Put the expensive juice in yesterday .......

[DutchFJ1200]

......... and it may be my imagination but I really think it runs better.

I read it on here somewhere recently but can someone explain me again what it does over regular.

Cheers.

[Tommy xs]

Hi Dutch I use it because in the UK so far as I'm aware it doesn't contain ethanol,there's a few thread's on here about it, just put in a search for ethanol should come up

[drewpy]

the very reason I buy the more expensive stuff, just to have no ethanol in it.

[blackhat250]

Placebo " , Is there any proof ,,,of gains,,, i know Av-gas runs cooler,,,,its high octane ..

[lallasro]

what you speak about here guys? the oil for 2 strokes?

[blackhat250]

Naw lassy" its the Super unleaded fuel , expensive stuff at pumps,,, V- power etc....

[lallasro]

hmm is not damaging the engine?

[slice]

I have heard that the ethanol eats the rubbers in older bikes? Especially the rubbers in the carbs which can be expensive to replace, and someone on here also said that you get better MPG out of high octane fuels again this is only hearsay so those who know feel free to jump in and explain why this is!!!

[Ttaskmaster]

It has *LESS* ethanol in it... something like 5% rather than 10.

It burns more efficiently and so you get more MPG (depending on riding environment), but more importantly it does not fuck up your carb diaphragm rubbers like the cheap shit does.

Placebo, someone said?
I get an average of 30 extra miles per tank if I use the super stuff. I have documented evidence of my trips and fuel economy (coz I'm like that with this bike). You tend to get more if you're doing distance, of course and playing high-speed games with motorway traffic seems to have no effect.... but whereas mundane urban riding at 40 and below gets you lower extra, it's still extra miles.

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY...

My carb diaphragms definitely suffered while I was using cheaper shit and not only do you have to send the sliders off for replacement (they're not the modern slip-off type), but they cost about £40 EACH!!
There is the option of recoating them with Plasti-Dip spray, but you need to be very good at layering that stuff.

TL:DR - Older bikes need the 'expensive' fuel. It's not actually that much more anyway, but it gets you better economy and saves your rubbers from karking it!

[neversaydie]

all uk super unleadeds are ethanol free

ethanol attracts water

ethanol eats away at brass components, also rots seals/o rings etc, particularly in older engines as the seals/o rings were not designed to deal with ethanol

[lallasro]

if is how you say guys, why the manufacturers (my bike case) recommend 95 octane?

[dt502001]

Fact: you need almost 2x a bigger jet to run alcohol in a I.C.E so even a 10% mix means your running lean if your still running the stock jets that came with the bike,so you will be better off to run the lowest amount of eth you can get or have your bike rejetted.

Now Octain rating means nothing to performance gains,octaing rating is the ability to resist pre ignition (knocking,pining) commonly accosiated with high compression engines,2 and 3d map ignition(read CDI TCI) systems,old engines with large amounts of carbon build up on the piston,and old centrifical advance systems with weak springs that will alow the timming curve to advance to quickly.( so guys with old bikes replace your springs and get the timming curve back right)

Where people get confused with octain rating is when they look at race fuels they see octain ratings of 110 115 and think that has TO BE THE REASON when it has nothing to do with it .The reason the octain has to be raised in race fuels is because the fuel is so voiltial that if the octain was only 85 rating you would have to retard you ignition system to prevent preignition so far that you would see no preformance gains,or dammage your enging from repetive pre ignition.(read bent con rods, holed pistions, burnt intake valves)

The guys making race fuels blend and refine the same old dinasour crue oil but to a much finer state to creat the highly volital fuels they make in secret,and trust me the teams racing supported by a race fuel company get better fuel than the stuff they sell to everyother race team,unless its a sactioned race and everyone has to run the same fuel.

Where as pump gas octain is just a additive,, added to the same fuel they make every day in the exact same way at the refinery.

Modern vehicles all have knock sensors that constantly feed information back to the cpu and th cpu caculates this information and adjust the timming (read retard) to compensate so even if the eng is designed to run on hig octain fuel it just cuts the power down by giving it less time to burn at a later degree of timming if you put in lower grade fuel.So you will see a increase in fuel comsumption.VS running the proper octain rating.

Now on to the effects of eth,,just ask and old speed way racer and they will tell you all the horror storys of the guy who didnt drain his fuel after every race,or any guy running modern race fuel.It is CORROSIVE THE AMOUNT OF CHEMICALS IN THE FUEL IS A MILE LONG.And should not be stored in a mettal container of any kind unless lined with plastic.

And the chemicals break down quickly thats why modern fuel has a shelf life of about 30 days.And must be kept in a sealed container,enviroment be damed .If you think the fuel companys give a shit about the enviroment your a fool.They know the good stuff they added evaporats first.

Look at a modern car the entire fuel system is plastic,and dont think the car manufactuers though well if we make the gas tank and fuel lines they will last longer for people and they wont have to replace them ever like the cars of old.NOT ON you life,if they didnt make it out of plastic the lines and gas tanks would rott off in a few years and you can't sell a car with a warrenty for 1 year.

Only 10 years ago the intakes were still made of mettal and the effects of eth started showing up with intakes rotting on the cars at a huge rate, metal /composite gaskets failing, look at any new car and the intake is plastic and so are the gaskets.Even the samll eng companys started making carbs out of plastic to deal with the situation/effects of eth..Sure they gain a abit of weight saving but not enough to warrent doing it for that reason all alone.

So the bottom line is if you store your bike even for a week drain the fuel from the carbs and if the fuel is more than 30 days old its junk!,

If your bike is more that 10 yrs old you need to rejet.

If you bike was designed to run on a certian level of octain then run that and no lower,,, any higher will have no effect on performance unless it contains less eth( here it all has a 10% mix)

Rubber and eht have little to no effect on each other, in your case Tasky the bonding agent of old to hole the diaphrams to the slide was not designed to be eth compatable .Some old rubber is effected though and its easie to see it will swell up.If eth was dammiging the diaphrams just about every bike older that 10 years would need new diaphrams in weeks after running eth for the first time.

I hope this clears up the octain rating question if nothing else.

[earthmover]

all uk super unleadeds are ethanol free

No, they are not. Some in the South are ethanol free, but ANY fuel that has come from Stanlow has a percentage of ethanol in it.

Some of the oil companies will tell you what that percentage is, some (Shell for instance) will not.

Mark

[Ttaskmaster]

Rubber and eht have little to no effect on each other, in your case Tasky the bonding agent of old to hole the diaphrams to the slide was not designed to be eth compatable .Some old rubber is effected though and its easie to see it will swell up.If eth was dammiging the diaphrams just about every bike older that 10 years would need new diaphrams in weeks after running eth for the first time.

I hope this clears up the octain rating question if nothing else.

It's not a bonding agent. The diaphragm is clipped in place with a bracket collar.

I recently had to recoat my carb rubbers, having found 'bubbles' that had split. Other FJ owners have found the rubber coating wearing very thin on diaphragms that were NOS and less than a year of being used. Others are finding corrosion around the fuel filler.

Email concerning the fuel sold by BP:

"In most regions of the UK our Ultimate Unleaded does not contain any Ethanol at present (South West UK excluded). This may of course change in the future as the specification allows up to 5%.

Our Regular grade gasoline does contain up to 5% bio ethanol in compliance with EN228 gasoline specification allowance in most regions of the UK".

More info here:

http://www.groups.tr-register.co.uk/wessex/ethanol-update.html

Basic answer direct from Yamaha Tech themselves:

"Fuel with 10% ethanol is not suitable for an FJ1200 as the plastic and rubber components were NOT made to cope with it. Fuel lines will degrade as will rubber parts such as the carburetor diaphragms".

[dt502001]

It's not a bonding agent. The diaphragm is clipped in place with a bracket collar.

I recently had to recoat my carb rubbers, having found 'bubbles' that had split. Other FJ owners have found the rubber coating wearing very thin on diaphragms that were NOS and less than a year of being used. Others are finding corrosion around the fuel filler.

Email concerning the fuel sold by BP:

"In most regions of the UK our Ultimate Unleaded does not contain any Ethanol at present (South West UK excluded). This may of course change in the future as the specification allows up to 5%.

Our Regular grade gasoline does contain up to 5% bio ethanol in compliance with EN228 gasoline specification allowance in most regions of the UK".

More info here:

http://www.groups.tr-register.co.uk/wessex/ethanol-update.html

Basic answer direct from Yamaha Tech themselves:

"Fuel with 10% ethanol is not suitable for an FJ1200 as the plastic and rubber components were NOT made to cope with it. Fuel lines will degrade as will rubber parts such as the carburetor diaphragms".

Exactly my point some rubber was not ment to be used while others are fine,,,though my mistake TASK about the way the diaphrams are attached to your slides .In your case I would see that happening once and switch the carbs out with some flat slides and be done with it as most guys do for performance gains not many FJ this side still running stock carbs in my circle of friends.

But to get back to the main question about octain rating PLEASE read paragraph 5 specficaly of this from sunoco about ANTI KNOCK and the relivance to octain rating http://www.racegas.com/article/11.....

Then if you have ever burnt/melted( read Burnt white and /or missing peices of the electrode) a spark pulg,holed a pistion then talk to me about why,and i will always say the same thing you needed to re jet and your running lean on any 4t air or oil cooled bike.= new fuel

[dt502001]

Totaly off topic but burning ETH or MTH also reduces the worlds food supply They could use all the scraps from other waist productio but look at the amout they use of corn alone to make eth?

[Ttaskmaster]

Exactly my point some rubber was not ment to be used while others are fine,,,though my mistake TASK about the way the diaphrams are attached to your slides .In your case I would see that happening once and switch the carbs out with some flat slides and be done with it as most guys do for performance gains not many FJ this side still running stock carbs in my circle of friends.

But to get back to the main question about octain rating PLEASE read paragraph 5 specficaly of this from sunoco about ANTI KNOCK and the relivance to octain rating http://www.racegas.com/article/11.....

Then if you have ever burnt/melted( read Burnt white and /or missing peices of the electrode) a spark pulg,holed a pistion then talk to me about why,and i will always say the same thing you needed to re jet and your running lean on any 4t air or oil cooled bike.= new fuel

Nice idea....

However, we have several of the world's most knowledgable FJ experts here in the UK and none of them recommend flatslides. I assume there's a reason for that.

I have read some of the US threads on thusly modded FJs and the amount of hassle everyone has with them is stupid. They generally crap out on the mid-range, which is the one thing an FJ is insanely superior at, so to kill that off is pretty much invalidating the whole bike to begin with. Yamaha spend many millions developing bikes like this to run a certain way, so I find it hard to believe anyone would really fuck with such a perfect balance... I also find it hilarious to read that, after many months (and in some cases several *years*) of fiddling and trying to get Flatslides to work anywhere close to the original carbs, many owners simply put the originals back on!!

Couple that with the fact that a set of flatslide carbs would cost more than I bought the bike for in the first place and it's as pointless as owning a Ferrari on the tax-haven isle of Jersey (where you could drive it around all day and never get out of first gear).

I'd also need to change the fuel lines and everything else that has problems.

By the end of it, it'd no longer be a proper FJ and the amount of money I'd spend could buy me a modern bike anyway...

So the best solution I can see is still to just spend a few pence per litre extra and get better performance without karking my bike or having to mod it at all.

[neversaydie]

if is how you say guys, why the manufacturers (my bike case) recommend 95 octane?

because your bike was made 2012, and the internal components are likely to be made from materials resistant to ethanol

as a rule of thumb, bikes made before 2000 are those most likely to be affected

[neversaydie]

No, they are not. Some in the South are ethanol free, but ANY fuel that has come from Stanlow has a percentage of ethanol in it.

Some of the oil companies will tell you what that percentage is, some (Shell for instance) will not.

Mark

I unreservedly apologise for my faux pas. Following passage is current situation in the UK, to best of my knowledge

Picky

BP Ethanol is added at 5% to unleaded petrol at all sites across the UK. BP Ultimate (super unleaded petrol) does not have Ethanol added, except in the South West of England.

Esso Ethanol is added at 5% to unleaded petrol at most sites in the UK. Esso Super Unleaded petrol does not contain Ethanol, except in the South West of England (Devon & Cornwall)

Shell Shell has repeatedly refused to answer the question. It is therefore an assumption only, that all Shell petrol should be considered to contain 5% Ethanol.

Texaco Ethanol is added at 5% to unleaded petrol. Texaco Super Unleaded petrol does not contain Ethanol.

Total Ethanol is not added to any Total fuel (including standard unleaded petrol). Except in the North West and South East of England.

Total have kindly provided a list of filling stations where E0 petrol can still be purchased. Click this link to download the list TOTAL E0 Fuel Sites.xls

As far as I can gather, the only reason that the super unleaded fuels seem to be ethanol free is because it is harder to obtain the fuel quality required for super unleaded if Ethanol is present. However several of the oil companies told me that this will change in the future but that no date has been set.

Chris Thompson CAE Eng Tech AMIMI

[Ttaskmaster]

as a rule of thumb, bikes made before 2000 are those most likely to be affected

Indeed - The owners of 1978 model FJ1100s are NOT happy... There's a reason I chose the 92 version!