Okay my question is this, if your going to tune your car, put a chip in or use a tuner, whether its the Jet Chip or SCT XCalibrator 2 etc..., is it a must that you use an octane higher than 87 otherwise you will hurt your engine/car???

In other words, if you decide to mess with all that, you can no longer use regular unleaded gasoline??

 

depends, you can make minor changes to the car to open up more power with out the need for higher octane, when you get into forced induction or N2o you will need a higher octane.

 

Required octane all depends on what you did in your tuning. If all you did was smooth out the A/F curve for example, then no. If you advanced your timing by any significant margin, then yes, higher octane fuel will definately be a must. Getting the air fuel charge to explode sooner WILL add power, but there is a fine line between making power and causing damage. Too much advance and your explosion starts too soon (while the piston is on its way up still, also known as pre-TDC *top dead center*) Imagine what THAT does to cylinder pressures and the strain placed on the internals. Long story short, a little more advance for a highter grade (harder to combust in reality) fuel, so that compressed air fuel charge doesn't go off too early.

Did all that come out right?

 

Xcalibrator 2 is more usefull try Brenspeed. For all your tuning needs.