Weird Problem with Fuel

StrykerV8

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So heres a weird one. Last year my 94 Mark was acting like it was not getting enough fuel, as if the pump was dying. It would not rev over 3000ish rpm with over 1/4 gas left in the tank, and barely over 2200 rpm with low fuel. This was like 4 months after replacing the fuel pump. Shortly after, I bought a very low mileage 95 that was practically flawless and never saw snow. At this point I didn't really care about the 94 since it would just pull winter duty now anyway.

So, winter comes back along 4 months ago and I start driving the 94 again. I go to the gas station and decide, meh, Ill just put regular fuel in it since I didn't really care for it like I used to. I gunned it to see if the problem was still there and woah! Power! It had absolutely no problem pulling. I figured it magically fixed itself somehow. This trend continued for months until about a week ago when I decided to put use premium again to see if I was missing any performance with the regular, which I was sure I was. Fill up, gun it, and huh? Won't go over 4000ish rpm again. Clearly lost a lot of pull prior to getting to 4k, then falls right on its face.

So, what gives? Regular fuel it will pull no problem and doesn't smell. Premium fuel and I get a real bad sulfur smell from the exhaust after gunning it and it won't rev. I also got the occasional check engine light last year when using premium fuel, but it never came back after I started using regular.
 
Sounds like you need to use regular from now on!

That is really really weird... I don't know how a few octane number difference could do that.
 
That's weird, also somewhat similar to how mine acted (for a bit). Premium is actually recommended isn't it? We're cheap, so it gets 87.

When your check engine light went on, did it flicker on/off rapidly, AS WELL as the overdrive light?

Mine never acted up again after rewiring the OD switch in the shifter, makes NO sense whatsoever to me, possibly the OD switch was shorting rapidly, confusing the heck out of the computer?

Not too worried about mine though, it's a 'beater', the wife is gonna kill it anyways.
 
Yeah premium is recommended. I always put it in both of my cars but this winter I decided against it in the older one.

When the check engine light went on, it was only the check engine light and never the O/D light. It didn't flicker, it would just come on for about 10 seconds then go away. This most often seemed to happen when I was chugging along at 35 in O/D barely on the gas.

The premium I use is Shells V-Power. Could it be their additives? Next time I need gas I will put premium in from another station and see if that does it.
 
O/D light never flashed, always functioned as it should. Only the CE light. CE light would come on for 10-30 seconds at a time, usually once every couple weeks or so. It was kinda rare to see it.
 

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