Couplea Questions...

[Easy Rider]

Originally Posted by dannylightning

that is kind of suprizing to read after being told over and over again that high octain is much better for a vehicle.

Well NOW you know who you can trust......or who not to trust, as the case may be. :roll:

[dannylightning]

Originally Posted by mrlmd1

, you are wasting your money, you are getting less power, you are getting less fuel mileage, for nothing, not even an ego boost when you find that out.

lol, i have had a few turbo charged cars and a few cars with small suped up high preformance engines in my life time. pretty much all my cars were like that. untill i started driving a truck. i supose i just figured it was the same for all types of vehicles.

a lot of my motorcycle friends will only run the high octain gasoline tho, guess ill halve to tell them to look it up as well

[Easy Rider]

Originally Posted by dannylightning

a lot of my motorcycle friends will only run the high octain gasoline tho, guess ill halve to tell them to look it up as well

Yea, right. Good luck with that.
You will likely run into: Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up !!! :roll:

[alanmcorcoran]

Depends on the motorcycle. The Yamaha Strat does recommend at least 91 octane and it will ping climbing hills or accelerating if you use regular. But it's a completely different power plant. One more point for the GZ and thriftiness. The high octane stuff is very pricey in CA.

[alantf]

Originally Posted by alanmcorcoran

Depends on the motorcycle. The Yamaha Strat does recommend at least 91 octane and it will ping climbing hills or accelerating if you use regular. But it's a completely different power plant. One more point for the GZ and thriftiness. The high octane stuff is very pricey in CA.

No bikes, but cars.......... The owner's handbook for my Citroen C3 tells me to use 98 octane. A coupla years ago I bought a Haynes service & repair manual. Under "fuel system" it said that the car would run just fine on 95 octane (European petrol stations serve 95 & 98 octane), so I switched to 95, & it's been running fine, ever since. Seems like even the manufacturers don't know what's o.k. for their vehicles!

[burkbuilds]

It always helps me understand octane by remembering back a few years to when gas contained lead. High octane gas contained a lot of lead, lead doesn't burn, they put it in there to reduce the volatility (explosiveness) of gasoline. Modern fuels don't contain lead, but the principle is the same, higher octane gas has additives in it that make it less explosive, less combustible, why, because in high compression situations, gas will ignite simply from the elevated heat and pressure levels during the compression stroke, before the piston reaches the top, thus the explosion actually tries to push the piston back the way it was coming from instead of down on the other side of the "orbit". Severe knocking can actually blow a hole in a piston, even moderate knocking can do a lot of damage and any of it means that the piston is firing before the spark plug sparks which is not the timing you want for the most efficient detonation. So, if you are "knocking" you do need a higher (less explosive) octane gas in your engine, but if it isn't knocking, then there's no need to "move up" to a more expensive, higher octane gasoline, and as someone pointed out, you'd not only be paying more for the fuel, you'll be getting a lower energy fuel for your money.

It is amazing how many people fail to understand this concept, even experienced mechanics, and I bet the oil companies would be glad if we all stayed in the dark and kept buying the more expensive high octane gas even if we don't need it. As for the cleaning additives, most of the major brands once only put cleaner additives in their high octane fuels, but that hasn't been true for several years now and I'm fairly certain that there are Federal regulations in the US now which require them to put a minimum level of fuel "cleaners" in every gallon of fuel they sell no matter what octane rating it has. That's not to say they couldn't put more than that minimum amount in higher octane fuel, but the literature from BP, Shell, Chevron, etc. all seem to indicate that they have the same amount in all grades of their fuel.

[dhgeyer]

And to make it even more confusing, there are different octane ratings. There's "Research Octane", "Motor Octane", and "Pump Octane". Pump octane is (research octane + motor octane) / 2, or the average of the two. Research octane and motor octane are calculated differently. Research octane is higher. Pump octane is what you see on the pumps in the USA. What can make this confusing is that not all foreign bikes' manuals list their fuel requirement in terms of pump octane, so it can be misleading. The manual for my BMW uses still another number that I've never even heard of, so I'm not sure what to think. Some manuals don't even specify what octane rating system they're using. The manual for my bike calls for 98 octane, which isn't even available, so whatever system they're using gets higher ratings for the same fuel than either system we're using here. They say it'll run on 95, but with decreased performance and consumption, which is a trade I'll gladly make. But, I can't get 95 either, so I use 92 or 93 pump octane, whatever is the highest the station has, and it runs fine. I know from the forums that some people run regular in the same model and claim to have no problems. I might try that when the engine is broken in better. It has a knock sensor, and anti-knock logic built into the timing/injection programing, so it may run fine on anything, depending on how effective the programing is.

[dannylightning]

Originally Posted by alantf

No bikes, but cars.......... The owner's handbook for my Citroen C3 tells me to use 98 octane. A coupla years ago I bought a Haynes service & repair manual. Under "fuel system" it said that the car would run just fine on 95 octane (European petrol stations serve 95 & 98 octane), so I switched to 95, & it's been running fine, ever since. Seems like even the manufacturers don't know what's o.k. for their vehicles!

93 is the high octane here, there was one station that sold 94 but i don't think they are around any more. i think it goes 87-89-93 those are our three choices.

[alantf]

Originally Posted by dhgeyer

The manual for my bike calls for 98 octane, which isn't even available, so whatever system they're using gets higher ratings for the same fuel than either system we're using here. They say it'll run on 95

Like I said a little earlier, those are the two that are on sale in Europe. I run my gz on 95 (& my car). Someone told me a long while back, what the equivalent U.S. ratings are, but I can't remember. I do remember that they equate to something that you buy.

EDIT:- I've just run a search. In "Proper octane for GZ". it was stated that U.S. 87 or 89 is equivalent to European 95, & 93 (supreme) is equal to our 98.

[sneakercat]

Thanks for all the responses- I obviously have a lot of learning to do (for example, I had filled up my tank with 91 octane right before posting this- thinking, as mrlmd1 wisely stated, that we tend to think that if something's good, more of that thing must necessarily be better. Whoops. Lesson learned.

The stuff I got from cycle shop dude was Star Tron. I didn't see it mentioned here. Anyone ever hear of it/have experience with it? Reading up on it now, it supposedly is an enzyme treatment, which supposedly "cures ethanol fuel problems/increases power/improves fuel economy." The web site (http://mystarbrite.com/startron/) it looks an awful lot like a paid advertisement running at 0300. Unless I hear convincing evidence to the contrary, I'm not real keen on putting it in my bike anymore.

Did my first good washing and waxing today- even though it was friggin cold and my hands are chapped and raw, it felt great to look at my shiny bike, just begging to be ridden! Hey-is there any way to de-blue the tops of the exhaust pipes?