Lil Blue Rude.
Without getting into a full blown fuel discussion there are a couple of things that change the ball game where we are concerned.
Although it is generally accepted that higher octane fuels burn at a slower rate that may not always be the case, or the need.
Second, generalizing the need for a higher octane fuel in a two stroke cross-flow engine with a low compression ratio and an extremely high domed piston and lumping that in with an automotive 4cycle engine with flat top pistons and valves is a pretty wide playing field. These two examples and their respective needs are far apart.
Here is a concept that might bring them a little closer together for you though.
Am going to be really general here and this leaves a lot to be desired. Think of a two stroke engine running at 5,000rpm vs a 4cycle running at 10,000 (with its extra wasted cooling (exhaust) cycle. We are just talking combustion cycles here to make things somewhat equal. At that RPM on a 4cycle do you need a fuel that burns fast or slow? Think of something that may run that RPM on a drag strip. Our engines are somewhat similar in that one respect only in that we need a fuel that is resistant to self detonation due to high cylinder pressures and will burn for the length of time needed to produce power. What we (in the 2cycle world) are after in a fuel is complete combustion for the piston shape and cylinder head shape we are using.
Here is an excerpt from an engineer to support this.
The burn rate of a fuel is a measurement of the time required for complete combustion of the air/fuel mixture. The notion that octane ratings affect the burn rate of fuel is about 180-degrees from reality; burn rate is a function of several variables, and the two are completely independent, although there is generally a correlation between octane ratings and burn rates.
To give you a good example of this, we contacted Jim Wurth from Sunoco Race Fuels. He explains, "A perfect example is Sunoco Maximal, which is our fastest burning fuel, and coincidentally one of Sunoco's highest octane fuels at 116 (R+M) / 2. A lot of Pro Stock teams rely on Maximal for those sub-seven second runs. When they are turning 9,000 rpm or more, the fuel has to burn pretty quickly to achieve complete combustion".
This is just the tip of the iceberg and a lot of reading on this subject will bring very little more to the table where we are concerned. This is why I will generally ignore getting into these discussions but I know you have been a good contributor here and seem to have a genuine interest.
Even more reading on 2 stroke design is needed before we can successfully start to target that family of engines and their specific needs vs. automotive production vs. automotive performance/racing.