Glad you figured it out. Just one more real word example of why to stay far away from Fram oil filters.

I'd still like to throw some numbers out at you about using 89 octane rather than 87. If you drive 10K miles a year, and 89 is 10 cents more that 87, you would only spend an extra $67 a year on fuel. That's cheap insurance if you ask me. When the OEM says you can use either 87, but 89 is recommended, I would go with the recommended every time. Particulary since we are starting to hear about older Hemi's for 02-03 with some people having piston land and ring failures. $67 per year over 6-8 years won't go very far for an engine rebuild...

If you don't plan on keeping your truck that long, then let it be the next guy's problem and run 87 .

The only time I would run 87 is using the specific SuperChips tune for 87 that pulls even more timing out of the engine.

I don't recall if you or another member posted that they compared mileage between 87 and 89, but I would hope for a tiny increase with 89.

 

Great information, and I do agree with you. The problem is that the lowest price gas around me is from Sam's Club. They only offer 87 and 93 Octane. I always fill up when the tank is at half, that way my credit card bills aren't very high.

In order to get close to 89 octane, I can fill up with 87 1 or 2 times for every 93 octane fill. It will have an average octane of 90 ish while saving me money.

I do plan to keep the truck for a long time.

 

89 is not "recommended" it is listed as providing optimum performance.