We never attempted to run anything less than 91 octane on that engine.
I was remiss in saying we ran that engine with 91 octane on our dyno. As we didn't have our dyno at that time it was on Performance Machine's dyno in Idaho Falls, Id (about 4,400' elevation). There we max'd out at 38 degrees on 91 octane.
When we went to Memphis, TN at a much lower elevation, they were using 93 octane. Not sure what to expect we started with 32 degrees locked. With all the bent valves in the engine after the no water mishap, the headers started glowing red with all the raw fuel firing off in the exhaust and the power was way off (711 HP I think) from what we expected (we thought we would could be close to 800). So we kept throwing timing at it slowly until something around 40+ degrees (730 HP), the headers began to cool down and we ran out of time.
During the mandatory tear down after the dyno runs, one of the other contest engines was shown to be ready to blow up. Two others actually broke during the dyno runs (including the winner). And ours, that was rebuilt junk after the no water warm up, could have gone another 100 pulls that day........if'n we would have had enough time.
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