fend2ride

I've been reading up on ethanol and gas mileage. This is frustrating. Question is is that it says since ethanol has a higher octane rating, sports cars or vehicles tuned/designed for higher octane will see power and mileage increases. Makes me wonder about how programmers work and if a lot of its benefits are just from tuning it to handle the ethanol in the gas? Maybe I'm not on the right track though.