Not to burst everyone's bubble but an MSD is not required for normal street
driving with properly tuned car. Yes it does give multiple sparks, but if
your car is tuned right the mixture will light with the first spark no
problem and rest are just a waste of energy. On a race car with higher
compression ratios and the odd shaped combustion chamber that comes with it,
along with a richer mixture can cause flame problems and that is where the
MSD shines. Using hotter or the wrong plugs can cause detonation, which is
the air fuel mixture igniting before the proper time. This will cause
extreme cylinder pressures and do damage to your engines bearings, not
mention pop a hole in a piston.
as for high octane fuels, the higher the octane rating the harder the fuel
is to ignite, that's all. No more power. the reason race cars use high
octane fuel is that the lower octane lights off too soon with the higher
compression so they have to either retard the timing or increase the octane
rating in the fuel. more octane doesn't mean more power. In My shop truck I
use 140 octane fuel(compressed natural gas) and it has at best 80% the power
of 87 octane gasoline! and that is with the timing set way way advanced
(almost 60degrees total advance). that's right, the octane is so high I have
to start the fire before the piston is 1/3 of the way up the cylinder so
that it finally explodes at the top
If you have 'warmed over' your engine and it pings a bit step up to 92 or
94 octane and that doesn't take it away retard your timing a bit and check
your cam timing.
The only instant horse power additive is Nitrous Oxide, it's real easy to
add 50 -500 hp to your engine with it but there is a price to pay in
reliability and damage. I have a customer that routine builds 1000+ hp small
block fords with nitrous, I say routinely because it is not unusual to have
to completely rebuild the motor after a weekend at the track on a good
weekend, on a bad week end you try to find a couple of parts to reuse and
toss the rest.
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