Fuel / Petrol - Grades & RON ?

MEAN 1

MEAN 1

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here in Australia we have approx 4 grades of fuel , which fuel type do use use in your FZ1 ?

grades available in OZ -

91 RON - Standard Unleaded

95 RON - Premuim Unleaded

98 RON - Ultra Premuim Unleaded (with cleaning additives)

100 RON "Shell" - Racing Blend (with 5% Ethanol)

p.s. i mostly use 95RON - Premuim in my FZ1N
 
In the U.S. our standard grade is 87 octane, which is what I use in the FZ. Premium in the corvette, but it seems like the FZ runs better on standard for me
 
I have to agree, with both of my FZ1's ('04 & '06) the bikes actually seem to run better on the lower octane juice, and I'd like to believe that the better stations have better grades of gas, my experience has been it matters more station to station than brand to brand. The one bike I ever really noticed any performance difference with higher octane fuel was my 94 Vmax, premium really made that motor sing!:D
 
If you run the standard "regular" you should be all set. It's possible to get bad gas from any station that doesn't maintain their tanks properly but if you fill up at reputable stations you shouldn't have any problems. Even my later Harleys ran pretty good on mid-range and even though they are relatively low compression engines, their huge jugs and poor combustion chamber shape make them pretty fussy about octane, especially when they got hot. The FZ1 doesn't suffer from any of those malladies. None of my in-line fours were ever fussy about octane and because it actually slows the burn, there's no way higher octane will make a normally good running engine run better.
 
How do the different fuel ratings convert?

Octane rating


"In most countries (including all of Europe and Australia) the octane measure on the pump is the Research Octane Number (RON): but in the United States and some other countries the headline number is an average of the RON and the Motor Octane Number (MON),or (R+M)/2. Because of the 10 point difference noted above this means that the octane in the United States will be about 5 points lower than the same fuel in Europe and Australia : 87 octane fuel, would be RON 92 in Europe."


That said: I use Chevron 89 Octane or approx. RON 94.
 
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I use 91 in mine. I think we have higher available, but it's way up there is price, and have to search around to find it.
 
When I came out to North Carolina I started seeing 'Sunoco' stations with 93 grade premium. Being from California where these stations don't exist, and having seen these 'Sunoco' stickers on race cars, I asumed that this was 'the kind' and high octane fuell. Well I quickly learned that my Van or my Buell did not like this stuff. It seemed to run a bit worse than the 'other' brands available out here. Now I typically use Hess or BP in the Van and Shell in the FZ1. The Shell/FZ1 combo seems to work well with nothing noteworthy of concequence happening. I have been useing the premium grade in the bike, but believe that the regular grade would sufice with no apreciable performance one way or the other.
 
I used 98 ultra with additives, but now it costs €1,5 per liter ($7,90 per US gallon) and I really can't tell the difference from regular 95.
 
For those with the Gen 1, what does the manual say to use? I bought mine used without a manual and I am curious.

Thanks to all that have posted this is a very informative thread!
 
Originally Posted by mabbot> I didn't think that using a higher octane gas led to stability of the gas. But then again, I don't know much!
( I am not being a smart ass).
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You sound like you're being a smart ass. :jk: BTW: Where does one buy 100 Octane in the US?
 
Back in the day, I used to use Philips AV. fuel 120 in my VW bug, it was much, way, hopped up, and I could wheelie in a 'Bug' from crosswalk to crosswalk at an intersection. But in tha 'day' it was about $2.50 a gallon while pump premium was about 55 cents a gallon. But the tank was only 5 gallon, so it was relativly cheap fun.
 
100?!?!

muffin said:
I dont ride much so i use 100 octane. I never have to worry about the gas going bad .
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with additives, or strict racing fuel, I thought racing fuel (100-110 Octane) was leaded... that really cannot be good for the engine, can it, I'vee always wondered what would happen with 110 octane racing fuel...
 
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