what would happen if someone were to run race fuel in a cannondale? would you burn out some micro chips or censors? i know that would happen on fuel injected cars or trucks. thanks for your time.

James

 

NO race fuel wont hurt a cannondale. It shouldt hurt a car or truck with fuel injection either. What race fuel actually is is just regular gas with a lower flash point than regular gas to keep a high compression engine from predetonating. Race fuel run in a low compression engine will actually cause a loss of power. Cannondale doesnt require race gas on its high comp engine due to proper engine timing. So with a cannondale if you would advance the igntion timing and run race gas you should notice quite a HP difference.

 

Actually, do not run race gas in your fuel injected car or truck - most race gas contains lead, lead will foul the oxygen sensor.

I don't believe the Cannondale has an oxygen sensor, so race gas would be fine.

Race gas is not acutally regular gas with a lower flash point, there's much more chemistry to it than that.

Ignition timing advance really has nothing to do with C-Dale being able to run regular fuel. Additional ignition advance doesn't always equal horsepower. Retarding timing doesn't make detonation go away. It's true that if ignition is advanced too far, you'll get preignition - preignition occurrs because the flame front hits the piston with a good portion of it's force before the piston reaches TDC, in effect trying to blow the piston back down while momentum is still driving it up.

Detonation is what you've got to watch for when running high compression in a gasoline engine. Detonation occurs in the absence of spark from the spark plug - which means it has nothing to do with ignition advance.

Detonation is the principal that a Diesel engine operates on. The extreme pressures and heat in the combustion chamber cause the fuel to self ignite - the problem with this in a gasoline engine is that instead of a nice, smooth flame front, you have small areas of extreme pressure that can actually blow bits and pieces of piston and spark plug away. It is also extremely hard on lower end bearings.

Detonation is kept under control in engines like the Cannondale, YZ426F, and CRF450R by use of high overlap camshafts and excellent combustion chamber design. The high overlap camshaft keeps cylinder pressure low at lower RPMs where detonation is most likely to be a problem.

Gabe
86ATC250R
86ATC350X
00TRX400EX

 

I know race gas isnt just regular gas with a low flash point. Just trying to explain in a way so he could understand easier. I do agree with what you said on the head design to help with the high comp engine but the variable ignition timing does help also.