Premium or regular gas?

[Speedo007]

Sorry for posting here but its the only section we actually read
Wondering if you guys use Premium 91-94 octane or regular gas in your FZ8. In the book it says regular can be used, but I've always used premium gas in my bikes...And for my Speed Triple and Scrambler, premium was even the gas recommended by the manufacturer.

 

[00007]

im using regular at 1.41 a liter gas here only goes up never comes down so its getting regular

 

[Speedo007]

yeah tell me about it, cost me over 20$ to fill her up the other day...and I tank about every 2 days...

 

[mano1192]

Nothing but premium!

 

[SpunkyTheTuna]

Owner's manual sez use regular. I use regular. It does nothing helpful to use premium fuel in an engine that's set up for regular. There's no horsepower benefit, no mileage benefit, no emissions benefit. If there's no preignition, the octane rating is high enough for the engine.

 

[Hereward]

yeah tell me about it, cost me over 20$ to fill her up the other day...and I tank about every 2 days...

You should try filling up in the uk! £20.05..........thats $37.94 !!!!!!!!

Bike is tuned for regular gas/petrol you need to change the ignition timing to gain anything from premiums higher octane rating, if anything premium runs worse than regular.

 

[Speedo007]

Yeah was in London 3 weeks ago. Cost me 84$CDN for a small bag of laundry at the hotel. All is very expensive, but your salaries are most likely compensating, otherwise everyone would be starving to death and living in cardboard boxes lol!

 

[Hereward]

Fuel has doubled in price over the past 4-5 years, unfortunatly wages haven't LOL, anyway back on topic...........Regular every time and if your in the north of england I do a cheap laundry service.......LOL

 

[Speedo007]

yeah Im sure I could have found someone to wash my clothe and fold it nicely for 84$ lol!

Here gaz was about 0.80$/L 4-5 years ago, Now it's about 1.50$/L but I've heard it's always been worse in europe. Here it's crazy we have oil, we sell it to the americans, and then buy it back at the same price as if it was bought from the middle east...and more then half of that price is taxes.

Bottom line, Im going to switch to regular until I see or hear a difference.

 

[lothodon]

US$

Regular 3.94
Mid-Grade 4.02
Premium 4.12

My wages haven't changed in over four years AND my hours have been reduced so it will never be anything but regular for me.

Oh yeah, my truck get's 9mpg (sometimes as high as 10!) hence the reason for my motorcycle obsession and my reason for riding from snowmelt to snowfall. I paid nearly $90 to fill my truck tank last time around.

 

[Speedo007]

3.94$ a liter or per gallon?

 

[Hereward]

trying to keep on topic, You should hear the bike ticking over a little more smoothly if you've changed from premium back to regular. In a uk based test on regular V's premium power outputs it was only when you got to mid range performance cars that you started to see any BHP increase Subaru and golf gti type cars tuned to run on it. for the lower dislacement and powered cars no increase in BHP or tourqe was found on dyno and I think a few even lost performance! Watch these!!!!!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG3j0g88kXs]YouTube - ‪Fifth Gear - Fuel Additives (Increased Power)‬‏[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQghB4asSnI&feature=related]YouTube - ‪5th Gear - High Octane Fuels‬‏[/ame]

The key here is to remember both the the golf and the subaru are both tuned for premium fuel, the manufacturers recomend it in there handbooks for those cars....the FZ8 is tuned for standard fuel, it says so in the handbook, so unless you get your FZ8 specialy tuned for premium your simply wasting your money!

 

[Speedo007]

Interesting videos. That sells it for me, going back to regular and putting my money on mods instead

 

[mano1192]

Interesting videos. That sells it for me, going back to regular and putting my money on mods instead

You know while I'm leaning toward that also premium is a cleaner gas and should keep the engine cleaner. Why not use it just for that reason alone? Its not that much more expensive... here anyways

 

[Speedo007]

I tank every 2 days...so in a season, its certainly a few bucks out the window if the engine is not tuned to run on it. On top of that, Ive never kept a bike more then a year...thats another good argument to put regular gas in it

 

[hypo]

Interesting videos. That sells it for me, going back to regular and putting my money on mods instead

Plus one !!!

 

[Hereward]

The cleaner engine "argument" is a good one, but there are far cheaper and effective ways of doing this such as fuel aditives like "redex" but with the FZ8 being pretty much out the box age wise it won't suffer from a lack of performance through carbon build up for quite a few thousand miles yet. It's a prety bullet proof engine desighn based on previous R1 and FZ1 models, I supose really it's down to the individual, the bike will run on premium, but there is very little to gain from it, if anything. A cleaner engine? yes ok, but at what cost? higher engine wear due to incorect timing? But thats just speculation, what is fact is yamaha have tuned the engine and ECU to run prefareabley on standard rather than premium fuel.

Why would they do that if there is a gain to be made by tuning it to run on premium? Easy, running costs! The FZ8 is desighned primarily for the european market, to go head to head with the euro sales leader, the kawasaki Z750 and Z750R. One of the big factors in europe is fuel costs and MPG figures. if the FZ8 was tuned to run on premium this would be seen as a negative sales point rather than a posertive one.......Sounds a bit daft but with the cost of fuel in europe it is a big issue, especialy when you take into account alot of people are actualy switching to bikes as there predominant comuter transport due to high fuel prices.........This is the sting in the tail however, the FZ8 isn't actualy what you would consider a "standard" choice for a comuter bike, 125cc-600cc is the usual choice but that fuel figure mentality has spread to encompas even some of the 150bhp+ bikes coming onto the market currently.

It would have been nice to be given the option by yamaha of simply having them offer two ECU fuel maps, one for regular and one for premium with a little more grunt but I don't think that made the budget LOL maybe in future Yamaha dealers could offer a remap service to those who want to fun on premium fo a little extra performance? It could happen if enough people ask for it! I'd certainly be one of the first in the cue

 

[SpunkyTheTuna]

It would have been nice to be given the option by yamaha of simply having them offer two ECU fuel maps, one for regular and one for premium with a little more grunt but I don't think that made the budget LOL maybe in future Yamaha dealers could offer a remap service to those who want to fun on premium fo a little extra performance? It could happen if enough people ask for it! I'd certainly be one of the first in the cue

It's not just a matter of ECU tuning. To run with any benefit on premium would require changes in compression ratio and cam specs. ECU adjustments can change timing events like spark timing and duration, and fuel injector opening and such, but you need more compression, and with it, different cam timing, duration, and lift in order to require the use of premium fuel. ECU changes won't do that for you.

 

[mano1192]

Your logic makes perfect sense, but without documentation its all speculation. Either way Ill try out the reg on my next tank, but with my power commander coming soon its a mute point for me anyways

 

[Hereward]

Yeah it realy is a mute point with a power comander straped in LOL

As for increaseing the compresion and reworking the whole fueling system from inlet to outlet, yes to get the ultimate out of premium gas that would be what is needed, an ECU remap would only give you a small gain from premium by altering the fuel air mix and ignition timing. This is the route mano is taking with a power comander.