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More about GAS!

901 views 15 replies 16 participants last post by  kb0ou 
#1 ·
Well, I think 99.2% of us know that higher octane is not any real benefit in normal vehicles that only need 87 Octane fuel.
So let's not harp too much over the Octane of the gas this time LOL

There ARE other differences in GAS other than just OCTANE!
Some stations claim to have better additives in the more costly higher octane fuels but not in the cheaper 87 octane. Also like around here 87 octane regular is 10% Ethanol but sometimes can find Premium in Pure Gas!
Comparing 87 octane Ethanol to 93 octane Ethanol would be Oranges to Oranges.
Comparing 87octane Ethanol to 93 octane PURE Gas may be comparing Oranges to bear skin rugs! IT IS NOT THE SAME FUEL regardless of what the octane is!

Having said that, let's forget the Octane specs and just go with the PURE GAS aspect!

Awhile back I had a post about I tried premium in the 95 1500 at a 66 station because it was supposed to be pure gas and was not happy with it!
Well I complained a good bit and questioned rather it was actually pure gas or not and gave facts about my bike, how it runs on various gas etc..
For awhile the signs for Premium being pure gas were not there I noticed after my complaints, maybe just all of them fell off? LOL
For awhile now I seen the notes about being pure gas for Premium are back, but not tried it in the wing again yet.

Now yesterday the wife screwed up.
Her car has had a miss at idle for a month or more, and at times running HY her car gets a mild vibration like a cv joint going bad ( it's the engine miss doing it)
Well, yesterday morning she was getting gas at the 66 as normal, she messed up and pressed the wrong button and got Premium instead of regular.
She figured the car would run like crap, but actually the car ran better!
She said in a few miles the miss vibration had gone away, and idling the car was now smoother, no longer had that miss.
She called me about 4:30AM to tell me this after driving about 35miles running the Premium LOL
Normally she would not get gas in the morning like that but the car was near empty as we made an extra 75 mile trip in it and had not got gas yet.

I checked the car out a bit last night when she got back to home town and sure enough it was running better. Just went out and started it up cold this morning, about 2AM, and it is idling smooth (no miss) than it has for month or more.
This is a 2000 Dodge Intriped with over 200K, I had changed the oil a few weeks ago and had ran some Seafoam and also Lucas fuel injector cleaner in it, and it still had the miss!
I was about to start pulling plugs, wires and if needed injectors to get rid of that miss, but the cars never off the road long enough when I can work on it. Now in about 10-20 miles or so of using Premium real gas no more miss!

Yes, Yes, I know!
The higher octane DID NOT help anything!
But something DID!
This is not a miss that comes and goes, once it started it has always been there, and now it is just suddenly gone! And there has been nothing else done different for 2 weeks or more which would have been the oil change, and the Seafoam and Lucas was used even before that with no change!
 
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#2 ·
I have gas all the time. Just ask my wife.:cheeky1:
 
#3 ·
Can't speak to all the theories and suppositions... but my GL1500 runs better on mid-grade and premium than it does on regular, regardless of it being pure gas or 10% ethanol.
So I use it.
 
#4 ·
Good write up there Chromo, I prefer the facts.

After playing around with all the suggested liquid few few dust in the gas tank, I have come up with Pump Gas with ethanol and a good shot of Techron every 4K at oil change time. The Techron shot has corrected a miss at slow start ups at the light, probably due to carbon buildup. Oh, I would like to use real gas but never find in on the road, so I don't think about it anymore.

I did switch over to DELO (Chevron's Diesel Engine Lubricating Oil) sometime back in the Summer. I am also eating great amounts of HUMBLE PIE on this issue, as the T-6 from Shell was prime on my list for the bike. I have found using DELO 15W-40 to give me a very slight mph edge. One of the group commented that he found a STAT that gave this oil blend a little less friction comparing it to T-6. I have since installed DELO in the fish boat and the van (280K). The van has not kicked up a fuss yet, so we'll see way down the road on this.

In the mean time I will continue to eat the pie.
 
#5 ·
now for a little insider knowledge about the fuel industry. some years ago i worked for a haulage company under contract for a major fuel company. sorry i can not say where i was hauling from as they might come and get me.
There are three main bulk supply yards within 1/4 mile of each other. that being Shell, Esso and Petro Can. all are supplied via the same pipe line from Montreal. when the fuel is pumped the first section is drawn off as waste. when the grade and quality is correct the first section goes to Shell, second Petro and finally the third to Esso. as each section is drawn the quality goes down.
after that each supply yard will via computer control pumps regrade the fuel. each station orders it's own grade and what additives it wants. don't be fooled by the flash new stations as they can order the low quality fuel so that they can get a bigger profit. normally the little indipendent stations order say 87 with no or little additives, then across the road at another station they would require some additives but not the full amounts. this would explain why a brand station at one end of town has good fuel and the other end of town has crappy fuel.
now comes the ethenol, some supply yards have bulk tanks that can mix the correct 10% for the blend. then you have haulage companies that buy the basic fuel from a major supplier and then add their own ethenol. how can they do this well hold your hats here's how. on the tanker be it a straight unit or b-train, one compartment is filled with ethenol only. once you get to a station and the dips of the tank are finished, the driver then looks at his charts and works out the amount of ethenol to gas . this is where the ethenol is dropped with the gas dropped on top to mix within the underground tank.
many times a new driver would punch in the wrong code at the fuel rack and this would cause the dispach problems as we could only dump certain grade and quality fuels at certain stations. i have seen it once a driver dumped the incorrect coded fuel at a major station. within a few hours both 25,000ltr tank's had to be pumped out and the driver lost his job.

so now you know why fuel's can change from station to station even if they are both from the same company.
 
#7 ·
BP says their gas contains "Invigorate". Not sure what that is, but I'll bet it doesn't cost BP anything!

John
 
#8 ·
When I bought the "Blackbird" (1998 GL1500SE) recently, she had an erratic idle. Every 5 seconds or so it would go from normal to about 1100 rpm then right back down. I've run 3 tanks of gas with Seafoam through it and the problem has disappeared. I notice on some paperwork the previous owner called the problem to the attention of the shop that did the 8k mile service back in June and they noted "unable to find the cause".

Additives can make a difference, depending on the problem. BTW: 87 seems to work just as well as higher octane in this one.
 
#9 ·
Here is another true fuel story. I work for a convenient store chain and one of my jobs is a fuel transport driver. I fueled my GL1500 at one of our stores with 93 octane 10% ethanol. From there my wife and I rode about 200 miles and had a nice lunch on a lake shore. After that we stopped to refuel next to the restaurant. There they had what is called 90 octane non ethanol recreation fuel so I filled up with it. The fuel came from the same terminal where I load, I know the driver that was delivering. It's a little higher price but thought it was a good test. After ridding the same roads home I refueled. It took a little more than a gallon more of the 10% ethanol to run the same miles.
 
#10 ·
I guess call me an odd man out. I have been averaging 41-43 with basic regular (10% eth) since I got the bike in 2005, using as low as 85 octane in Utah (riding two-up and towing a trailer no less), and have found my mpg to decrease with 89/93 octane. I will admit to using STARTRON each tank. I bought a large bottle so it only takes 1/4 ox for 4 gallons of fuel. I use an old Stabil bottle to measure.

Frankly, I always also have gas. The bike? If it runs good use it, regardless of what it is or what others say.
 
#11 ·
On a recent trip through San Diego I noticed a Mobil station sold Ethanol (yellow pump handle) and gasoline from the same pump (separate hoses). I put gasoline in the Wing. My mustang is tuned for Ethanol and while the mileage is really bad (8 mpg) it makes far more RWHP, 660 compared to 614 (as measured on dyno).
 
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