Piston Slap: Knockin' on Stoichiometry's Door?

TTAC Commentator dastanley writes:

Hi Sajeev,

I have a Piston Slap question: Most of the gasoline sold here in New Mexico is high altitude gas, meaning that Regular is 86 octane, Midgrade is 88, and Premium is 91. The owner’s manuals for my ’06 Corolla and my wife’s ’08 Hyundai Tucson (try not to be jealous :-) ), calls for 87 octane fuel. Am I OK to use Regular or should I take the manuals at face value and pay a dime more per gallon for Plus?

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Piston Slap: Gently Tapping, Tapping at My Ranger's Door?

Dave writes:

Hi Sajeev,

This is the second question I’ve asked on here, and while I didn’t even follow the advice I received last time and here I am again! Last time I was asking about a sporty car, and I ended up getting a 2007 Ford Ranger, 2.3L, 5 speed, with all of 35,000 miles on it. It is a regular cab with nothing extra on it, a real throw back, manual windows, no AC, a nice basic truck with nothing to go wrong right?

Wrong.

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  • Buickman I was called crazy after predicting the sale of GMAC.#canthurtme
  • 3-On-The-Tree Another observation during my time as a firefighter EMT was that seatbelts and helmets do save lives and reduce injury. And its always the other person getting hurt.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Jeff, Matt Posky, When my bike came out in 1999 it was the fastest production motorcycle in the world, 150 HP 197 top speed, 9.57 quarter mile Hayabusa peregrine falcon etc. This led to controversy and calls for high-speed motorcycles to be banned in order to avoid increasingly fast bikes from driving on public roads. This led to a mutual decision nicknamed the “ gentleman’s agreement” to limit bikes to 186mph, ending the production bike speed contest for all bikes 2000 and upward. Honestly once your over a buck 20 it’s all a blur. Most super cars can do over or close to 200mpg, I know at least on paper my 09 C6 corvette LS3 tops out at 190mph.
  • 3-On-The-Tree In my life before the military I was a firefighter EMT and for the majority of the car accidents that we responded to ALCOHOL and drugs was the main factor. All the suggested limitations from everyone above don’t matter if there is a drunken/high fool behind the wheel. Again personal responsibility.
  • Wjtinfwb NONE. Vehicle tech is not the issue. What is the issue is we give a drivers license to any moron who can fog a mirror. Then don't even enforce that requirement or the requirement to have auto insurance is you have a car. The only tech I could get behind is to override the lighting controls so that headlights and taillights automatically come on at dusk and in sync with wipers. I see way too many cars after dark without headlights, likely due to the automatic control being overridden and turned to "Off". The current trend of digital or electro-luminescent dashboards exacerbates this as the dash is illuminated, fooling a driver into thinking the headlights are on.