Shitty Petrol???

[FROSTY:Me]

as an alternative ya could check how fast the motor is turning over--or not and replace the battery --um just an idea.
not that id have any idea of course lol

[jrandom]

There is something different about it, it costs more, and it has more additives (which is why it costs more)

Yeah, yeah, I know I'm making myself sound like a dope, but until you've ridden my FXR on a tank of 91 or 96 (I can't tell any difference between *those*) and then a tank of that 98 stuff, don't die laughing at me, OK? I swear it runs different.

In fact, if I can find a circular tuit tomorrow, I'm gonna call Mobil or BP and ask for details on exactly where that 98 stuff comes from and what the chemiculistical differences are.

[wari]

Yeah, yeah, I know I'm making myself sound like a dope, but until you've ridden my FXR on a tank of 91 or 96 (I can't tell any difference between *those*) and then a tank of that 98 stuff, don't die laughing at me, OK? I swear it runs different.

In fact, if I can find a circular tuit tomorrow, I'm gonna call Mobil or BP and ask for details on exactly where that 98 stuff comes from and what the chemiculistical differences are.

What would THEY know about penistic operational procedures ? :spudwhat:

[Devil]

as an alternative ya could check how fast the motor is turning over--or not and replace the battery --um just an idea.
not that id have any idea of course lol

Hey, it sounded fine before!

*ahem*

xj for president!

[Devil]

As a side note, I think you've fixed my flat spots! i couldnt find them last night!

Legend!

Now, to have a go at that front rotor...

[White trash]

Here's an interesting thought.

Coming back from Auckland last time on the bike, I inadvertantly put a tank of 91 in it. Amazingly, I went 43km further than usual before the fuel light came on and I could not tell the difference in performance.

Still hoists the front at 120 in 2nd and all.

Queer huh :spudwhat:

[vifferman]

OK, there are some misconceptions running around in this thread.
Firstly, the RON number (91, 96 or 98) is the Research Octane Number, and refers to the amount of knock produced using a special machine that measures just that, relative to pure octane.
Petrol is a mixture of various petroleum distillates (mainly hexanes and heptanes) with fairly low flash/boiling points. When it ignites, it does so very readily, and will do so if you compress and heat it, without there necessarily being a spark. If it ignites before it's meant to (i.e., before the sparkplug has sparked), the pre-ignition causes a knock as the advancing flamefront tries to push the piston back down as it's on its way up on the compression stroke. This is very bad, as it's hard on the gudgeon pin, crank, etc.
Octane doesn't do this as much, and is used as an arbitrary measure of how readily pre-ignition occurs. If you add slower-burning stuff to the petrol, it doesn't knock as much; the higher the number, the less readily it knocks (pre-ignites). So if you have a very high compression engine, it will tend to ignite the petrol/air mix more readily, so you need a higher octane fuel and/or retarded ignition to stop knocking.
A common misconception is that the higher the number, the greater the power. This is generally not true. However, the more power you try to extract from an engine, the higher octane fuel you will need to use.

Now - here's the naughty bit. When the gummint leaned on the oil companies to take lead out of the petrol (coz of the greenies), the oil companies bleated about it and said it was too expensive to upgrade the refinery. So the gummint let them artificially boost the octane rating by adding a mixture of toluene and xylene (basically paintbrush cleaner!!) to it. The 96 starts out the same as the 91, but then has more of this crap added to it. Remember all the fuss (that the oil companies tried to brush off) about fuel lines and carb seals falling apart, cars catching on fire, etc. when the unleaded fuel was introduced? The xylene/toluene at work.

However, the BP 98, and probably all the fuel from Gull is imported already refined, so it's not so full of shit (in theory at least). BP says the 98 comes from Perth, and is squeaky clean. BTW - I spent a lot of time in Perth in 99 (about 16 weeks). There was a scandal there at that time about petrol station owners buying cheap low-grade petrol, and adding (get this) xylene and toluene to it to boost the octane rating, so they could sell it as premium. Oh the outcry! What a fuss was made! And yet the gummint here condone the Gang of Four doing exactly the same thing!

One more thing (while I'm in rant mode) - the additives now are worse than tetraethyl lead ever was. There was NO evidence of lead poisoning or of it accumulating in the NZ environment. However, xylene and toluene are nasty. Not only do they not burn cleanly, and smell bad, but they are highly toxic and carcinogenic.

So - if your bike runs OK on 91, don't bother spending the extra on 96 - you'll get no power benefit, it may run more worserer, and it'll cost more. If your vehicle needs high-octane fuel, you'd be advised to at least occasionally use 98 and/or properly refined fuel from somewhere other than Marsden Point.

I thought I was being smart running my VFR on 96 when I first got it, despite being advised not to ("It will wreck the carb rubbers"). No, it didn't wreck the carbs - it fouled the plugs! Many bikes have very small spark plugs these days, with very tiny electrodes, and it takes little to fuckemup. The VTR has platinum or iridium electrodes, and they CANNOT be cleaned, so once they get 'varnished' or sooty, they're buggered. At $30 each for iridium plugs, I don't monkey about with putting shonky fuel in it.

[White trash]

Thanks for that, cleared up a lot of questions I had.

[vifferman]

Thanks for that, cleared up a lot of questions I had.

Hope I got it all basically correct.

(Sorry about the over-abundance of words - it's a favourite rant topic of mine)

[jrandom]

the BP 98, and probably all the fuel from Gull is imported already refined, so it's not so full of shit (in theory at least). BP says the 98 comes from Perth, and is squeaky clean.

Aha. Thanks for that. I knew it was imported from *somewhere*, but didn't know where.

I reiterate my point above about it making a difference beyond the octane-related resistance to preignition.

[Big Dog]

Hope I got it all basically correct.

(Sorry about the over-abundance of words - it's a favourite rant topic of mine)

Yeah what he said!

Thanks for putting into semi tech terms what I was clearly inept at conveying in layman.

Not sure about 98 but all the other fuels in Auckers come out of the the one tap down in Wiri. The only differences are the additives and the sign on the truck.

Kind of like a post mix soft drink.
They are all base water and then an additve or two are added and you have coke.

[Big Dog]

Yeah, yeah, I know I'm making myself sound like a dope, but until you've ridden my FXR on a tank of 91 or 96 (I can't tell any difference between *those*) and then a tank of that 98 stuff, don't die laughing at me, OK? I swear it runs different.

As fire stormer says common misconception, there is no increase in power from higher octane but less problems at high rpm/compression.
Modern watercooled bikes rely on this a lot less as the chambers carry a lot less heat.

But @ The EOD, you are the one paying for it. You are the one paying for the consumerables. So if you are happy you are right (this is what is really meant by the customer is always right).

[jrandom]

As fire stormer says common misconception, there is no increase in power from higher octane but less problems at high rpm/compression.

Indeed. I never thought or stated that there *was* an increase in power in my bike from a higher octane, as evidenced by the fact that I've never noticed a difference between 91 and 96. But my bike *does* run better on that 98 stuff, presumably because in some arcane chemicular manner (ie, apart from its equivalent octane/pentane ratio) it's less shitty.

[Firefight]

[QUOTE=Big Dog]Yeah what he said!

Thanks for putting into semi tech terms what I was clearly inept at conveying in layman.

Not sure about 98 but all the other fuels in Auckers come out of the the one tap down in Wiri.



Hey BD,
I thought Gull was trucked up from the Mount ??


F/F

[FROSTY:Me]

hold fire guys. Avgas or 100ish octane is according to your theoery basicly the same as 91 with octane boosters now that dont sound right to me