98 octane fuels?

[5cotty]

Can only run my GL1200I on 91 when I have no load or I dont use much throttle. It pinks like a bitch otherwise.

I have to say I cant tell ANY difference from 91 and the shell 95 as I still get the pinking... But... The BP 98 makes a big difference and the old girl only pinks 2 up fully loaded uphill with the throttle wide open.

I love the BP98 because my bike loves it!

From an economy point of view, I have noticed I get better milage on 91 but I think that may be because it limits the amount of "Twist in the wrist" as opposed to the fuel doing anything.

[Pancakes]

Not all Japanese / high compression cars are designed to run on 100 octane gas. The Honda S2000 has pretty high compression and 240bhp extracted from a 2.0 litre four pot NA engine, and it's designed to run just as well on the 89 octane supplied in California. Not bad for a car with a 9000rpm redline and high compression.

For me? After reading a thread here a while ago saying the higher cost and octane of 98 or 95 fuel was of questionable benefit, I switched the NZ to 91 after having always used 98 in the past (as the engine has done high mileage). I've found that it runs better on 91 that it did on 98, and on top of that I get better economy as well. So with the bike running better on 91, as well as it costing less, I'd be sily to bother using higher octane fuel. On my next bike I'll be trying a few tanks of each pump fuel to decide which it runs best on and which I get the best economy out of, since it seems everything has a different preference.

In the US they normally have "smog states" cars and other cars in other states, I would think the ECU's are set differently to run on different gas.

Wrong, they may run on it but they aren't designed for low octane crappy fuel. The factory manual for my old car, an '84 toyota levin recommends 100 octane. High performance NA cars and all turbo cars should be run on the highest octane possible. The timing should be set to make use of it other wise you are robbing power and economy.

They kindof are designed for crappy fuel in that most new cars have knock sensors that will retard timing until the knock stops. You just aren't made aware the CPU has altered the timing. You can play with your computer to allow more advance and leaner running and wire in a knock sensor unit too. The most basic ones are a piezo speaker (tiny one) wired to be used like a mic' and the cumputer interprets the "noise" the engine is making. Like a persons ear but trained and reliable!

[delusionz]

On my 2007 Ninja 250R the manual states minimum 91 RON. For reference I'm running a compression ratio of 12.4:1 with stock intake, ngk iridium sparks & stock exhaust. 91 gives me the best acceleration, doesn't ping even at the redline of 13,000. I mostly use 95 because I ride at the redline for long periods. Have been thinking of filling up with 91 and adding a couple drops of octane booster, 92 or 93 would be perfect.

[Pancakes]

Dude, save your money on the iridium plugs and side-cut the std ones. You have to change them sooner but it's cheaper and it'll go better.

[Brian d marge]

Wrong, they may run on it but they aren't designed for low octane crappy fuel. The factory manual for my old car, an '84 toyota levin recommends 100 octane. High performance NA cars and all turbo cars should be run on the highest octane possible. The timing should be set to make use of it other wise you are robbing power and economy.

Yes sorry bout that My Royal Enfield also states a higher octane , but modern bikes ( and Ill stand corrected on cars ) are designed for 91 .

CBr250 can cold foul , and other problems , . It all depends on the pressures at flame edges , so if you dont have a standard Engine , or cannot change timings then yes 98 may be the answer ,

but as a rule Jap bikes ( cars , Ill stand corrected ) run 91.

Stephen

[NighthawkNZ:Me]

I am running all my cars,and my Suzuki 1400 Intruda on the BP Ultimate 98 Octane and thay run a lot "sharper" and smoother an it. What are your views and experences??

I have started to run the VTR on 98 in the last couple of weeks so far she seems to run smother and idles better, and a few of noises and rattles are not as prominent… I don’t know if it the fuel or not but I will be sticking to it little longer any how

[saltydog]

Only ever use BP's 98 octane, suposed to be the best. The outboard also gets 98 but both the cages get just 91. Bikes are just a big toy so why bother putting weak fuel into them I say.

[zx10ruser]

definitly GULL 96, i think its labeled that but its 99. Running motocross i can definitly tell the difference when running this burns so clean.

[Mikkel]

Any performance engine will benefit from a higher octane rating.

As stated above the rate of combustion remains the same - I believe it's the temperature of the combustion that is lower for higher octane ratings. As such it's very very important for turbo and supercharged engines running high boosts since it'll help to keep everything nice and cool and reduce knocking.

While not crucial for NA engines, there will be less engine wear for high revving engines. I wouldn't bother with 98 octane for a normal family car or low performing motorcycle. At most I'd give it a tank of 98 every month or so to clean the system out a bit.
As a rule of thumb I guess you could say that if the displacement specific power output for a NA engine exceeds 80 hps/L then 98 wouldn't be a bad idea. For turbo cars I'd say go for it when you can.

I always try to run our vehicles on 98 octane - every now and again that's not possible though if we get out in the rural areas. Then 96 will have to do.

[homer]

Its not just about Oct rating... down here we can only get 98 from BP, unlike all other fuels its NOT NZ made ie: shitest crap fuel money can buy... but Aussie made and modified for NZ ie: its a far superior fuel and thats the main reason most engines prefer it.
Remember Chalange? 100% imported and a much all round beter fuel than the shit here.

If ya want to go one beter use AvGas (not legel on the rd) ok so in the average engine theres no more HP infact you can often get a lesser Hp reading, but a beter start, beter idle, smother power etc, its about quality and NZ fuels sure as hell have none of that.

you will get lesser horsepower on a high octain fuel if your engine is low compression
if you engine is lower compression you are better and will get more horses from 91
Thats why when you put avgas in SOME bikes theres little difference
Wouldnt every one put 98 in other wise
after all its at least 8 oct difference
avgas is only 100 .....unless its changed actually its 100/130
100 is on the lean side 130 is the rich side

theres good info on the net

[JMemonic]

I have been biting my tongue over some of the posts here and seeing as this has been dredged up again.

Its not just about Oct rating... down here we can only get 98 from BP, unlike all other fuels its NOT NZ made ie: shitest crap fuel money can buy... but Aussie made and modified for NZ ie: its a far superior fuel and thats the main reason most engines prefer it.
Remember Challenge? 100% imported and a much all round better fuel than the shit here.

Challenge I will comer to a bit later, the majority of fuel used in NZ is imported, Marsden point can not produce enough petrol to satisfy our needs, we import fuel from a variety of locations, mostly Indonesia and Australia, here in Christchurch (Lyttelton to be precise) the same ships discharge fuel to all the different companies, on very rare occasions two companies may purchase fuel from the middle east the the parent owners of the other two will not accept but this is rare. There are only 2 grades delivered 91 RON and 96 RON plus other goodies like bitumen, avgas, and jet fuel.

In fact one of the points you make is the fuel is not NZ made, thank god the refinery here was never up to international standards and could not on the day of completion process most the crude we find around our shores into petrol you could use in you vehicles.

As I understand it (from what I could understand when the industrial chemist told me) it is possible to make Kerosene 100 RON with additives, it wont run your car well but it will be 100 RON, thus it is very conceivable that BP can alter 96 or even 91 to 98 with an additive (good ol Wynns octane booster here).

Dangerous is right "Its not just about Oct rating"

By the way, Avgas is being looked at to the view of being unleaded some time soon.

A huge safety issue with this and I suspect many of the piston engine aircraft in operation around NZ would have to be pulled from service, jet engines would not be affected.

That's because although the group (Todds) that owned Challenge had the biggest single shareholding of the Marsden Point Oil Refinery (27%?), the "Gang of Four" got together and voted to stop them using fuel from the refinery, so they had to import it all, or buy it from the other companies at a hiked-up rate. Eventually they gave up and sold Challenge to Caltex.

Challenge was called so because it was owned by Fletcher Challenge, it was an investment nothing more, a way to make money, and yes they could not get fuel from Marsden Point, which might have been a good thing, all of their fuel was imported directly out of refinery's in Australia, and was a better quality fuel, not blended and the 96 would often reach the pump with an MON of 97-98, they went under as such when Fletcher's decided petrol was not a core business and spun it off out into Rubicon a subsidery company that in turn decided it was not part of its core and then offered the whole organisation up as going concern, Caltex (Texco) paid up end of story, remember all Challenge stations were originally independent operators who spent a lot of their own money converting to carry that product, some of them got royally screwed in the end.

[motorbyclist]

All Jap vehicles are designed for 91

my dirt bike manual specifies to run on 95 octane RON, seeing as "91" here is closer to 86, i run that on "98"

dirtbike runs 12.5:1 - kickstart only, manual decompression, and it likes to kick back

The factory spec compression ration on the FXR150 engine is 10.7:1. I found that 98 octane in summer made a noticeable difference to the way my one ran.

same here, on my old one and my little brothers one. noticable differnce in power

on my vfr400 i get a 10% better mileage running 98 rather than 91

last time i bought mobil (ran out of gas outside station) i only took 5 bucks (and had to go inside to prepay despite the eftpos at pump). later that day and next morning i had serious starting problems, seemed like water was in the fuel or something.



ALSO, and this is interesting, i used my dirtbike as a good test, along with my riding mate to find the best fuel. i've got a '98 yamaha yz400f and he has the '03 yz426f. we did fiddle with the mix a bit to try to improve performance on different fuels. ran on CR8E plugs, clean UNI filter on mine and twin air on his. to memory, here's the results:

shell: needed to clean sparkplug in 3 hours it was so filthy, 9 hours and they were buggered
caltex: 15 hours before problems emerged - i would like to know what "techron" is
GULL: we would try it, it ran well on my road bike, but since the ethanol addtion, fears of water content and rubber lines/plastic tank damage have scared us off it
BP 98: we get about 30 hours or more to a plug

little brother's '04 yz250f fares similarly

bonus is that there is a bp on our way to the motorway, but it sucks when we go out for a few days and have to use lesser fuels


oh, and final ad for BP, the guys at the two stations i frequent on my commute both told me to ignore prepay and just hit the fill button. never taken my helmet off either - just pump, pay and go (to be fair, one of them was a fellow biker)