high octane

[vinson16]

Which is better high octane fuel you buy at the gas station or the bottled octane you mix

so I guess my question is is the hime mixed worth the price or is there a hidden risk in home mixing.

[TL chris]

Well, if you're just going to be riding on the street and not the track, regular pump gas is fine. Most bikes run good on 87 octane, unless your owners manual says otherwise. If it's for a race bike I'm not too sure. That question is better left to the resident racers.

[themeatmanlandry]

The only ting I could see is that you may not get adequate mixing, but boht things being miscible in each other, that's probably not a big concern. I'm guessing here.

As far as the quality of the home stuff vs. the station stuff . . . I'd bet the station stuff is better than the home stuff, depending on what station you're at. ASAIK, they all use the same gasoline . . . it's the additive that makes the difference.

[TL chris]

Originally Posted by themeatmanlandry

The only ting I could see is that you may not get adequate mixing, but boht things being miscible in each other, that's probably not a big concern. I'm guessing here.

As far as the quality of the home stuff vs. the station stuff . . . I'd bet the station stuff is better than the home stuff, depending on what station you're at. ASAIK, they all use the same gasoline . . . it's the additive that makes the difference.

Are you drunk meat?

[themeatmanlandry]

Ya' mean the logic (bulletproof, my friend) or the misspellings?

[tlwisner]

Originally Posted by vinson16

Which is better high octane fuel you buy at the gas station or the bottled octane you mix

so I guess my question is is the hime mixed worth the price or is there a hidden risk in home mixing.

The station's 87 octane works great for all of my bikes...

[TL chris]

Originally Posted by themeatmanlandry

Ya' mean the logic (bulletproof, my friend) or the misspellings?

Teh spullinns

[themeatmanlandry]

Ogay occifer, you got me. I'se drunk . . . but I only hadacuplle.



There's a DUI commercial ("They sell those?" "Hell, yes . . . and they ain't cheap." ) in TN, where the cop asks the guy, "I detect the odor of alcohol. have you been drinking?" The idiot drunk says "Not really."

"Not really." WTF kind of answer is that?? That's like saying you're "kind of" a virgin. Dumba$$.

[TL chris]

Originally Posted by themeatmanlandry

Ogay occifer, you got me. I'se drunk . . . but I only hadacuplle.

[bhamon]

Originally Posted by themeatmanlandry

Ogay occifer, you got me. I'se drunk . . . but I only hadacuplle.



There's a DUI commercial ("They sell those?" "Hell, yes . . . and they ain't cheap." ) in TN, where the cop asks the guy, "I detect the odor of alcohol. have you been drinking?" The idiot drunk says "Not really."

"Not really." WTF kind of answer is that?? That's like saying you're "kind of" a virgin. Dumba$$.

We have recently had a run of the same commercial, they are really annoying

[tlwisner]

Originally Posted by bhamon

We have recently had a run of the same commercial, they are really annoying

I want to see the same commercial where the drunk pukes on the cop, but I'm a sick ba$tard...

[DragonGold]

My bike ran great out of the factory with 87, but since I put the yosh slip on, one that my dealer said wouldnt require a re-jet, i've had to use 93 in it, or runs like crap.

I have a stage 1 jet kit sitting on my desk, but I just havent got the time or the experience to do it myself yet. It may make a good winter project..or I might just have the dealer do it.

[SFAZ]

WEll the general rule of thump is...higher octane is better. Althought you don't really feel the defference, your bike will in the long run. THEY DON'T CHARGE MORE FOR NOTHIN!

[themeatmanlandry]

Originally Posted by SFAZ

WEll the general rule of thump is...higher octane is better. Althought you don't really feel the defference, your bike will in the long run. THEY DON'T CHARGE MORE FOR NOTHIN!

[inspiron]

Originally Posted by SFAZ

WEll the general rule of thump is...higher octane is better. Althought you don't really feel the defference, your bike will in the long run. THEY DON'T CHARGE MORE FOR NOTHIN!

Here we go again ... high octane is NOT always better. If the manufacturer recommends a certain fuel - use it. Higher rated fuel costs more, but it won't bring you any noticable performance improvements. As I have posted before, most oil companies in Germany are now featuring "optimal" or "v-power" fuels with 100 octane. (For comparison, "Normal" here is 92, "Super" is 95 and "Super Plus" has 98 octane). When Shell brought out "V-Power 100" last year, there were many tests done with motorcycles and cars, and the result was that the higher octane fuel brought NO significant improvements, and in some cases, was actually less effective than the manufacturer's recommended fuel.

If you want to spend the extra money because you think that it's better ... go ahead. The oil companies are always happy to take your money. But it is only a placebo effect as far as performance goes.

If you can understand German, here's a link to the test results: http://www.adac.de/Auto_Motorrad/Kra...er/default.asp

"mit empfohlenem Kraftstoff" = "with the recommended fuel"
"mit Shell V-Power" = "with Shell V-Power (100 octane)
"Verbesserung" = "Improvement"

As you can see, the improvement in horsepower/kilowatt range from 1.7% to a loss of 0.4%. This definitely does not justify a price premium of more than 5% to 10% for the fuel.

[SFAZ]

Originally Posted by inspiron

Here we go again ... high octane is NOT always better. If the manufacturer recommends a certain fuel - use it. Higher rated fuel costs more, but it won't bring you any noticable performance improvements. As I have posted before, most oil companies in Germany are now featuring "optimal" or "v-power" fuels with 100 octane. (For comparison, "Normal" here is 92, "Super" is 95 and "Super Plus" has 98 octane). When Shell brought out "V-Power 100" last year, there were many tests done with motorcycles and cars, and the result was that the higher octane fuel brought NO significant improvements, and in some cases, was actually less effective than the manufacturer's recommended fuel.

If you want to spend the extra money because you think that it's better ... go ahead. The oil companies are always happy to take your money. But it is only a placebo effect as far as performance goes.

If you can understand German, here's a link to the test results: http://www.adac.de/Auto_Motorrad/Kra...er/default.asp

"mit empfohlenem Kraftstoff" = "with the recommended fuel"
"mit Shell V-Power" = "with Shell V-Power (100 octane)
"Verbesserung" = "Improvement"

As you can see, the improvement in horsepower/kilowatt range from 1.7% to a loss of 0.4%. This definitely does not justify a price premium of more than 5% to 10% for the fuel.

Never said anytihng about perforamnce bro. What i meant is, your engine will require less maitence in the long run if you use higher octane. It just burns cleanier. Personally, i'd rather have one engine for 70K miles than dirty valves at 30K. Ya know?

in the words of a (gay)famous song.....

Beleive..when i say.....I want high octane gas.


Ain't Nothin but a mistake
Ain't nutin with that headshake, tell me why

I NEVER WANNA HEAR YOU SAY! THIS GAS AIN't BETTER!!!

[inspiron]

Originally Posted by SFAZ

Never said anytihng about perforamnce bro. What i meant is, your engine will require less maitence in the long run if you use higher octane. It just burns cleanier. Personally, i'd rather have one engine for 70K miles than dirty valves at 30K. Ya know?

IMHO, this is not a question of octane. The quality of the fuel has nothing to do with the octane rating. You can get dirty valves from cheap fuel, regardless of the octane rating.

Here in western europe, you can buy gas anywhere - it's all basically the same. When you go farther east (Poland, Czech Republic, etc.) you need to be careful, since the quality is lower and the gas is often not clean, even if you buy super-plus 98.

[karlB]

Article well worth a read, regarding advantages of higher octane fuels, from the Independent Newspaper in the UK.

I started posting about compression and got lost in my own severely limited knowledge and techno-babble - this sums it up better, as one might expect, from a science and motoring journo...

"Super fuel: Is it myth or magic?


Paying a little more for your petrol can be good for your car, your wallet and the environment. But few understand why says John Simister


24 August 2004



Why, In the era of high petrol prices, would you ever buy premium priced super unleaded petrol? It costs around 5p a litre more than regular unleaded, and most cars made since 1989 can run on the regular brew anyway. So, does super fuel - Shell Optimax, BP Ultimate and the like - make your car go better and run more efficiently?


Marketing campaigns stressing the engine-cleaning benefits of these fuels, pushing the environmental angle and also hinting at extra power, have some basis in fact - but not for the reasons you might expect. It is a confused and misunderstood subject area for the consumer, so I shall try to clear the fog.


Let us go back in time to the late 1980s, when unleaded fuel first appeared. The four-star petrol used by most cars then had an octane rating of 97, a measure of its resistance to detonation. Lower-octane fuels are more likely to burn uncontrollably quickly, so require engines with lower compression ratios to stop things getting too hot, too soon and setting off the destructive "knocking" that signifies detonation (uncontrolled burning) or pre-ignition (the mixture igniting before it should). Higher octane fuels allow higher compression ratios, which release more power while burning less fuel.


Confusion arose because standard unleaded petrol has an octane rating of 95, a figure arrived at by pan-European consensus. But many cars around at the time were designed to run on 97-octane fuel, so needed to have their ignition timing retarded to prevent pre-ignition. Many older cars also needed the lead of four-star to protect their engines' soft valve seats; the tetra-ethyl lead, originally intended as an anti-knock ingredient, had the side effect when combusted of lubricating the very hot valves where they contacted the cylinder head.


These two issues became lumped together in the public's mind as the need to "convert" an engine to unleaded. But a little while later, super unleaded with an octane rating of 98 came on the UK market (it had been available much earlier in mainland Europe). It was the perfect fuel for the many cars that needed the octanes but did not need the lead. Such cars had no need of any "conversion" if they used this fuel. Unfortunately, super unleaded was considerably more expensive than the ordinary version (and still is) and, besides, the moment for educating the public had passed.


In mainland Europe, however, 98-octane fuel was, and is, only a little more expensive than 95-octane, so it was widely bought. But in the UK it was sold in quantities far smaller than it could have been if every car that ran best on it used it, and that low demand kept prices high and kept the vicious circle rotating. That super unleaded is more expensive to produce here than in mainland Europe, (owing to the different oils used), has also played a part.


And then we in the UK were dealt another blow. Leaded four-star met its end, so for the relatively few cars that still needed an additive to protect valve seats the oil companies came up with LRP, or lead-replacement petrol. This used a potassium additive, remained at four-star's 97 octane - and often cost less than super unleaded even though, from that point, super unleaded dropped also to 97 octane. This was iniquitous: they were the same fuels apart from the additive. It was almost as if the oil companies wanted to sabotage super unleaded, but blame could not be placed at the Treasury's doors.


This, then, could be the end of the story. Most modern cars can run on 95-octane fuel, and super unleaded is surely doomed as its sales drop from a low starting point. But "can run" is not the same as running optimally. Many cars today have engine management systems able to adapt to different fuel grades (Saab was one of the first to do this over a decade ago), using "knock sensors", which retard the ignition if required. Their engines' power and economy figures may well be quoted on the basis of 98-octane fuel (cheaply available in mainland Europe, remember); running on 95-octane, the engines will feel fine but use more fuel for less power. Typically, the reduced fuel consumption when running on higher-octane fuel more than makes up for the fuel's slightly higher cost.


That equation is less valid in the UK, given the smaller octane difference and greater price disparity, but BP claims that its Ultimate super unleaded has extra benefits: keeping engines clean and free of carbon deposits. There is another dimension, though, which is the advent of sulphur-free or very low sulphur fuels. Already petrol has a much lower sulphur content than it had a couple of years ago, but some of the latest generation of direct-injection engines require a sulphur-free or near sulphur free diet to stop the tiny holes in their injectors from becoming clogged.


Direct-injection engines also run at a very high compression ratio, and are happiest on 98-octane fuel. So for the motor industry to produce cars as clean and fuel-efficient as possible, it needs sulphur-free, 98-octane petrol. The only such fuel sold in the UK like this is Shell Optimax (an extremely low sulphur fuel) and it is this lack of truly universal availability that has so far kept Mercedes-Benz's CGI direct-injection engines out of UK price lists.


In a few years' time, there will be more cars in need of Optimax-like fuels and the oil companies will need to provide them here. Maybe the Government could help; if it wants to encourage sales of ultra-clean cars, it should reduce duty on ultra-clean fuels. Existing cars that run more efficiently on higher-octane fuel could benefit, too. Fuel duty coming down? What a sea-change that would be."

unquote

[tlwisner]

Originally Posted by SFAZ

Never said anytihng about perforamnce bro. What i meant is, your engine will require less maitence in the long run if you use higher octane. It just burns cleanier. Personally, i'd rather have one engine for 70K miles than dirty valves at 30K. Ya know?

Octane rating has no relationship to impurities or detergents in the gas.

[karlB]

Originally Posted by tlwisner

Octane rating has no relationship to impurities or detergents in the gas.

It does a little in the UK, it's part of the sales pitch. There is also the added advantage of running cooler, but i guess if you are red lining at 13000+ RPM, your block is hot either way.