I am thinking about bidding on a 1965 Skylark on Ebay that has a factory 355 engine and wondering if it will ping even with high octane pump gas at the local gas station. I seem to remember a post about needing racing gas or an additive, but would much rather pump gas that is available locally.
I have a '65 with a 300 2bbl. (Wildcat 310) that we bought in '04. I run unleaded premium with lead additive. Runs great.
I was wondering the same. I have a 67 Special, 300ci wildcat 310 with the 2v carb, but it is lower compression than your 4v. I have a couple of 4v engines in the garage, and I wondered what folks did to run those with today's gas.
I run 93 in my 67 gs340 4 barrel engine. With ac on and temps get slightly over 200 it will spark knock up hills under load in 4th gear. But when engine temps are kept under 200 it does fine. The timing curve can be played with to prevent knock. Its a fine line with 93 gas for torque output and preventing knock!
My 65 2v does fine on 87 octane. I've recently stopped using fuel with alcohol in anything that I fill up less than once a month so now I'm using WAWA boat gas that is 91 octane. It really runs good on that. BTW the 355/300 is really 10.25:1 compression ratio even though some books say 11:1, that was a carryover from the aluminum heads that have smaller chambers that didn't get updated in some books when they went to the cast iron heads in 65.
