I just filled up for the second time. First take was from dealer not sure what grade it was. I would guess 87. Since then I have put in 92 non ethanol.
I am riding the naked model CTX700N.
Last tank was 167.7 miles and 2.25 Gallons for 74.53 MPG.
I hope not to start too much of a debate here but does anyone believe there is any advantage to running a higher level of anti knock octane grade than is recommended from the manufacturer? Lots of people run higher grades, so I'm just wandering if there is anything to it, or is it just a waste of money?
Everything I've read from the experts state that one should run no higher than the recommendation. For example, if the OEM calls for 87, then I should use 87 or higher but that there is no need to go higher as long as at least 87 is available. I don't mean to come across as an expert, I'm actually asking this humbly, because I'm not an engineering-minded person and would really like to know what others think on this matter that understand technology better than I do.
As for non ethanol, pure gas, I'm a believer. I've done some anecdotal testing, running a few tanks of pure gas and noting the mpg, switching to a few tanks of E10, then documenting the mpg; and then back to pure gas and documenting again; In my little, not-very-scientific test, the mpg increase of pure gas in a couple of different vehicles has been almost 3%. Where I live, however, even though one can find pure gas at one or two places in every town, he or she will pay a little more than the cheapest prices available, and thus it's not really a savings economically, but it is a way to increase mpg if one is in to that sort of thing like I am.
I've noticed that in some areas of the country though, that pure gas is not even available and it can be hard to find everywhere. The scarcity of pure gas can be blamed on a 2007 law passed by Congress called the Energy Independence and Security Act. This law requires that fuel distributors blend a minimum amount of ethanol or other renewable fuels into gasoline and this minimum amount goes up every year by law. I think that this part of the law is called the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS); and it is kept track of by a system called RINs.
Not to get too political, but basically what has happened is that, in the creation of the law, it was expected that the use of E85 would drastically increase by now, because GM, Ford, Toyota, and Chrysler had produced millions of flex-fuel vehicles that can accept E85. Also, at the time the law was passed, it was expected that cellulostic ethanol would soon be available. In both cases, however, not much has happened. No real break throughs in cellulostic ethanol and not much interest in E85 by consumers mostly because most people can do simple math in calculating the price versus range loss of E85. So now the distributors have to meet the renewable fuel standards while working mostly with only E10, thereby making almost all of our gas E10.
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