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Fuel type---
Just been reading on the 1330---it says PREMIUM UNLEADED--is this a must? I use regular unleaded in my 2012 RTS-SE5 and have had no issues but do use a fuel additive bought from my dealer. I am curious.
Thanks ahead of time on my education! ![Smile](images/smilies/smile.png)
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The engine as designed and tuned requires 91 octane or better. BRP states this on the emissions label under your seat.
That said, the engine does have protections to keep from harming itself should the owner use a lower quality fuel than required. Performance will suffer and its not advised long term. Using lower quality fuel will not immediately harm your engine. It will protect itself dialing timing back for the lower quality fuel.
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I treat my Spyder the same way I treated my 911 Carrera 4, the manufacturer said premium fuel so that's what I use. Investment protection, you know. YMMV.
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All my life I wanted to be somebody, now I realize I should have been more specific.
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The engine was designed to run on 91 octane fuel...
It'll run on pretty much anything that you can get to burn, but it'll run best with the stuff that they suggest.
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My 990s sure loved Canada's 102 octane stuff....
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WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!
![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png) Originally Posted by jaherbst
Use premium and save your money on the fuel additives. Its a wash. Their is a reason they recommend Premium and I will spare you the long desertation. You got to ask yourself--Spend $25-30,000 for the Spyder and then chinz a few cents a gallon on fuel when the owners manual tells you to use premium??
JACK
BRP also recommends you use their BLENDED OIL in your 1330 Ace motor Spyder for 9000 miles ................and that's LUNACY ..........but that's about everyone's opinion EXCEPT BRP's.........Mike
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WHAT
![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png) Originally Posted by jcthorne
The engine as designed and tuned requires 91 octane or better. BRP states this on the emissions label under your seat.
That said, the engine does have protections to keep from harming itself should the owner use a lower quality fuel than required. Performance will suffer and its not advised long term. Using lower quality fuel will not immediately harm your engine. It will protect itself dialing timing back for the lower quality fuel.
..................I think you are confusing LOW quality fuel with a LOW Octane rating. They are different things...............................JMHO.......Mi ke
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![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png) Originally Posted by BLUEKNIGHT911
.................. I think you are confusing LOW quality fuel with a LOW Octane rating. They are different things...............................JMHO.......Mi ke ![thumbup](images/smilies/thumbup.gif)
True, there can be low quality fuel with high octane and vise versa. I tend to only use tier one gas, 91 octane or higher. My GT has a definite preference for Chevron but in the Spyder I cannot tell any difference between the tier one brands and all are 93 octane in these parts.
None of our vehicles get Exxon products, fuel or lubricants for business and ethical reasons. They are not a tier one gasoline anyway.
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![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png) Originally Posted by jcthorne
None of our vehicles get Exxon products, fuel or lubricants for business and ethical reasons. They are not a tier one gasoline anyway.
First time I've ever heard that opinion. What do you consider a tier 1 gasoline brand?
Trb-- (Roger)
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Choices choices..!!
for the difference in price why on earth would you not use the best you can. You can in a pinch use any gasoline. I ryde many roads where they don't have anything but 87...here it is good in other parts of the world the 87 is a very poor quality and you can't imagine the difference and their 95 is about as good as our 87. So keep in mind the manual is for all models for all countries so it will tell you to use the best you can get..just what I have found having used them all...
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Mt. Helix, California
2012 RS sm5
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Thank you
![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png) Originally Posted by akspyderman
You are going to get answers that are all across the board on this one.
We have three grades of gas here in Alaska. 87, 89, and 90. All five of my ![Spyder2](images/smilies/spyder2.gif) 's seem to run best on the 90. I always felt they were a bit less "snappy" when fueled by the lower octanes. This includes 4 Rotax 990's and the new 1330 engine.
We do not deal with ethanol additives here, so I am talking straight gas.
When given a choice, I put the highest available octane in the tank. When I can't choose, I fuel and go anyway.
Mileage wise, maybe a mile or two less per gallon on lower octane.
You weren't kidding---was great reading all responses, experiences, etc, guess I don't recall when I bought my 2012 that it wanted that 91 octane. At least the price of fuel has come down. That is nice, but fear it will go right back up when riding season comes back. Even though I have ridden twice so far this winter. Think the additive I was talking about too was to stop that stupid ethanol from destroying things. Such a farce we all were sold about ethanol. That stuff really cuts fuel mileage down. The Northern states are lucky many do not mess with ethanol. Learned that on a trip to Minnesota once. Thank you again to you and everyone else who responded to my original posting.
Last edited by Peter Aawen; 06-03-2023 at 03:57 AM.
Reason: removed color so all could read.... :-/
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![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png) Originally Posted by jcthorne
None of our vehicles get Exxon products, fuel or lubricants for business and ethical reasons. They are not a tier one gasoline anyway.
What is a tier one gas? In our area the fuel is piped in to a distribution center -- all the stations in our area receive gas from the same refineries that are hooked to that distribution center --
the only difference is the additives they add to the tanker when it is receiving the gas --
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![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png) Originally Posted by Trbayth
First time I've ever heard that opinion. What do you consider a tier 1 gasoline brand?
Those that have met the tier one gasoline requirements.
www.toptiergas.com
Reading that site today, I stand corrected. Exxon gas is now included. I still will not use it.
There are very good reasons all three US car manufactures use Chevron gas for their EPA testing. Even though its not available in Michigan. It has to be trucked from Kentucky, the closest distribution point.
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![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png) Originally Posted by OwnerOfHarriet
What is a tier one gas? In our area the fuel is piped in to a distribution center -- all the stations in our area receive gas from the same refineries that are hooked to that distribution center --
the only difference is the additives they add to the tanker when it is receiving the gas --
In addition to the additives, the different brands have different QA checks on the fuel they distribute. Not all gas that comes out of the pipeline is the same, and it does NOT actually mix in the pipeline. They transport all 3 grades and diesel in the same pipeline and know where the cutover points are. Its not all the same spec.
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After researching -- the gas in our area comes from refineries in the bay area -- it is piped to a holding facility where it is loaded into truck -- the gas made at Shell may go to Chevron, Costco etc. the additives for the truck going to one brand of gas are different than another brand but the gas could be from any of the bay area refineries-- they generally only pipe in 91 and 87 octanes and mix it to get the 89.
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When I first got my RT last year I ran the cheap 87 gas and after a couple of tanks I noticed the power wasn't there as much and maybe a little spark knock on hard acceleration. Went back to the good stuff and have been running it ever since. It IS worth paying the extra cost. I cringe when I think of what long term spark knock can do to the engine. I think BRP got this part right.
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SPARK KNOCK
![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png) Originally Posted by Doc Humphreys
When I first got my RT last year I ran the cheap 87 gas and after a couple of tanks I noticed the power wasn't there as much and maybe a little spark knock on hard acceleration. Went back to the good stuff and have been running it ever since. It IS worth paying the extra cost. I cringe when I think of what long term spark knock can do to the engine. I think BRP got this part right.
...If you actually experienced SPARK KNOCK , then something may be wrong with your computer. The BRP system is designed to prevent SPARK KNOCK......have it checked ......Mike
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Gasoline Octane
Let me just pull the pin and through this out there.
A lot of the the new bike owners manuals will say that you have to have 94 octane which is a lie, if you believe this then you are just going into the game with half of the information, be realistic about your bikes.
The standard hip pocket rule of thumb for octane is if your bike or car is not pre detonating then use the lowest octane available, octane to put it in gentleman's terms can be loosely called " The Resistance to Detonation of any fuel", and the best example I can give you is if you take a pie pan of gasoline that is 87 octane and a pie pan of gasoline that is 94 octane, you put them on the floor of your garage and you approach each one of them with a lit match, the 87 octane will detonate further away than the 94 octane, so gas is formulated to have a greater resistance to detonation the higher the number, and the number comes from an old thing that was called the "Anti Knock Index" because older cars over time would have the valves go out of adjustment, heads would leak, air would get into the motor.......and when the air would come in it would actually make your car run hotter, and to lower the temperatures in our cylinders we would put in higher octane gas, so if your car was knocking or running on after you turned the key off in the 50's, 60"s & 70's the solution for that was to put more expensive and higher octane gas in your tank.
Lead was always in gasoline back then as a lubricant, but they would use things like seetane and later on toluane and other octane modifiers, and these octane modifiers were put in to artificially pump the octane number up on what the regular chemical composition of gasoline would be.
Believe it or not one of the best octane boosters is water, and old trick used by old diesel mechanics, because of the hydrogen chain of water being H2O.....there is 2 hydrogens and 1 oxygen, if you have an old diesel engine that needs to have the heads cleaned, one of the Hail Maries was to spray some water through an atomizer bottle or spray bottle into the intake track of a diesel and what it would do is it would crank up the octane in the diesel fuel going in and it would burn out all of the carbon deposits inside the motor, but it is actually pretty dangerous and it can scatter a motor while your spraying it to explosive results.
Only use 87 octane fuel in your motorcycles regardless of what the owners Manuel says, if you use any thing higher then the ethanol will chemically retard the timing of the engine which is actually alcohol poisoning.
Higher octane does not burn cleaner as the petroleum companies would have you believe.
It is not about the ethanol percentage because 94% octane does not contain more ethanol than 87% octane, it is about the ability to burn the gas versus the ethanol ratio in it.
Ethanol is hydroscopic meaning it brings in more moisture.
There are 2 methods of determining the octane number, one is the RON and the other is the MON, some countries use the RON exclusively and some countries use the MON exclusively. In the United States we use an average between the 2 numbers so the next time you are pumping gas for your bike or car look at the pump and it will say 87 octane RM/2 and what that means is that there adding the research number R+M/2 to the mechanical number and they are dividing it by 2, so they are giving you an average between the RON number and the MON number, now when you are looking at your owners manual for your Japanese or European motorcycle it is going to have a higher octane number and sometimes these manuals for bikes and cars specify a higher grade of gas because they have a higher cylinder compression and they are going to need 98 octane fuel, well 98 octane in the European system translates to our system in the United States to about 91 or 92 octane, so you are not buying the wrong gas and you are not going to damage your vehicle, the gas that is sold in Europe is the same gas that is sold here in the states they just have a different method of measuring the octane number.
Every company that makes their money selling additives have tested out fuel, so if you use 87 octane in your motorcycle you will not get a single horsepower number higher on a dynamometer running 94 octane through your bike than you will running 87 octane it just does not work that way.
If you are going to over build your motor, if you are going to run a high compression motor, if you are going to alter the timing to fire that spark plug at a point where the piston is higher and therefore the fuel is under higher compression then you do have to start using a higher octane fuel or you will pre detonate, so simply put if you've got a tuned motor or if your motor is under a high heat high stress application then it is ok to run a higher octane fuel to help counter the effects of cylinder pressure and heat.
If you put a higher octane fuel in a bike that clearly does not need it you are doing your bike a disservice, and you are doing 2 things to it, 1 is you are making the oil companies really happy and we all know they need more money..... Right? But really what you are doing is chemically altering the timing of your bike, if you have points or fuel injection with a computer your spark is set to fire or go off at a certain time that is all based on the appropriate fuel for your vehicle and when you start changing the formulation of that and you start putting high octane fuel in then what you are doing is chemically retarding your timing because let's say now instead of that thing firing at 18 degrees before top dead center now in fact it is going to have to turn further, the crank will turn further, the pistons will go higher before it actually sets off the explosion because high octane gas has a greater resistance to detonation and compression, so now you have just messed with the timing of your vehicle.......spark will happen and ignition will happen but the time it takes because lower octane fuel burns hotter faster and higher octane burns slower and will take a longer amount of time before it lights up, spark and timing is the same but the flash over, the amount of time it takes to flash or fire up is changing and taking longer and is occurring later and that will give you the same effect as if you then further retarded your timing.
With the current junk fuels blends they are selling us there is 20% less gas in your gas today than there was 10 years ago, between oxygenation and ethanol MTBE and all these things that are in the fuel they are taking the place that gas used to be and as we did that a lot of these components and chemical recipes that are in your fuel are there to pump up the octane that we lost when we started putting ethanol and oxygen in the fuel, and now gas does not last anymore, it used to last a couple of years but now within 30, 60, 90 days it smells like varnish and the bikes won't run right.
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Archangelmm,
All of that was partly true some years ago. At least for lower compression engines. The advent of knock sensors and self adjusting timing threw all that out the window. The 998 and 1330 Rotax have fairly high static compression ratios and are designed for use with 91 octane fuel.
Use lower quality fuel and the engine control systems will detect it and dial spark timing back until knock no longer is detected. The reduced timing DOES have an effect on power and mileage. But its the lower octane fuel that causes it.
The engine manufactures are not in a conspiracy with the oil companies to defraud you of additional funds. Its a real need for the high performance engines with high compression ratios that need the higher octane.
Older high compression engines without knock sensors would just destroy the engine with the wrong fuel.....
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![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png) Originally Posted by Art Mann
Why would anyone in their right mind buy a new vehicle from a company that they believe does not understand how to lubricate their own vehicles? The only way to determine the minimum requirements for a given engine for certain is to run multiple engines under heavy load on test stands and/or or ride a number of test vehicles in excess of 100,000 miles each. I am not certain that BRP does this but I am certain that all automobile companies do it. I have my doubts that anyone on this board has done that kind of testing or even has the equipment to measure wear after a full tear down.
Service parts, including oil are sold for profit. BRP would prefer you buy from them. Even though they do not make or blend the oil themselves, they do market it.
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