Challenge Series Fuel

The car starts as a 355B so the engine was stock and therefore the gas requirement was the same. (A challenge "kit" was installed by a dealer, supplied by the factory) They ran Shell V power pump or Race (95 RON) which I think has been discontinued in the US.

 

Here in Europe they had a Special fuel my Mechanik said, Shell was it.

 

I was at the Sebring track this past weekend with some of the 360 and 430 Challenge cars. We had a similar conversation about fuel type. Jaxxonr8 is correct that the motors started as a stock configuration. Just make sure that you use non ethanol blended fuel!

 

At the time of 355 and 360, we were running Sunoco 98 octane.

Best regards, Jim

 

The bladder inside the fuel cell can deteriorate at an accelerated rate, and that old fuel left sitting can cause problems, but I did not talk in detail about if there were engine issues involved. We talked about a range of octane ratings that the cars can use without problems. as low as 93 will work, but preferred is up to 98.

 

Hi Erik, when I got the car it had race fuel in the tank, of course that was after the car was not in the series anymore, Dr. Ferrari is correct Shell fuel was used in the series because they were a Ferrari sponsor. I used ethanol mix fuel (that was all that was avaiable in MT)for the ten years I owned the car and as you can see it never bothered the engine or fuel system. As was said before it should be left to sit for long periods of time, ie; probably six months or longer

 

Which championships used Shell LM24?

 

Fyi I ran 93 this weekend at sebring in my 360 challenge and ran the exact same lap times as the multiple times I've ran 98. My car is on stock ecu's and the stock maps are designed for 93 octane. So I spent $5.50 a gallon instead of $10 for identical performance. When you're going through close to 50 gallons of fuel a day times the 25-30 track days I do, that adds up to about $7500 a season. It was ethanol free fuel as I wouldn't let ethanol sit in the bladders. ATL mentions that it can speed up deterioration on them and at $10k it's not worth the risk.

 

Hi All,
I'm looking into purchasing either a 360 or 430 challenge, and maaaayyybbeee a f430 GT3.

This appears to be a bit of an older thread, but from the above postings it sounds like a 360 challenge can be run successfully and reliably on 93 pump gas, as long as it doesn't have ethanol for reasons of fuel bladder deterioration. Can the same success and reliability be had on 93 pump gas for a 430 challenge, as long as there's no ethanol blend?

I've also seen some "reasonable" prices on f430 GT3s lately, so those are on my radar as well. Can you run those on 93 pump gas, or are the engines too high strung and require 98 octane or higher?

I'm less concerned about the money of higher octane race fuel (although it is a factor), but primarily concerned about the convenience/PITA factor of having to find race fuel locally and carry it to the tracks that don't offer race fuel.

I've also heard that the challenge cars run cooler on the higher octane race fuel. Is this true?

Thanks in advance!

 

If you are even remotely concerned about the price of a gallon of fuel ur going to hate having a challenge car. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into. I have a 360 challenge if you're interested that's beyond fully sorted - which cost $100k to do. You buy one for under $85k you will be guaranteed to drop at least another $50 into after running it a handful of times

 

))

 

Just some info I figured I'd pass along.....I reached out to ATL to inquire about ethanol blend pump gas as a factor is accelerating the deterioration of the fuel bladders. The engineer that I spoke to said that there should be no increased deterioration rate due to using ethanol blended fuels up to about 15%. As an example, he said you'd probably have concerns if you were running E85 (85% ethanol) type fuels, however.