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I have a 1998 Explorer XLT and I was wondering if I can get better performance out of it if I switched to a higher octane than what they specify (87). What is the best gas for it and do i get better mileage out of it?
Unless you do something (Chip or other modification) to take advantage the higher octane, it won't help any. Some say it can actually hurt your engine by contributing to carbon build-up. The octane number of gasoline isn't a measure of energy. Rather, it's a measure of how the fuel resists burning (higher number burns less easily). Some high performance engines will call for higher octane because the engineers have adjusted the compression timing and other parameters to use the higher octane fuel. In the case of the Explorer, the engineers designed the engine to run off of 87 octane.