premium fuel in a non premium bike ...?

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minkyhead
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premium fuel in a non premium bike ...?

Post by minkyhead »

well here s a strange thing i think

i never thought puttin a premium fuel in low stress bike would make any difference ....my good freind dave says it does ..i didnt really belive him ....i seen quite few threads saying its waste of time ...and some boring ones that go in to big detail why its a waste of money .....
so for some reason last week i thought id put a tank of 99 in and slay the myth for myself .......sure enough there was no noticable increase in performance as expected ...so whatever trever ..i just carried on as normal
now the little l 650 has one of them fuel trips and i always reset it and it always near enough comes out at 58/59mpg give or take a fraction .. bear in mind iv had the bike 8 months or so and done several mini tours 7000 mile or so .. and it has never ever shown over 59 ..which being near 60 was always annoying in a subliminal kind of way :?:
so last week normal riding not hanging about just the same as usual ....it went to 65mg ....so ijust did another tank and went to yorkshire knocked off 210 miles and really wasnt hanging about 30 odd miles at 80plus on m6 as well and feck me 65.5mpg .. :shock:

so i was wondering why its markedly better by a solid 6mpg ..there must be a reason ..shells site blabs on about cleaner injectors and valve seats ..claims up to 4 percent more power but thought that would be for m3s anti knock ect ...not a 20 year old design paralel twin ?

anyway the above is pretty accurate and deffo has to my surprise made a noticable increase in range ....
dunno thought id just put it out there see if anyone knows summet as tbo i wan convinced it would not make any difference at all ..seems i were wrong
whats the wether forcast ..wheres me map
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Re: premium fuel in a non premium bike ...?

Post by Tonibe63 »

Even a small increase of 4% power will mean less fuel required for the same speed so I would expect you to get more mpg (some say a 10% increase).
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Re: premium fuel in a non premium bike ...?

Post by Scott_rider »

I don’t know the answer…but I am entirely convinced that my bike and car run better and return better mpg when they’ve got premium fuel in them. I try to use e5 99 whenever possible and if not I use e5 97.
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Re: premium fuel in a non premium bike ...?

Post by Tramp »

Steve....I've always used high octane in europe in old ccm644 and the xt660z...runs smoother and better mpg..in uk now too...their is no ethanol in high octane fuel so more bang per buck...simple as that...like watering down beer its criminal :D :o full strength or nothing at all...
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Re: premium fuel in a non premium bike ...?

Post by Magnusson »

This can be caused by your regular fuel containing ethanol. In some bikes 10% ethanol can increase fuel consumption by near 10%.
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Re: premium fuel in a non premium bike ...?

Post by minkyhead »

Magnusson wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 11:24 pm This can be caused by your regular fuel containing ethanol. In some bikes 10% ethanol can increase fuel consumption by near 10%.
sounds logical to apoint ...its supposed to be a up to date machine 2021 ecu emissions ect with a big e10 sticker on the tank ..ive just been quite taken aback by the obvius difference ...lets be honest im not that bothered as its 12p a litre dearer giviing it seems a proportianate increase in mpg ..tbo the most pleasing thing from my point of view is that according to thecalculator 6mpg give a nice increase in range of 28 miles to just over 302 miles to walking that is the main benifit from what i can see
whats the wether forcast ..wheres me map
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Re: premium fuel in a non premium bike ...?

Post by Magnusson »

E10 sticker only means that your bike can handle 10% Ethanol without getting damaged. It does not mean performance will not be affected.
Ethanol does seem to affect different bikes differently.
E10 sticker also means up to 10% Ethanol, it can be lower than10%.
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Richard Simpson Mark II
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Re: premium fuel in a non premium bike ...?

Post by Richard Simpson Mark II »

the oil companies are not putting 10% ethanol in fuel at the moment...the price of grain is too high!

Yes, I've found on all my bikes that you get more mpg from Super UnLeaded, and if you are working the engine hard at low rpm you get less/no pinking too. I only use the other stuff if SUL is not available and try to use it for every second/third top up in the car also, although it seems of less benefit (engine in a lower state of tune?).
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Re: premium fuel in a non premium bike ...?

Post by Snaf MKII »

Richard Simpson Mark II wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:18 am the oil companies are not putting 10% ethanol in fuel at the moment...the price of grain is too high!

Yes, I've found on all my bikes that you get more mpg from Super UnLeaded, and if you are working the engine hard at low rpm you get less/no pinking too. I only use the other stuff if SUL is not available and try to use it for every second/third top up in the car also, although it seems of less benefit (engine in a lower state of tune?).
Does that also mean that E5 might not have 5%, we run Tesco 99 E5 in everything. The 4l petrol engines are significantly more economic and run better, the 6.1l car went just in time as the market has plummeted since fuel price rises.
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Re: premium fuel in a non premium bike ...?

Post by catcitrus »

It seems that a good percentage of the wheat and maize GROWN IN THE UK is destined for biofuel(ethanol) production, and NOT FOOD for us and animals---where is the green credential in that-(it really started in the US and Brazil in the 80s to keep the flatland corn(maize) growers happy)-let alone the fact that you are buying liquid oxygen of zero calorific value as a percentage of the ethanol--hence the reduction in economy. Hyundai do produce a hydrogen car, but fuel cells are so not eco friendly in terms of production materials. We also have virtually NO hydrogen filling stations anyway. Battery power is a huge recycling problem down the road due to their limited life cycle performance(and electricity production in the UK is primarily a gas user), and the planet suffers even more from the mining and processing of the lithium battery constituents--nothing green about battery power! I think that hydrogen fuel in a relatively simple IC engine is the answer (e.g. JCB)--but of course that doesn't get the support of politicians who are in bed with "Big Oil".
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