About mid June I'll finally be picking up a WS6 and I have a few questions. Do you have to use premium fuel and if so, can I simply stick some 90 octane in and bumpit up with octane boosters? Also, would going with a full synthetic oil or more of a racing oil like Royal Purple help promote engine power and longevity? My last question lies with the transmission, a buddy of mine told me that in order to avoid a gas guzzler tax GM put a "skip shift" or some such **** which forces you to go directly from first to third or a similar setup. When I drove the car I didn't notice any such problem so if it did have it the guy I'm buying it off of may have already had it bypassed, any further information you can provide me with on how to identify this feature and eventually bypass it will be appreciated.

Just to give you a little background, I'm fairly capable under the hood but most of my experience lies with old carburetted 350's like I had in my 78 Z28. In other words, feel free to explain every detail like I know nothing about LS1's cause I basically don't.

 

Your car will be most happy with you if you run true premium, it's only 30 cents more per gallon anyway, at at $3.00+ for gas, percentage wise that's not very much, and really doesn't make much economic sense to not run premium. You'll get better fuel economy running premium as well because the car won't have to retard the timeing to prevent knocking. As far as the oil goes, it's kind of a split subject. From what research I've seen, it really depends on your driving style. If you make a lot of short trips, a full synthetic oil isn't going to make much difference in longevity or in how often you have to change your oil. If you make mostly highway, or a lot of mixed driving, you'll probably be better off going with a full synthetic because then you can run it longer than the regular oil, and it's going to be better for your motor. As far as the skip shift, it only happens if you're below 1800 rpm(i'm pretty sure it's 1800, it's 2400 on a 2002 Z06, but it has different gear sets) when shifting out of first, and then it attempts to make you shift into fourth. If it's still active, a light will come on in the dash that says "skip shift" or something along the lines of that. I find in the Z06 that if you hold the clutch in for a second or two it goes away and you can shift right into second, but the eliminator is much handier than that. Hope that cleared some things up for you.

 

but if you have the skip shift eliminator then the light will still come on but the solenoid wont engage. Ask the owner if it was installed, if not go ahead and get it in so you can install it when you get the car. Its only like $ 35 from SLP

 

That did answer a lot, thanks to both of you. The only reason I askedabout the gasis that for some reason there aren't a huge amount of gas stations around here that carry premium. Those that do, have marked up their gas a huge amount for some reason, mainly the Shell stations.I did the math and I'd actually save money filling up on 90 octane and throwing in some octane booster, just wondering if that'd be ok? If not I'll go ahead and get the premium, I plan to do everything top of the line with this car, no shortcuts.

Also on a sidenote, this is my first manual I've ever driven and my starts are just a bit choppy, any advice?

 

Octane booster will not hardly do anything for you. If the CAGS, (aka skip shift) is disabled via a computor tune the light will not come on.

 

just learn where the friction point is and dont give it too much gas:-p

 

dont worry about it being your first manual, as long as you know how to drive a manual then you'll get it. You'll get used to it.