? about the grade of gas to use in the 80 XJ650

Just poken around with this and that, and came across the Vehicle Emissions Control info sticker inside one of the sidecovers for my bike.

For gasoline grade it states that im to use Regular (Leaded) Research Octane 91 min.

Since the only grade i can get thiese days is unleaded, am i to add additives to the gas each time i fuel the bike?

 

It'll be just fine with unleaded.

If you're in North America you can run it on regular 87 octane. In North America we use Pump Octane Number (PON) as opposed to Research Octane Number (RON) which is used everywhere else and is referenced on your sticker. 91 RON ~ 86 PON.

 

So, I've been going overboard by running 93 octane in mine since I got it?

 

Ok cool, thanx

 

My 1982 Manual says to run 91%.

 

I think the correct answer is:

"Depends upon where you live!"

Here, in the Cradle of Liberty, New England ... The Regular Gasoline gets diluted with Ethanol. The sticker they put on the pump says: "9 to 12 Percent".

I try not to run that stuff.
I swear it makes my Bike knock.

So, I pop for "The Good Stuff" , ... with the rationale a combination of Nike and L'Oreal.

Just do it.
Because I'm worth it.

 

Mine doesn't like the 87. maybe it's just in my head , or the high
altitude, or the 10% year round ethenol. I dont know, but I run
91.
And to make things worse-I could swear (and often do :wink: :lol: ), that I
get better milage by at leased 5-10 miles per tank full from
the higher priced fuel at texaco (chevron). And it seems to
run just a tad smoother.
Now that that price is going down I can return to "the good stuff".
Now for those of you who will say "fuel is fuel", Thats only true
of the gasoline componants. The better fuels have high quality
detergents and other additives designed to eliminate the need to spend
money on nicely bottled crap.

 

you'll find just about every owner manual for every vehicle pretty much recommends 91 octance.

 

My bike runs best on 87. Unless you have pre-detonation your just spending more money. The bigger thing in my opinion is the quality of the gas supplier. Texaco/cheveron and shell (dont know about other major companies) run additives, but the worst time i had was when i got water in my gas from a mom and pop store with leaky tanks.

 

Let's just avoid BP.

 

lol! what happens when you mix BP and Gulf, then? :lol:

 

That's a crude joke - -

 

I know, too bad my sense of humor couldn't be more refined :wink:

 

Mine doesn't seem to care too much about the octane level, but it does run better on non-ethanol gas, which is getting harder to come by around here.

 

May contain 10% seawater.

 

+1.

Higher octane ratings are prescribed for sports cars that have much higher compression, or for cars with turbochargers. Octane just slows the combustion down a little so the gas doesn't prematurely ignite. If you run low-octane gas in a sports car, you'll get predetonation/spark knock and it'll kill your engine. If you don't have high compression, and you're not getting knock, then you're just wasting your money paying for more octane to slow down the detonation when you don't need to. you're just wasting your money and should just stick to the low-grade. It's not any dirtier, and the higher-grade isn't any good for giving your bike a special "treat" every now and then, like I used to think. it's just more expensive for you. within a few hundred feet of sea level, 87 octane is the minimum. here in the rocky mountains where i am (1 mile above sea level) the minimum octane is 85. the compression in these engines isn't high enough to warrant using mid-grade or high-grade gas.

 

looks like ethanol is making a comeback. although WHY is beyond me. 10 years ago we had one county running it in the winter as an experiment. they thought the air would be cleaner. but all it did was destroy the fuel system by eating away anything that was rubber. and worsened performance for anyone that used it.

lots of people were doing some traveling to the next county to have the non stuff. LOL.

i was a mechanic back then. just for curiosity i filled my tank and did an emissions test. needless to say the readings were much higher. almost to the point of fail. and the car really ran crappy.

ethanol would also explain the expensive gasoline we buy. considering that the price of crude oil dropped 30 percent in the past month.

 

Think Green Lobby and Farm Lobby in cahoots.

 

There's a NEW TYPE OF GASOLINE here in California.

I accidentally put this stuff in my engine the other day. I'll see about the gas mileage, but so far it seems to start and run just fine. I just did a tune up, and it was running a little lopey with regular gas. Today it ran smooth as silk and started up pretty good too.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not ready to attribute these good effects to this new gas formulation, but I'm willing to do some experiments!

 

Oh, and you guys should really stop. Catastrophes and jokes mix together like oil and water.