What kind of gas/octane do you use?
 

Just curious what gas most of you use when filling up? 87, 89, or 91 octane?

Thanks,

John

I havent yet filled up, but will probably use 87 just like every other bike I have ever owned.

I forgot to mention. I'd been using 87 & 89 for a while (89 most of the time) and the other day I tried 91 and could already tell that there is some good changes on how the bike sounds specially when/after changing gears. I've experience smoother ride and was curious if this is expected.

you're getting a smoother ride because the extra octane tends to be quieter.
what's most likely happening is that it feels smoother because you aren't burning all of the fuel. I'm pretty sure our bikes weren't designed for high octance fuel. I'll bet you're getting lower fuel economy as well.

If I were you, I'd stick with good 'ole 87.

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/autos/octane.shtm

Take care,
Jonathan

I see. Thanks for the feedback.... :-)

The owners manual specifies 91 octane and a minimum of 87 octane. I use 89 octane and 91 octane. The bike pulls better on hard acceleration and up grades.

every pull is a hard pull with me on the back :)

I think I am going to try 89 though after its warmed up it sounds like a 70's K car lost of valve rattling but no power.

Octane or Cetane??
 

Suzuki makes an Asian sub-continent head for the GZ that will run 60 octane, kerosene, deisel, saki, dog shit, etc. I think it's safe to use the cheapest gas possible for the GZ. Now, both my Harley's require 91 octane...... so WTF??

PS: Your Owner's Manual says 87 octane minimum on page #7. No mention of anything else.

What owner's manual? Not the one for my GZ.
And I don't remember EVER seeing a manual for anything with an engine that, in effect, says: You should use 91 octane but you probably can get by with 87.

had half a tank of 87 and filled it with 91 and made an noticable differance Now at 500 miles so will also be adjusting the valves soon too.

Per gz250 manual downloaded from this site, page 7
FUEL
Your vehicle requires reqular unleaded gasoline with a minimum pump octane rating of 87. Unleaded gasoline containg MTBE (Mehty Tertiary Butyl Ether)(also known as RFG-reformualed gas) may be used in your motorcycle if the MTBE content is not greater than 15%. Blends of unlead gasoline and ethanol (grain alcohol), known as gasohol, may be used in your vehilce if the alcohol content is not greater than 10%. Do NOT use fuels containing more than 5% methanol under any circumstances.

There is no mention of an upper rating limit, however, I do have the 1999 manual which states use gasoline of at least 91 octane.

Attn Sarris and EasyRider here is the octane recomendation from the service manual and in my owners manual from Canada

page 9 in the service manual on this site.

I use 91 mostly, especially in the Summer to help engine temps. Anyway, it's a good idea to use higher octane if you don't ride as much since I read that fuel sitting in your tank loses about one octane rating per month.

I've put nothing but 87 in so far. After reading this, I'm going to move up to 89 and see if I can feel any difference.

I ran 89 in my last tank.

I noticed no difference and experienced a loss of 1.4MPG. Again, 1.4MPG falls within the realm of varying fuel economy. But, that's what I got, none the less.

I ran two tanks of 89, noticed no difference in performance, but lost over 4 MPG. Went back to 87 octane and my mpg is back over 72mpg :-). It dropped to 67-68mpg on the 89 octane. :-(

From what I understand, the higher the octane, the less energy, so worse mileage would make sense. So far, results seem to be mixed as far as performance goes. Several found no difference, one or two found smoother running.

OCTANE
 

I HAVE USED 93 AND 93.5 IN MINE SINCE I BOUGHT IT 3 MONTHS AGO. I HAVE OVER 1200 MILES ON IT , HIGHWAY , CITY AND COUNTRY ROADS. HILLS AND FLAT LAND. I DON'T KNOW IF IT RUNS BETTER,BECAUSE I HAVE NOTHING TO COMPARE TO,BUT I GET 76 - 78 MPG FROM THE FIRST DAY. I KNOW IT BURNS CLEANER,SO LESS DEPOSITS LEFT BEHIND. MY HUSBAND ONLY RUNS 93 OR HIGHER IN HIS 2005 HARLEY AND SAYS THERE IS A DEFFINITE DIFFERENCE. HE PUTS 101 OCTANE IN AT LEAST 2 TIMES A MONTH AND SWEARS THERE IS A POWER BOOST WITH THAT TANK. HIS BUDDY ALSO SWEARS BY THE 101 OCTANE- HE HAS A 2001 SHADOW

The seat-of-your pants testing isn't good for much.

STOP YELLING, please.

yelling
 

sorry, was typing at work. hard habit to break. didn't mean anything by it.

[i]IT'S ALL GOOD!!! [/i] :cool:

Re: OCTANE
 

Ok, it looks like nothing will be accomplished by taking this discussion any farther. :roll:

How do you "know" that it burns cleaner?
(Hint: It doesn't.)

Every engine is different. What applies to other bikes may not apply to yours.

Do you know about the placebo effect? :)

Botton line: Use whatever makes you happy. The cost difference in your GZ won't be significant.

I'm sorry I brought it up! :cool:

I have now run about 5 tanks of 89 through my GZ, and the only difference I can see is that I'm about $1 poorer. I can't find any difference in the engine and nothing much in mileage, either. I might try 91, just for the heck of it. I have an extra couple of dollars this week....

Back on 87, I just achieved my 3rd highest mileage over the past year at 67.64mpg.
89 was giving me 64s.

Here in Spain we've got only 95 and 98 octane gasoline, and it's very very expensive. Nowadays, it's around 1.5$ for 95 and more than 1.6$ for 98. :cuss:

That beter be in Euros and per litre, or I'll be mad.

Erm, yes, sorry. That was dollars per litre... :oops:

So, it'll be about 5.7$ and 6.1$ per gallon.

Modern lead free fuel burns clean. Even without fuel injection to make things almost perfect a well carburated bike will run well and clean on the cheapest gas. I would rather spend the extra on a hi dollar spark plug and ignite the mixture even better than before. Efficient combustion is what keeps things cleaner. Just use a major oil company product that sells well and the underground tanks always will have fresher gas. Seems to work for me.

for shits and grins I tried E85. For those who don't know E85 is 85% Ethanol 15%Gas ~105 octane. It was worse than I expected. It barely ran. had to use the choke to keep it from stalling and couldn't get over 45 mph. I guess this shows how lean these bikes are setup. the ideal air fuel ratio for E85 is about 10-1 where gasoline is about 14.5-1 so it would make sense that it would just run stoopidly lean on E85.

I was considering a complete breakdown and conversion to run on E-85. Thanks for the info.

Octane rating
 

WOW guys, I know this is a late note on this subject but i was amazed at the octane ratings you fellas were mentioning.... In Australia our octanes run at 91, 95, 98 and although you pay the extra $ from 91 to 98 theres a marked difference.... :2tup: "She Fly's" :2tup:

Al'

Re: Octane rating
 

The difference in numbers is just that: Different numbers, not different actual octane. That is, there are (at least) 2 different systems for measuring octane; using each system on the same sample of gas comes up with different numbers.
Although I don't know for sure, I suspect your numbers are equivalent to our 89,91,93 present in most places in the "States".

Now for the real question: Are you telling us that your stock GZ 250 runs noticeably better on "premium" gas than it does on "regular" ??