To understand octane rating, you need to understand a little bit about how car engines work.
The engine?s power comes from carefully controlled explosions of gasoline/air mixture inside the engine. To control the explosions, the gasoline must burn at exactly the right rate. This is controlled by the gasoline?s chemical composition.
Gasoline is a mixture of many chemicals that burn at different rates. One chemical that burns at the right rate is isooctane. A chemical that burns too quickly is n-heptane. To describe how fast a gasoline burns, a scale was developed using these two chemicals. Isooctane is defines to have an octane rating of 100, which n-hepatine has an octane rating of 0. Octane ratings compare the burning characteristics of gasoline to mixtures of isooctane and n-hepatane.
For example, if a cheap gasoline burned the same way as a 50:50 mixture of isooctane:n-heptane, the octane rating would be 50. Gasoline with an octane rating of 87 burns he same way that a mixture of 87 percent isooctane and 13 percent n-heptane would burn.
Usually, only cars with high compression engines need anything higher than 87 octane. See your ownwers manual.
I posted a thread on this a couple of days ago, but this one seems to have few better answers. Thanks Viper for the "How stuff works" link. Damn I love that site.
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