ORIGINAL: SovXietday

Octane is a rating of the compression needed to ignite the fuel in the combustion chamber. The higher the octane the higher the compression that can be run in an engine along with the more timing that can also be advanced.

Common Honda engines such as the high comp B16 and B18C engines need at the very least 91 octane to keep from detonating, if 91 is not available use 92-93. Honda had to use a lot of timing on these engines in order to produce the horsepower that they do produce, so running 87 will cause the car to knock. The knock sensor will then tell the ECU to back the timing out to keep the engine from ruining itself but will cause a dramatic loss in power from your vehicle.

Your common SOHC and LS integra (B18B1) engines are a much lower comp and can safely use 87 octane.

All turbocharged engines should be tuned and driven on the highest octane that you can get from the majority of local pumps.

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ORIGINAL: 96civic285whp

I run nothing but 94 octane. Sunoco is the only place that sells it. But Sovxietday is right, good write up.