Project Mileage Motor: Part 16
Testing some hi-octane Texas Premium
BY BRUCE SIMURDA

This segment of our Project Mileage Motor series is a little out of the ordinary, and is the result of an astute observation by one of our staff members. Actually, Technical Editor Dean Kirsten is a bit of a stickler when it comes to monitoring gas mileage on his longer distance trips, and discovered something unique on his excursions back and forth to Texas last year. It seems that while driving his 2003 Nissan Frontier it always seemed to get exactly the same gas mileage - except after filling up in a certain Texas city. With his curiosity sparked, Dean made sure that he always stopped for gas at that particular Lone Star town, and the results were also the same - his mileage went up several mpg. Could it be that the local refinery was making a better octane blend for themselves?

Now, we understand that different states, and even different cities, have different requirements for gasoline blends, in their efforts to improve local air quality. An example of that is, of course, California, where the fuel contains up to 10% methanol. But dean swears that he never saw the improved mileage from any other gas station in Texas - only this one area (which, by the way, happens to be a refinery town!).

So our goal this month is, believe it or not, to test some of that highly refined Texas crude in our Project Mileage Motor 1972 Super Beetle. Now, the first step is, of course, to actually get a gas can full of the potent elixir. For that, our good buddies Paul Smith and Bob Winters came to the rescue and, at Dean's directions, stopped at a specific station on his way from Texas to the VW Classic last June. Since that time the fuel has been tightly sealed in an unvented container (don't want to let the Genie out of the bottle!)

The next step was to actually test our mileage with this fuel. In all past tests we have simply filled our tank with premium unleaded at a local Shell gas station, always using the same pump, and always filling it to the same point. Then we'd drive the car on a specific route, returning to the same pump to measure how much fuel was used on that run. By dividing the miles driven by the fuel used we determined our mileage. But this month, with no way to fill the tank completely with the Texas fuel, we had to change our procedure. For this test, we drained most of the fuel from our Beetle's tank, leaving just enough to warm the engine and get us to the general area where we always start our freeway test run. (All test, except for last month's speed tests, were run at 65mph.) At that point, we waited for the Super to run out of fuel. Next, we put exactly one gallon of the Texas gas into our tank, which had been carefully measured and placed into a seperate tank earlier. After checking our starting mileage, it was onto the highway - and it was anyone's guess as to where we would run out of gas. (Note: we do not recommend purposely running out of gas on any highway!)

After what seemed like 35 minutes, we could hear the fuel pump on the CB Performance fuel injection start to run dry, and the power slowly fading from our engine. Luckily, we were at a point of the 405 freeway with a nice wide emergency parking area, so we pulled way over, safely away from the traffic. A quick look at our odometer showed that it now read 81,303.5 - we had traveled a total of 37.1 miles on that single gallon of Texan premium - the best yet at 65mph!

Now, we're not going to say that this type of testing is accurate, and probably shouldn't be compared with our standard test that are more conrolled. But it does make you realize that gasoline is not the same from region to region or time of the year, and some people may get better mileage (and/or performance!) than others, even though they drive the same car. It's also why it isn't practical to compare mileage tests done 30 years ago with tests run today - the fuel is totally different. Just look at the phot of the California vs. Texas fuel - see the color difference? And by the way, please don't call to get the location of where this gas came from, as this middle of Texas city is our little secret!