your
> money for better things like something to clean your
> fuel injectors because higher octane is something that
> takes most of us to the cleaners.   happy new
> years,gary
> Date:    Thu, 27 Dec 2001 16:35:28 -0600
> From:    Chris Stann <ChrisS@INFORMS.COM>
> Subject: Re: Subject: Fuel octane
>
> Some info contained here:
>
> http://www.pcf.ab.ca/quick_answers/gasoline_general/octane_rating.asp
>
> And here:
>
> http://www.shellus.com/products/product_info/gasoline_properties.html
>
> "Probably the most familiar gasoline characteristic is
> antiknock
> quality or
> its octane rating. The octane rating is simply a
> measure of the
> gasoline s
> resistance to knock. Knock is the sound made when the
> fuel/air mixture
> in
> the engine s combustion chambers ignites by itself
> (auto-ignition),
> either
> before the spark occurs or in front of the flame
> already started by the
> spark plug. Advancing ignition timing increases the
> tendency to knock.
> "
>
> It says absolutely nothing about the higher-octane gas
> burning at a
> higher
> temperature.  It does say, however, that engines with
> higher
> compression,
> such as Euro-WBX, or advanced timing, such as mine,
> will benefit from a
> higher octane gasoline.  Also, engines with combustion
> chamber
> deposits,
> such as any old WBX, will have slightly higher
> compression ratio, hence
> the
> benefit of increased engine longevity from
> higher-octane gasoline.
>
> All of this should be considered along with the
> driving environment.
> It
> seems that an engine under higher and prolonged loads,
> such as a
> hill-climbing Westy, is probably going to benefit from
> e more
> expensive
> gasoline.
>
>
> Chris.
>
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