High octane...always???

[Bullxb12r]

We had a customer bring his bike in the other day because he lost all power like his bike just shut off. After quite some time discussing what happened and didn't happen, the subject of octane came up. He said he had been running 114 octane race fuel in his bike ever since he bought it because (like so many others) he thought higher octane was better. This is a motor with around 9.5:1 compression. We took the head off and this was the result.

Bottom line, If you are gonna run race fuel, your motor needs to be built for it. What he thought was good for his motor essentially nuked it

 

[Livers]

114 octane did not cause that failure. I would bet money on that.

 

[hodakaharold]

My 2007 XB12S seems to run the same with 87 or 91 octane,,,,I wondered if there were any long term effects for my motor to run the 87 octane.

I have lived on both coasts, the midwest by far is the most miserable, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Kansas ( I live on Kansas) Very humid, brutal weather.
I would take the East coast weather any summer over Texas or the other midwest states. As for the dry climate of Arizona or California, very hot but more to my liking, dry climate makes it more liveable, winter and summer. I always wondered if my ancestors were wagon train dropouts, why else would they have settled here? Could not be the weather.

 

[anrkizm95]

114 can cause that.seen that many times

 

[uly luigi]

too much timing and a lean fuel mix, but not just the fuel, from my experience anyway, too high of octane will leave a lot of carbon in an engine if it is not built for it, it is just the residue from unburnt fuel, to run real high octane efficiently, you have to be at 12-1 compression or better, other wise you are not burning all of the fuel

 

[DrogeN Omen]

I run my 07 xb12ss on 98 octane all the time. Used to run it on 91 but was hesitating alot.

 

[anrkizm95]

race fuel carries more oxygen than pump gas so using a 114 race fuel for extended period of time and not adding fuel by rejetting or remapping can and will burn a hole in a piston.there is no reason to use anything over 100 octane in a buell and even that is a waste of money for most.people put race fuel in theyre bikes and the ass dyno says it runs 100 percent better.lean = power and lean f%$#s things up if you dont know what your doing

 

[fakameanrepresent]

only 92 octane for my buell.

 

[Iamarchangel]

Sheesh.

It's a temperature dependent thing. Higher temperature and hotter riding demands higher octane. Cooler temps and cooler riding can have less.

Commercial grades are not huge jumps in octane value but they do cover the ranges we need. Sunoco Gold is the preferred for most conditions.

My biggest problem is forgetting when I fuel the car and pressing the higher octane on reflex.

Oh, and I drove in the states last week. Your prices, just shut up, I thought the pump was broken, the cost difference was that much. We pay a lot more in Canada.

 

[anrkizm95]

Oh, and I drove in the states last week. Your prices, just shut up, I thought the pump was broken, the cost difference was that much. We pay a lot more in Canada.

yea gas is pretty cheap compared to a gallon of anything else