Liquid performance boost: Premium gas

Dalan

Supercharged
Joined
Aug 16, 2015
Messages
231
Location
Pacific Northwest USA
Ride
2015 R3R
Stopped at the Shell station just outside of town. The guy asked if I wanted premium and I said no.

He then told me they were now selling it ethanol free. I filled up with it. There was a noted difference in the seat of the pants acceleration, clearly stronger. At stop signs a smoother idle.

On the highway, the distance to empty showed about ten miles further than it showed in the past.

I have been thinking about running pure gasoline in my small engines, but, until now, there were no sources this close. I am thinking about feeding the rocket a regular diet of this stuff, as I was impressed. Even the idle sounded better.

I am wondering about a 12 minute tune for the new fuel. Thoughts on this and running premium?

I took the opportunity to finally go past four grand on the tach. With the premium in the tank, it flat gets the blood moving.
 
I usually run premium when I'm riding at any altitude above sea level where the bike was tuned. Seems to help. Of course I could just be fooling myself. I'm sure someone with more knowledge will be along shortly to set us both straight
 
Ethanol free 87 would be even better, but nobody sells that around here.
 
Two gas stations in the busy city of Henryetta Oklahoma sell regular gas no additives. Been running 87 octane with no problems at all. I think that is what the owners manual recommends.
 
I put a tank full of premium through mine every few few thousand Klm , it seems to like it
 
I work for above mentioned company. The boost you see is not from the "octane", but the fact that you have more gasoline and less/no alcohol. Gasoline contains much more energy than ethanol. I'm not a fan of alcohol in gasoline, as it literally reduces everyone's fuel economy, causing you to use more.

MarvinM
 
Premium is all she gets now, had some stalling and sputtering issues early on and it seemed to help.
 
Octane ratings are a measure of a fuel's resistance to detonation. If your engine is suffering from detonation, you've likely got another problem as the Rocket is a low compression engine. Both premium and regular fuel contain about 111,400 British Thermal Units of energy per gallon. The only thing that you improve by using premium fuel is the oil companies profit margin.

But, its your money.
 
So I have a rather (hopefully) simple question.
Does premium fuel do anything for an engine that regular doesn't, other than its resistance to detonation?

Is it cleaner? Does it help with keeping debris off your valves, intake, injectors, etc.
Better fuel economy, or does the computer not care which type of fuel and will burn the same amount anyway?

Anything else??????
 
I guess my thoughts were clear as mud.

I know pure, non alcohol blended gasoline has more energy than a blend. I am sure that is why the Rocket performs better on it. Not because the octane rating is higher on it.

I would only buy the premium because it does not have alcohol blend, and this is the only grade they sell without alcohol. I am certainly going to buy it for my small gas engines.

As I like the performance boost with the Rocket using this non-oxygenated fuel, I will continue filling up on it. As long as the higher octane just costs me a little bit more. But, if the higher octane fuel is a problem in the Rocket, then I would not use it. Certainly, my Rocket does not ping or predetonate on regular fuel.
 
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