Power straggle

I'm hoping you may be able to find the answer to what seems to be an unanswerable question. Why does the UK 1988-1991 UK Honda CRX 1.6i-VT have 150bhp whereas the Japanese import CRX Si-R has 160bhp? I have looked around and all the info I can find points towards the UK car not having a knock sensor and being set up to use lower octane fuel. It seems a little far-fetched that this is the only difference between the two and that it loses 10bhp.

Asked on 30 January 2010 by M.C., via e-mail

Answered by Honest John

You answered your own question. Japan has 100Ron fuel and Japanese high performance cars are tuned to run on it. You might well find out that if you run this engine on a chassis dynamometer, first on 95Ron 'Premium Unleaded', and then subsequently on Shell V-Power 99Ron, the difference is actually more than 10bhp. It is considerably more on Focus STs, Subaru Impreza turbos, Mits EVOs, etc. Some of them give 30bhp extra on 99Ron.

Tags: technical issues fuel prices owning

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