For those of you old enough to remember the good old days of 5 star petrol and how well it burned, I'm sure I don't have to explain the phenomenon of Redex and of religiously adding a few drops every month or so to your tank to assist combustion. I've, sort of, continued the ceremony, over the last few years mainly due to the American lager like piss that we now suffer at the pumps, and religiously only feed the highest octane fuel to my beloved internal combustion engines and top them off with Pro FST. Anybody whose ever owned a carbureted Ducati will explain why. I have a question, though, for any of the tuners that we have on the forum. With the ECU'd, trick plugged, ultra efficient cam and piston crown profiled engines we now take for granted, am I doing any good by keeping the practice up. Do my car and bike 'feel' as if they're running smoother and better because the ignition is cleaner or is there some placebo effect at work here when I use a fuel additive?
Your not really having a major effect, apart from busting your valve stem seals quicker on modern bikes!!!!!!
You are probably doing more harm than good mate. Your bike doesn't need higher octane fuel. Just use the fuel that is specified in the handbook and don't use any additives. I have heard that continental 95 octane is not as good as ours , but never had a problem with it myself.
Cheers guys. So no fuel additive then. So what about super unleaded. I use BP ultimate most usually as that's the station in my village. I think it's a 97 octane rating. Is this potentially damaging also?
Have heard that some of the new fuels with additives can burn better, but as for the octane rating. When I used to drag race, you could run a higher compression ratio with a higher octane rating. we ran about 14 or 15 to one on AVGAS, which is either 100 or 105 octane. You can't increase your CR , so 97 wouldn't benefit you over 95, apart from the additives. Like I said , if Honda specify 95, stick with it!!!
