Gasoline

[jaherbst]

I'm with Jack.......

That' my man! I'll buy you a Beer at the Red Rocks Rally.

​Jack

[jaherbst]

Food for thought: Have any of you who use 87* octane weighed the cost savings per gallon Vs the money you spend on octane boosters , Sea Foam etc?

Yeppers, actually you are spending more than just filling up with 91*. Why make life so complicated when you can easily make it simple.

​Jack

[Easy Rider]

Very few has premium gas.

"very few" is not none.
Buy your gas at one of the stations that DOES have premium.....probably 91 octane.
Next best is 89 mid grade.

Are you saying that most all stations near you have only ONE grade of fuel ??
I've sent a LOT of time in Iowa out in the country and don't remember ever seeing that.

[Easy Rider]

Use seafoam to counteract the ethenol every other tank full.

Even the company that makes SeaFoam doesn't claim that it "counteracts" the ethanol in fuel.

[Easy Rider]

On the road i will try finding higher octane.

You won't have to try too hard.
Every major brand station these days carries at least two octane levels and most 3; some even 4 or 5.

Now......if you stop at a bar in an 1800's shed that just happens to still have ONE gas pump........

[cmbspyderrss]

These machines will run fine on US 87 octane...now cross a border and this may not hold true. Use seafoam to counteract the ethenol every other tank full

Im curious on the Seafoam. How much do you put in? The whole bottle or adjusted per amount of gallons?

[Easy Rider]

Im curious on the Seafoam. How much do you put in? The whole bottle or adjusted per amount of gallons?

SeaFoam was originally created as a marine fuel stabilizer.

It will do NOTHING useful when used all the time.......except successfully clean out your wallet.
And the ethanol in fuel does not need to be "counteracted".

USE THE GASOLINE THAT BRP RECOMMENDS.

A dose of a GOOD injector cleaner a couple of times a year is a good idea.......but SeaFoam isn't good for that either.

[Peter Aawen]

Just throwing this up for what it's worth to those who may be interested... We use RON rather than Octane here in Aus, so with that in mind - we can usually get 87 or 'standard ULP' for about $1-$1.20 per litre, 95 or 'Premium' for up to 20cpl more, & 98 or 'Ultimate' for another 10-20 cpl (or similar alternate labels for the RON levels depending upon the outlet/brand) at most servos on major roads here.

So, I try to run on 95 RON fuel, particularly since the manual here states something along the lines of 'use Premium or better fuel' - but I consistently get better than 4-5km per litre extra milage from 95/Premium than I get from 87/ULP, which pretty much means I get almost 100km greater range from a 20 odd litre tank of Premium than I get from a tank full of std ULP! (Range is quite important to me, especially since I have & prefer the 998 motor/smaller tank!) Besides, my Spyder clearly likes running on the Premium better & it lets me know in no uncertain terms that it's Not Happy Jan if I hafta feed it 87!! Not sure if that's due to the (relatively minor) air intake, exhaust, & tuning mods my Spyder is running, but it IS very uncomfortably obvious that my RT DOES NOT run as well on 87 as it does on 95 or better, altho there's no significant extra improvement in anything I can determine by stepping up to Ultimate over the Premium! Regardless, it doesn't take a mathematical genius to work out that even if I end up paying an extra 20c per litre for Premium over ULP, I'm still better off in the long run by running the Premium than I am running the 87 RON ULP stuff - I'm just glad that we don't yet have to contend with major Ethanol additive issues.... yet!

Over to you!

[jaherbst]

Why do Spyder people worry so much about Piss Ants while the Elephants are running over them? Unlike a Jet Engine which will run on anything

including cooking grease the Spyder will run on almost anything labeled Gasoline. Of course a little common sense and reading the Manual (carefully)

will help a lot.

There are so many opinions out there and it seams the overly strong opinions which some times is pure B-ll S--t leads the Poor Newby astray and

sometimes scares the hell out of him. My advice is read your manual carefully and take what it says to the Bank. Almost every question on this Forum

can be answered in the Manual. When you ask some of these questions the strong opinions and more forceful personalities take over with opposite view

points and confuse the new people and plant seeds of doubt.

This is not directed at anyone in particular nor specifically this thread. Just a little nugget of suggestion for the new and inexperienced.

Jack

[ARtraveler]

And the beat goes on.

[Igofshn]

I run 89 all the time here in CA. No additives. No problems.

[CrashDavis]

I'm running a test of ten tanks of mid grade and ten of premium to figure my fuel cost per mile. I'm applying the actual cost for each at the pump and am halfway through the premium run. Yes, the premium costs more but my mileage is up enough that the cost per mile is the same. Now that's at the current $0.25 - $0.30 price difference. I'm sure that sometime in the future when the difference becomes bigger then this will no longer be true.

[melodys39]

Octane booster & if you can go with Ethonal free pure gas (harder to find tho)
https://www.pure-gas.org/.

I use a Lucas Oil product called Safeguard Ethanol conditioner. It prevents the corrosion, and it's fairly inexpensive. It's even at Wal-Mart now. It only takes 1 oz to treat 5 gallons of gas ⛽

[Mazo EMS2]

The ethanol isn't gonna hurt anything unless you let the bike sit for several months. Then, it might start to work on some of the delicate fuel components...if there even are anymore delicate components these days. Why make it so complicated? If you're truly concerned, do as Jack stated and read the manual and do what it says. Is ethanol bad??? only if left sitting for months. Is ethanol good??? well, it isn't hurting anything when used properly. I was recently in IA where their 87 octane fuel can be purchased labeled as "ethanol free"... So the octane level is still 87, but the fuel was labeled as "premium"...somewhat confusing, but if it states "ethanol free" then that tells me that it's pure gasoline. Then why is it not 91 octane? Hmmm.. Personally, I run 91 octane premium, ethanol free, when available. I've run many gallons of 87 with ethanol too, sometimes in the same day or weekend. Did I stress about it during my riding???? Heck no!!! Just fill it and ride it, and stop worrying. If you have a time of storage in your climate, fill it up with ethanol-free fuel, maybe add a bit of fuel stabilizer to the last tank, and wait for the warm weather to return

[Big F]

[QUOTE=BLUEKNIGHT911;1287390]I have been using 87 - in my 1330 for 3 + years, IMHO it runs fine ....as has been mentioned the Spyder has Knock sensors to prevent damage ..... .01% loss of power is not worth the .60 it costs to use 91 .... Mike [/QUOTE

Mike, I've got a 2014 RT Limited and have used 87 Octane from day one and NOT ONE PROBLEM!!! Several of my Spyder friends in our club are very adamant about finding a station with 91 Octane when we ride.

AND I don't have any loss of performance.. All of the stuff about having to use higher octane is "fake news"! I guess the liberals started this...
BIG F

[UtahPete]

The engine REQUIRES 91 or better. Just read the engine emissions tag on the frame under your seat (RT) or frunk (F3). This changed in 2013 when the compression ratio in the 998 was raised and for all 1330s. 2012 and older merely recommended the higher octane. I can feel the difference running the low quality fuel when I get stuck with it. Some don't care. But is it really worth the dollar or two to not use the required fuel and substitute a lower quality alternative the bike has to work around?

I think the question was what to use when 91 isn't available (true in many high-altitude areas in the West; the highest I can find is 88)? I don't think anyone is trying to save $$ on gas, just $$ on expensive repairs.

[RinconRyder]

Reading the operator's guide it says to use 90 to 95 octane gas. That is hard to find in my area. I would have to drive 40 to 50 miles. Every station in my area has 87 octane. Very few has premium gas.

What is your local elevation?

[UtahPete]

I consistently get better than 4-5km per litre extra milage from 95/Premium than I get from 87/ULP, which pretty much means I get almost 100km greater range from a 20 odd litre tank of Premium than I get from a tank full of std ULP! (Range is quite important to me, especially since I have & prefer the 998 motor/smaller tank!) Besides, my Spyder clearly likes running on the Premium better & it lets me know in no uncertain terms that it's Not Happy Jan if I hafta feed it 87!! Not sure if that's due to the (relatively minor) air intake, exhaust, & tuning mods my Spyder is running, but it IS very uncomfortably obvious that my RT DOES NOT run as well on 87 as it does on 95 or better

Peter, are you at or near sea level? Just curious. For whatever reason, in the intermountain west anywhere above 5000', anything higher than 88 Octane is simply not available at most stations. Drop below that altitude and it's more common. The suppliers seem to be going with the conventional wisdom that the thinner air at altitude mixed with the gas is less inclined to induce pre-ignition (knocking and pinging).

[Peter Aawen]

Peter, are you at or near sea level? .....

Yeah, Nope!

'Home' is at 800 metres (wazzat, maybe 2500 feet?) but a lot of my ryding is in our 'Outback' &/or up in the 'High Country', so I'm frequently on roads at altitudes of anything from 15m BELOW sea level to maybe 2000 metres above sea level, and the Spyder doesn't really seem to care much at all. It gives its best performance AND range while drinking 95 RON fuel, there's no real difference to be found except in my wallet from running 98 RON fuel, and there's obviously significantly lesser performance & range when running 87 RON fuel - and I simply stay as faaar away as possible from anything with 10% or greater ethanol in it!

Our Servo's don't seem to restrict availability of higher RON fuel at higher altitudes, but then I believe our highest fuel outlet open to the public is in the small township of Cabramurra (pop 37) at an altitude of about 1488m/4882 feet - the Snowy Hydro Scheme owns the town, if you've got a moment, it's well worth checking them both out on the interwebs! (The town AND the Snowy Hydro Scheme ) They had 87 & 95 RON fuel there last time I visited...

[UtahPete]

Yeah, Nope!

'Home' is at 800 metres (wazzat, maybe 2500 feet?) but a lot of my ryding is in our 'Outback' &/or up in the 'High Country', so I'm frequently on roads at altitudes of anything from 15m BELOW sea level to maybe 2000 metres above sea level, and the Spyder doesn't really seem to care much at all. It gives its best performance AND range while drinking 95 RON fuel, there's no real difference to be found except in my wallet from running 98 RON fuel, and there's obviously significantly lesser performance & range when running 87 RON fuel - and I simply stay as faaar away as possible from anything with 10% or greater ethanol in it!

Our Servo's don't seem to restrict availability of higher RON fuel at higher altitudes, but then I believe our highest fuel outlet open to the public is in the small township of Cabramurra (pop 37) at an altitude of about 1488m/4882 feet - the Snowy Hydro Scheme owns the town, if you've got a moment, it's well worth checking them both out on the interwebs! (The town AND the Snowy Hydro Scheme ) They had 87 & 95 RON fuel there last time I visited...

You're lucky you don't have a powerful corn grower lobby. That's why we are forced to use 10% ethanol. Environmentalism has nothing to do with it.

[Peter Aawen]

You're lucky you don't have a powerful corn grower lobby. That's why we are forced to use 10% ethanol. Environmentalism has nothing to do with it.

It's our sugarcane growers here that are trying to push ethanol fuel onto everyone, atm they need to be fairly competent mixed farmers with an alternative paying crop for cane's 'off season'. If they could develop a large enough 'year round' demand for their cane they could specialise in just that, drop everything else, & effectively make more $$ by becoming less efficient overall! Our V8 Supercar Race Series currently runs 'high percentage' ethanol fuel in an attempt to convince everyone that it's safe & worthwhile, but most are smart enough to realise that those race engines get stripped down & rebuilt quite often, and it doesn't take a genius to work out that where they formerly used to do say 20 laps on a tank of dino fuel they can now only do 15 laps on the same capacity tank of ethanol fuel....

Still, while there may well be some valid reasons behind the push to develop alternative fuels & increase the volume & percentage of ethanol fuels used, I just don't like the hypocrisy of growers & governments trying to con us that the only reason they are pushing it at all is that 'it's all for our good' & has nothing to do with anything else, when there is obviously a whole lot more involved & at issue! And that's even before you start talking about the longer term potential issues associated with running higher quantities & percentages of ethanol fuel and thereby encouraging & even subsidising formerly viable mixed farm product producers to convert into mono-culture businesses reliant upon just the one crop that's heavily subsidised and that can't really feed us or anyone else anyway; or discussing the longer term implications that the drive to increase our reliance on a less efficient fuel may bring with it as a result of that subsidised production; nor that it is not necessarily all that great for anyone's economy OR the planet's overall health in the long run; or ..... nah, I had my turn in the hot seat, paid my dues, slogged my guts out, served my country, destroyed my health doing it, hopefully even made the world or at least my little part of it a touch safer for my kids & their kids, so now I reckon I should be able & allowed to go out & spend more of my time enjoying it while I can, & maybe even continue avoiding using ethanol fuel for as long as I can while I let the next generation stuff up the planet in their own way! And it seems they are doing that pretty well without my help, even if lots of my generation just can't let go...

[Easy Rider]

I think the question was what to use when 91 isn't available (true in many high-altitude areas in the West; the highest I can find is 88)?

At higher altitudes, the 88 IS high octane.
It will be fine.
Just don't fill up and immediately go back down to sea level.

[Easy Rider]

I use a Lucas Oil product called Safeguard Ethanol conditioner. It prevents the corrosion,

IF.....your machine was built to use ethanol, then there will be NO corrosion to prevent, at least not any more than has always been the case in some circumstances.

The ONLY time a stabilizer is needed is during times of non-use.
Pick your own interval: two weeks, 30 days.........

[Easy Rider]

I didn't know that. Thanks.

Maybe because as stated it is NOT TRUE.

There is no "octane sensor". The knock sensor can only adjust for spark knock; it does nothing for pre-detonation due to compression or to glowing carbon deposits, just to name two conditions.

THIS is why running the recommended octane is important.
The engine can NOT adjust for everything.

[Easy Rider]

Environmentalism has nothing to do with it.

Wrong. It does.
The only other commonly used "oxygenate", MTBE, turned out to be poisonous similar to lead.