Somehow people always translate higher octane equals more power.
That is not true.
Octane is simply a measurement that indicates how quickly the petrol will ignite. Higher octane ignites slower than lower octane. When vaporized fuel is put under pressure with ambient heat it will eventually ignite. That is how a diesel engine works. So higher compression engines need higher octane fuel or they will pre-ignite.
Now it is often the case that higher compression engines are also higher performing, or have more power. But that is because of the engine, not the octane of the fuel. If you put high octane fuel into a YUGO, you still only have a yugo.
Basically true and at one time simply true. In these days of electronic engine management, knock sensors and such like you are likely to find that an engine will give more power and better mileage on higher octane fuel as the feedback loops will alter various parameters to give best running on the fuel being fed into the engine. Can make a big difference on turbocharged engines, generally less of a difference on naturally aspirated.
Did do some testing on bike engines on a dyno a long time ago and we found that the super unleaded of the day made for something like an improvement of 2% on power over normal unleaded but this was on highly tuned by car engine standard engines. Also found that one brand of octane booster made a similar difference on top of that 2%. Can't honestly remember which brand it was but it was based on toluene.
