Orinawak

Hi guys. So I have got my NB to a decent enough tune where I will now be putting the turbo kit on and then trailering it to the tuner for a finished/final tune. However, this won’t be happening until mid April. Usually, what I do is I fill the car with a full tank and put some Sta-Bil in the tank to keep the fuel “fresh”. Would this be okay when I go to get the car tuned, or should it ideally have a full tank of fresh fuel right before going to the tuner? I fill my NB with 93, and usually store it through winter with 93 + Sta-Bil. Just curious if I should be okay getting it tuned like that, or if I really should drain the old fuel and fill it back up. The car currently has 1/4 tank left, so wanted to get some opinions first.

der_vierte

The worst thing, that could happen, is that your fuel somehow loses octane, even with your "stabilizer". So your car would ping a little earlier while tuning (for example behave like 91 octane fuel) and make a little less power.

When you fill up AFTER tuning with 93, you have some nice knock protection.

Erat

iTrader: (5)

I feel like the fuel in the premium tank at the gas station is a few months old sometimes. And I certainly feel the same way about e85.

technicalninja

Brand new gas with no additives for your tune.
Disco the feed line and drain what is in your tank into a gas can.
Feed that to a car that doesn't matter.
My daily is a 97 3/4 ton Chevy van, a complete roach. It eats ALL the old fuel in the shop, even the stuff that has gone bad. It doesn't give a ****...
No one will take fuel that has gone bad; my choices are dispose of it illegally or feed it to the "Zeppelin".

Use the gas you will normally use in the car. Winter and summer blends ARE different. Winter commonly has a lower "vapor" point and less alcohol.
No stabilizers or octane boosters at all.
If you change parameters after your tune the tune is not "correct".

I also purchase fuel at a busy (brand name) gas station. Most of the big ones get multiple tankers a day and the fuel is not old.
The days of water and debris in the tanks are long gone. The tanks all have exotic monitoring systems and the fuel they receive is super clean.
Most of it has 10-15% alcohol which absorbs water like a sponge so no water at all.
About 25 years back a distribution hub in the south somehow got calcium carbonate in the main tanks at the hub. 6 billion worth of damage.
We fixed crap for 18 months, they paid off perfectly.
They went bankrupt, laws changed and the fuel became clean enough that the manufactures stopped using fuel filters...
New cars (for the past 20 years) do not have fuel filters.

Brand name gas station use the same "base" fuel as the cheapy stations. Each individual company has specific additive packages that is added when the tankers are filled.
I still like brand name stuff for my nice cars. Shell, Chevron, Mobil, Texaco, etc...
I don't use Valero because of Venezuela socialist crap, not because the fuel is bad.
The Zeppelin can be fueled ANYWHERE.

Fuel with alcohol in it (99% of what is available) will separate and go "bad" after 3-6 months.
Cars don't mind this nearly as bad as lawn equipment. The lawn mower shop next door gets snowed under with bad fuel problems in the spring each year.
All you have to do to avoid this is run the lawn mower out of fuel in the fall...

Who ever thought up the "true fuel" bottles was a genius. $25 per gallon for fuel without alcohol (and Federal/State taxes) is an absolute killing...

Fireindc

iTrader: (13)

This is great, and reminds me of my buddies super-shitbox festiva. He runs old oil from other cars. Break-in oil from his rebuilt toyota truck motor? Yip, run it through a paper filter to get the big chunks and send it. Oil from my turbo miata with a few track days on it? Of course. It just burns it all anyways, and he throws on a new filter every now and again. It's great.

Orinawak

Thanks guys! I guess the best thing would be to just store it how I usually do and then drain the fuel when it comes time. Any tips on that? I’ve never done that before on any car.

der_vierte

Pull fuel supply hose and drain in reservoir of your choice with the fuel pump on

Arca_ex

iTrader: (2)

Really... you're probably paying how many hundreds of dollars for a dyno tune and you're going to cheap out and roll the dice on a 20 dollar tank of gas? Just drain it and put it in another car.

Erat

iTrader: (5)

I was getting e85 from a single station all summer. I changed a ton of **** I probably didn't need to change instead of just changing gas stations. Not that the maintenance wasn't a good idea anyway.

I know for a fact that fuel at gas stations can be junk. I dont care how complicated the regulations are. Or how good the filters are. I know how the real world works. I've gotten bad gas wayy to many times to trust all gas stations to be on the same level playing field. Hell, I had an old timer tanker driver tell me that he would just dump excess 87 into the 93 tanks if the station owner ordered too much.

Never trust anything.