98 in fxr?

[Moxy]

tee hee hee. You know the minimum recommended octane rating for FXR's. Try 98, 96, 95, 91 or whatever and stick with whatever you prefer. FXR's are such low fuel consumption, that going with a higher octane is only really going to cost a small amount more.

[slopster]

I had an interesting experience with 91 and 96 fuels when I had my zxr 250. I used to run it on 91 and there was no decernable difference when run on 96 or 98. However when I rode it in real cold conditions on 91 (desert road in winter at night) I'm pretty sure the carby was freezing. It would not go over 110kmh and got ridiculously good fuel economy (not that it made much difference). Anyway running it on 96 stopped it doing that.

[aalbs07]

Hey there, I also have an FXR and am wanting to do an oil change. Before I start can someone give me a guide to how tight the plug should be done up when I put it back in? I heard it's pretty important to get this right...

[bugjuice]

it's easy to strip the thread, then you're fooked. Normally, I'd do it up finger tight and then a lil more with the spanner/ratchet until you feel the thread bite, then about a quarter to a half turn more. It should have something like a copper washer on it too (clean it all when you remove it, look for any metal fragments attached to it, since it's magnetic), so clean that up. The copper washer expands under heat, so it'll seal itself more as the temp builds. You can always check it after you've run it, if it's not quite tight enough, then you'll see a drip of oil. I'm sure you'll do fine tho.

Thing is, if you over tighten it and pop the thread.... well, you really don't want to find out how much hassle that'll cause

[stanko]

drill it and lockwire it, then you have absolute peace of mind.

[bugjuice]

hmmmm.. isn't going to stop it leaking, nor guarantee that it's been tightened right, just means that if it's too loose, it's not going to fall on the ground

[Ivan]

Hey there, I also have an FXR and am wanting to do an oil change. Before I start can someone give me a guide to how tight the plug should be done up when I put it back in? I heard it's pretty important to get this right...

If you can replace the copper washer as that will also gaurantee a good seal.

Make sure that the thread goes in easy and isnt cross threaded as thatl causeyou grief and like Stanko said lockwire it.

Make sure you tigthen it till it is tight then nip it up.

Itl be sweet as

[motorbyclist]

High octane is less flammable and therefore needs higher compression to make full and efficient use of it.
Low octane is more flammable and ignites easier.
More octane in a low compression engine will produce less power and run dirtier than a lower octane fuel as the spark will struggle to ignite the mixture.
91 octane is fine in most bikes especially FXR's etc. Run 95 in sportsbikes and don't bother running or paying the difference for 98 its not worth it.
Don't give in to the BP bullshit hype about 98 being cleaner and more powerful, your just adding to their already bloated wallets.
95 is good enough for most, unless its turboed and running 13:1+ comp.

my experience with both FXR150's i have owned was that BP98 seemed to give a slight, but still noticable, boost to performance

on my vfr400 nc30, i get almost a 20% improvement in mileage - which actually makes it cheaper to run 98

my experiments with the 4stroke big bore yamaha motorcross bikes have shown that BP98 was cleaner burning (probably due to higher heat?) and gave the best spark-plug life.

meanwhile, shell 95 ruined a plug in 1 to 3 hours.

mobil has sold me petrol with water in it, and when the old man filled up a few weeks back he ended up running on two of 4 cylinders within a few hundred metres of leaving the station. siphoned out the gas and it doesn't even taste like petrol

i've posted all this up here before at some point - general result was that gull, challenge and BP all sell clean fuel, caltex is ok but i want to know what "techron" is, do not buy mobil or shell, BP98 has for me always been worth it by giving better mileage, performance, and not fouling my engine, but it may depend on your engine so i recommend experimenting.

remember to run the odometer from reserve tank to reserve tank and always put in the same volume of gas (so just go for ten litres as it's easy to figure out the cost). try to be fair and test each fuel over a few weeks each - or just take my advice lol

[PirateJafa]

caltex is ok but i want to know what "techron" is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techron ?

[scumdog]

I'm not disputing what you've said here as I do not claim to be an expert in fuel qualities etc, but we (our company) uses shell cards, hence we know the guys at the local Shell servo very well. One of their guys showed me a Shell release that claimed that BP 98 was worth it, even said Shell were trying to develop their own version. They rated BP's 98 above their own 95. Obviously this is not intended for general release.

Oooops!

True OAB.
My hot-rod runs smoother at idel and doesn't 'pink' if I use 98 (when I can get it - nearest 98 pump is 80km away).

But in a stock FXR stick with what the maker suggests.

[motorbyclist]

But in a stock FXR stick with what the maker suggests.

might note that the manual quotes an RON octane number, whereas the stuff at the pump is somewhat below what is written on it. "91" is closer to 86, "98" is around 95

and apparently avgas has a smudgeon of oil in it to stop it freezing at high altitude. planes do about 3000rpm and can run fine, bikes doing 12 to 20 k rpm might not be so lucky. if you do use avgas i hear it pays to mix it with bp 91

if you have a racing licence you can actually go and buy racing fuel (doesn't have road taxes on it, but still costs a fortune) which is much preferable to avgas

[motorbyclist]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techron ?

lol now why didn't i think of that?

so can it eat my bike? will it actually clean the carbon and crap from my engine or simply create more?