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**GNAHT-2** · 02-19-2004, 12:43 PM

You can perhaps be imagining my surprisement when I am having seen this article on the web. Perhaps it is maybe having to have done something with comment coming from Mr. Van Demon:

87.. 93.. ? i dont know...

i do know that i am glad that Earl posts on this site. he is always straight forward and on the money, no bull sh*t...

if i ever grow up, i want to be just like Earl...
thanks Earl

van

**earlfor** · 02-19-2004, 05:31 PM

It may be about time to call in the "swat" team. :-)

Earl

[quote="GNAHT-2"]
You can perhaps be imagining my surprisement when I am having seen this article on the web.

**mcycle-nut** · 02-19-2004, 08:07 PM

I run regular (87) in my bike and it has 10 thou shaved off of the head! Runs fine. I do run 93 in it if I have loooong uphills on a highway though, just to be on the safe side. 8)

**Hoomgar** · 02-22-2004, 01:46 PM

Originally posted by Hotblack

I agree with Nick, Earl, dpep, et. al. Personally my bike has never been anywhere near a ping under my ownership, and I always use 87 octane. I am skeptical of any gas mileage increasing by virtue of octane alone, but there may be another variable in the equation. Increased octane, to my knowledge, doesn't mean cleaner gas, either. However I do own a vehicle that needs good gas in order not to ping, and I've gotten a lot of different results from different brands at the same octane rating. The car in question absolutely HATES Hess gas, whereas Amoco gives the best results. There is a whole catalog of brands that are good and bad to varying degrees, but those are the extremes. Again this is personal experience with a quirky old car, but those observations are consistent through my ownership and operation of the vehicle. My 550, by the way, has no problem running on Hess gas even in hot weather at full throttle.

I still find Hoomgars observations interesting, and I my try some experimentation of my own. One thing, you don't always hear preignition if it's light enough, so if you switch to a higher octane and get better mileage, It's quite possible you were experiencing preingnition even if you didn't hear it before. And then again there are many vehicles made today that automatically adjust engine tune to prevent preignition, so switching to higher octane can have effect in that case as well. You may not have pinging, but if your engine isn't remapping everything to accomodate inadequate fuel you're going to get better performance.

Let me know what you find out after playing with the theory for a few months. Like I said my findings i shared because I found the to be true "for me" and they seem to be true in everything I own that burns gas. Here is one your going to love. If I run 87-89 octane fuel in my Cub Cadet it will cut grass just the same. But here is the kicker and I tested it two summers in a row because me and my brother in laws go around on this one. One of them is ignorant enough to believe that all fuels come out of the same tank and you just pay more because your stupid. If I mow with 8-whatever octane I can get two cuttings out of a tank full of gas and about 1/4 of the third time I will run out. If I use 93 or up in it I can cut my grass almost 4 times before having to fuel. I can prove this one so I love it

It is true. My bike I clocked at 16-17 mpg country road riding on several tanks full while using 89 octane. On 94 octane (Sunoco) I can take the same rides riding the same way and I will consistantly get 20-21 mpg and that ain't no bull, I can prove it

and have done so already. This is part of the whole argument with the brother-in-laws thing. Plus, I don't know about everyone elses engines but both my cars and both of my bikes run noticably better on higher octane fuel and all give better fuel economy.

So for me (I am not saying anything has to be true for anyone else) I actually pay more for lower octane fuel to get less performance. That makes it an obvious choice for me.

One thing you should know and you can get this information from the fuel stations and if not look it up oin sun oils web site. Lower octane fuels do have more dirt in them. It isn't that it is added or anything, it's that higher octanes are achived by a few things one of which includes more refinement and there for are cleaner. Thats why 87 is so much darker in color than 94. One looks like iced tea while the other looks like kero.

So you have to understand that with what I have done and seen over the years I am quite skeptical about the application of low octane fuels for anything of mine other than maybe lighting bush fires

Here is yet another one you can do that you will notice if you are honest with yourself (you = anyone) if you buy a used car with a fair amount of miles on it that have all been put on with low octane fuels and then you do nothing but run high grade gas in it. You will find yourself needing to change the oil about every 1000 miles until you get all the sludge out from running the good gas in it now. It really is true. You can see it almost melt out the years of crap that have built up in there as you run it. It will calm down then after a few thousand miles and several oil changes.

I am sure everyone has their own experiences and you have to go with what you believe in. For me, I am one of these guys that has to find out for myself what works best. these have been my findings on gas grades.

Wow! Did I type all that???

**Hotblack** · 02-22-2004, 02:01 PM

......and what oil company do you work for???? No all kidding aside, your experiences go against the grain of just about everything I've read about gas. No matter how much sense a statement makes though results matter more. I will try this, probably on the bike as it runs out of gas often and I'm very in tune with how many miles it will go on a tank (and it's far cheaper to fill that tank than my trucks!) Any noticable improvements will be reported.

**Hoomgar** · 02-22-2004, 02:48 PM

Originally posted by Hotblack

......and what oil company do you work for???? No all kidding aside, your experiences go against the grain of just about everything I've read about gas. No matter how much sense a statement makes though results matter more. I will try this, probably on the bike as it runs out of gas often and I'm very in tune with how many miles it will go on a tank (and it's far cheaper to fill that tank than my trucks!) Any noticable improvements will be reported.

I am the master of that

I always get different results than everyone else. I am also the master of "firsts" as it seems the stuff that happens to me people are always saying "well that's a first" and "I've never seen that before"

he he, sux to be me

**mcycle-nut** · 02-22-2004, 08:08 PM

Originally posted by Hoomgar

[ But here is the kicker and I tested it two summers in a row because me and my brother in laws go around on this one. One of them is ignorant enough to believe that all fuels come out of the same tank and you just pay more because your stupid.

I used to work with a guy who YEARS ago worked for a fuel company. All they did was add colouring for the different grades of gas. 8O I don't think they even measured octane levels back then. This guy is in his late sixties. Obviously they don't do this now. 8)

**Anonymous** · 02-22-2004, 10:04 PM

You make an excellent argument for wasting your money, Hoomgar. I'll continue to save mine by running cheap 87 octane gas. Frankly, I don't believe the improved gas mileage claim you make, and the running better is more subjective than anything.

But, to each his own. It's a free country, so go ahead and waste your money. Fine with me...

210,000 miles on GS bikes in 18 years, all on regular gas. No problems, no pinging, no performance loss of any kind.

I could experiment with premium fuel to see if mileage improves, but I just don't feel like paying extra for that experiment. I'll just continue to enjoy the GK.

Nick

**Anonymous** · 02-23-2004, 01:03 PM

Hoomgar,

I am confused about a section of one of your posts. (Refer to Apendix A)

(This is not a personal attack, so please DO NOT view it as such)

In this post, you implied that the grade (or purity) of fuel burned in an engine has a direct impact on the quantity (and retention) of sludge build-up in the crank case and/or some other passage where oil flows.

I have been churning over this suggestion for a few days now, but I cannot seem to determin how these fuel impurities can directly affect how clean the oil is. How are these impurities introduced into the oil?

The only senario that I can think of is pre-mature wearing or damage to the rings causing blow-by.

If this was what you were implying, then I would further suppose that you are saying that the amount of crud and carbon left behind is so significant, in contrast between octanes (lets say 89 and 93), that an abnormal amount of wear occures in the lower octane run engine (in contrast to the higher octane run engine).

OK, I am willing to recognize the possability of that, BUT...

You went further to imply that by mearly changing octanes (from 89 to 93), that somehow this damage will not only be reversed reducing blow-by, but it will directly cause the sedements/buildups in your oil passages etc to disapate.

This seems highly improbable!!

What does seem likely is that the person(s), that owned the vehicle(s) before you, never bothered to change the oil at reasonable intervals, causing exessive oil breakdown and thus exessive deposits. When you aquired the vehicle(s) you began to take care of them. By changing the oil every 1000k, you where flushing out a lot of that build-up that had been accumulating over the many years of abuse and neglect.

It seems to me that oil has the ability to pick up and suspend (for any given length of time) a limited amount of "crud." By changing it, before the oil had a chance to break down, you where able to remove more crud then the oil was depositing.

Of course this is only my opinion, so I may be misguides in my conclusions. Or maybe I compleatly misunderstood that you where saying, so please feel free to correct me if I have miss-understood or otherwise etc.....

Van

Apendix A "Here is yet another one you can do that you will notice if you are honest with yourself (you = anyone) if you buy a used car with a fair amount of miles on it that have all been put on with low octane fuels and then you do nothing but run high grade gas in it. You will find yourself needing to change the oil about every 1000 miles until you get all the sludge out from running the good gas in it now. It really is true. You can see it almost melt out the years of crap that have built up in there as you run it. It will calm down then after a few thousand miles and several oil changes."""

**Hoomgar** · 02-23-2004, 02:47 PM