Mileage. A poll.

Sorry, it's 13 litres my friend

 

Ah, I think I see why you were having problems. I didn't think to include miles with liters in my system. I guess I presumed if you used liters, your bike read in kilometers.

Anyways, 139 miles divided by 3.4 gallons is 41 mpg, but I doubt very much that you are letting your tank go all the way to empty before you fill it up again, so you are more than likely filling up around 2.6-3 gallons, which puts you at 46-53 mpg.

For you, read my original post, and you can take the miles driven, divide it by the liters you fill up with, and multiply that result by 3.8 and you will have your approximate mileage in miles per approximate gallon.

US gallons, anyway. If you would like to know how many leagues per pottle you get, let me know....silly Brits.

 

I average 43-44 mpg on my '82 550 Maxim. I haven't done anything to the bike since I bought it a month or so ago except a new front tire. Rear tire is in the mail. Fitz, your proof I can get more outta her. I will have to do a valve clearance check and sync the carbs.

 

I got right around 150 across the board on my "project" 650, which was why I went ahead and bought it. 120 is a tad low, for a 650/750.

That being said, gauges vary. You're mainly looking for less than 10% variation between the cylinders.

 

I was barely getting 40 mpg previously on the 650 but now that I've replaced all rings, a problematic piston, and lapped the valves I hope to increase the fuel efficiency. we'll see by the end of this riding season. I won't check the compression, til after I put the carbs back on for a little while just to let the rings seat. then I expect the compression to increase hopefully near 140 across the board. a whole new upper engine rebuild is not cheap..

 

Hi everyone. Here's my mileage stats over the last 1042 miles.
Mileage.... Gallons.... MPG
141.5 ..... 2.63 ..... 53.80228137
145.8..... 2.749..... 53.03746817
172.6..... 3.132..... 55.10855683
149.4..... 2.715..... 55.02762431
147.1..... 2.777..... 52.97083183
147.5..... 2.821..... 52.28642325
138.7..... 2.559..... 54.20085971

1042.6..... 19.383... .. 53.78940309 MPG AVERAGE

Well, there's my mileage chart (when you're using Excel spreadsheet, why not go to 8 or 9 places past the decimal? LOL) and here is some background information. My bike is a 1982 Maxim XJ650J (YICS). As you can see, I usually fill up after 140 miles and put in about 2.7 gallons. Stock, starts good, runs strong. I usually put in 89 octane, haven't experimented with 87 or 93. I ride a lot of 2-lane roads at 55MPH, and about half my miles are riding 2-up. I like to twist the throttle for accelleration and frequently run to 6K or 7K to shift, but I don't ride long distances at high speeds. I wonder how much of a factor the Vetter is on my gas mileage?
I guess I'm getting pretty good MPG; hopefully that is an indicator that things are pretty good with my engine. It has about 16,500 miles and I don't know my compression or valve clearances, yet. I just received the valve shim tool but I think I'm going to order a new valve cover gasket and rubber donuts before I crack it open. (Sidenote: props to Bigfitz for his great valve tutorial which I will be using along with my Haynes book.)

Ride safe!

 

Your not happy with stating "53 Miles per gallon"?

You REALLY need everyone to know you averaged: "53 Miles and 6-1/2 Feet per Gallon"???

Like there ain't enough Bool-crap for us to deal with already, ... we need to find-out whose Bike goes a Silly Millimeter Further on a tank of gas!!!

Ridiculous.
Man, you godda be fargunn kiddin' me!

 

Rick,
I'm thrilled with my 53 mpg. I just quick-entered my miles and gallons on a spread sheet and didn't tell it to round, and was amused by the long decimals I'll assume you are just having fun with this as well!

 

I did that once ...I got about 50 mpg if I recall correctly. I think type of riding has a lot to do with it. I know my car generally gets 22 mpg around town and 33 on the highway on a road trip....but 17 on my commute. My bike gets 39 on that same commute...and the rest of the time I'm doing 80 to 90 on the freeway (gotta make sure I don't get run over!) or stopping and going at red lights.

We tend to forget that motorcycles are NOT aerodynamic. High speeds eat up a lot of power. I can get about 500 rpms from the same throttle position just by leaning down so I'm no longer a sail! In 5th gear I think that's around 5-10 mph. That's a lot of power lost due solely to wind resistance! I also notice it's hard to get it up to that speed without leaning down also.

I don't know how a Vetter would affect the aerodynamics. On the one hand, you have a HUGE front surface, on the other you have a SMOOTH front surface and a longer profile.

rick you crack me up! pbjman...your attention to detail is admirable, but look up Significant Digits.....and rick...it's 53 miles and 4118 feet per 1.000 gallons of gasoline.

 

I was going to do that, but I don't want to get on Rick's bad side!

 

I went for a run on mine a couple of weeks ago (for the first time since getting the bike), and went 111 miles and used 7.5 litres, which equates to 1.9 Gallons (English, not American), it did the same on the return journey too, which comes out to 56 to the gallon and that was 2 up too, in both directions. I'm happy with that.

Pete

 

Simply, I have 2.5 gallon tank. at 100 miles no more than 103 I am on the reserve. This seems to hold true for me no matter if I am running highway speeds 55-70 MPH or just going 25-45 MPH. The one time I did run her completely dry and I was coasting in to a gas station I was at 125 miles...

 

I believe a stock 82 650 Maxim should have a 3.4 gallon tank (including reserve). You would go about 40-50 miles further before hitting reserve. I thought you might find this info useful since I saw your other thread about wanting a 750 tank for the larger size.

 

You can only get about 2.5 gallons out of a 650 tank before you hit reserve, which is usually around 100 miles. I speak from lots of experience. A 750 tank does help a lot, especially if you commute or ride long distances with others. I love my 750 tank on my 650!

 

according to the Haynes guide the tank for an 82 JX650- G, H LN & J 13.0 litre 3.4/2.9 us/imp gal But I know my tank holds 2.5 gallons of gas. So yeah I am on the lookout for a 750 tank!

 

Well, I might be "cheating" on the reserve issue. Since I run mine on prime I don't fill up until I hit 140 miles. The most I've put in at once was 3.1 gallons, and that was without running it out/dry.
And yeah, I'll rebuild the petcock someday....

 

I drive a 82 maxum 550 50-60 miles a day 40 back wood highways the other in town rain or shine. Excellerate to 90mph befor shifting out of third and still get 56mpg consistantly. Heres a strange thaught that excellerating slowly hurts gas milage by making a engine work at higher rpms for longer times. so speed up faster :lol:

 

I've actually wondered that myself....that under acceleration the fuel consumption per second between half and full throttle is not as much as the time difference between the two. So that if you get to cruising speed quickly you spend more time and miles at the lower consumption rate.

However, this is a question for experiment, not speculation.

Anyone have one of those special fuel mileage calculators that you can attach to your car??? Or SQLGuy can put one on his bike!!

 

Well for me it works on my caddy. speed up to over drive speeds saves me 5 mpg on the same 50-60 mile trip to work. So it couldent hurt to try. :lol:

 

Long ago I read that you get to your cruise speed moderately quickly - not full bore, not slow. but (in a car) the max fuel economy is at 40-45 MPH.

A bike is less efficient and needs 50 to get the best economy.
Fuel injection helps. My FJR gets 70 MPG at 45.