Run premium fuel?

[AzRocketman]

$20,000 dollars for a 2.5L Triumph Rocket, Premium fuel or not, its a nice choice to have.
I prefer to protect my investment.
And yes octane rating effects performance. If you have ever run Av-gas or added 100+ octane booster.
You will know the difference.
Plus the benefits of keeping the fuel system clean. Chevron with Techron is what I burn.

 

[gadget_ho]

Nope:

Actually, 95 RON (in Aus) is premium grade. We have 91RON (Std) 95RON (Premium) and 98RON (Sometime called Ultra-Premium). There is also E10 (94 RON) which is 10% ethanol and 90% 91RON standard unleaded, and lately we've had a few suppliers selling E85 or "flex fuel" (rated at 107RON) that is 85% ethanol and 15% 91RON unleaded. So when we read the manual we would read that as premium, not standard fuel. Few vehicles demand 98RON, but there are some. FYI, I put 98 in my bikes and in my turbo car as well (which only needs 95) mainly because of the extra cleaning performance. While I wouldn't advocate Mrs Jones from next door waste her money on 98RON (it's > 15-25c a litre more here) in her '97 Camry, if you have a performance engine with either higher compression or forced induction then the better fuel can't hurt...

Don't get me started on the concept of a RON number greater than 100 when it's based on a percentage of the control compound, but apparently 2,2,4-trimethylpentane (iso-octane) is not the best baseline measure...

 

[Kojack1970]

check your manual i think the new rockets require premium

I haven't seen the manual but based on the increase in compression from 8.7.1 for the 2300 cc motor to 10.8.1 for the 2500cc, I would be comfortable saying it requires premium. That's a bummer. I love being able to run 87 regular in my 2016 roadster.

 

[vindex1963]

I haven't seen the manual but based on the increase in compression from 8.7.1 for the 2300 cc motor to 10.8.1 for the 2500cc, I would be comfortable saying it requires premium. That's a bummer. I love being able to run 87 regular in my 2016 roadster.

My 2015 Suzuki Vstrom 650 was 11.2:1 compression and the manual called for 87 octane so that's what I used and it ran perfectly. I also run 87 in my tuned Rocket because it just doesn't need any more octane. I know when I run high octane in my Victory I get a lot of soot because there's nothing premium about it, it's slow burn gas and an engine designed for 87 won't get a complete burn so the side effect is carbon.

 

[Kojack1970]

My 2015 Suzuki Vstrom 650 was 11.2:1 compression and the manual called for 87 octane so that's what I used and it ran perfectly. I also run 87 in my tuned Rocket because it just doesn't need any more octane. I know when I run high octane in my Victory I get a lot of soot because there's nothing premium about it, it's slow burn gas and an engine designed for 87 won't get a complete burn so the side effect is carbon.

Interesting. Usually when you get up in the the 10+ compression ratios you need the higher octane to avoid preignition and run on.

 

[vindex1963]

Interesting. Usually when you get up in the the 10+ compression ratios you need the higher octane to avoid preignition and run on.

Agreed, even under heavy load there was no detonation.

 

[Lucien]

My Owner's Manual doesn't have the second paragraph but the specification pages say minimum octane of 95 RON which is 91 minimum in US. I also only use Shell premium (if possible) as it has the most cleaning detergents of all top tire fuels. Plus if you join the fuel rewards program, you save 5-10 cents per gallon.

My dealer mentioned it is not so much the higher octane level of premium, but the guarantee with premium is that there is no bio-(m)ethanol added that is getting more and more the practice to get 'cleaner' fuels. These bio-fuels can leave residues, so it might not be noticeable or it might after some time...

 

[EskimoPie]

The two paragraphs in the manual are contradictory. 95 RON grade is 91 AKI or (R+M)/2. I use top tier 91-93 and have no problems. Am I wasting money? You tell me I spent $29K for a toy.

Thanks for pointing that out. I don't have much familiarity with the RON grading.

 

[EskimoPie]

So I see two reports of people running "regular" regularly on their older rockets. Anybody run it on a new one?

 

[SMLWNKR]

I've always used premium (91 R+M/2 in Arizona) and been happy with the performance over the past 7k miles. Just idly flipping through the manual though and I noticed it only calls for 87 knock index fuel. When I purchased, my service manager was adamant to use premium fuel. Does anybody run regular grade fuel? Any issues with it?

87 octane….no issues and still fast as hell.