Octane #

[alan]

I have always used the top octane at the pump in my motorcycles and my forza give me piece of mind not muck difference in price for only 2 gallons

[you you]

I have always used the top octane at the pump in my motorcycles and my forza give me piece of mind not muck difference in price for only 2 gallons

I bark at the moon for the same reason


Silly not to really

[Forza 300]

Ethanol is better for the environment, did you see the mess in Alberta oil sands, did you see the Exxon Valdez oil spill disasters and there are a lot more ,corn is a renewable source and why would we give our jobs to other country's ,and E 85 gets aprox 30% worst fuel economy E10 if used you should expect aprox 3% less fuel economy not 10% worse! just I case some don't understands ,there is less btu in ethanol but more octane so pinging is likely so pistons aren't damaged as for the fuel is corrosive the car and motorcycles manufactures have designed the fuel system to work with ethanol,

[gn2]

Ethanol is better for the environment

Big fucking deal.
One day the sun will turn into a red giant and the earth will cease to exist.

[you you]

Ethanol is better for the environment

Big fucking deal.
One day the sun will turn into a red giant and the earth will cease to exist.

You've clearly thought this through

Isn't that a reason to not give a toss about anything?

[supermattyp]

I found this thread while trying to find out if anyone has run E85 in their Forza....still hasn't been answered. For the record (not that anyone asked me) I run the cheap stuff...right now that's $2.77/gal for 89. I've never thought to put anything else in because the engine isn't pinging.

as for ethanol.... it's a scam. anyone who says "ethanol is good for the environment" has no idea just how many gallons of water are wasted to water fields for corn that gets used for ethanol. The energy used to create ethanol from corn is also greater than it's yield making it a net loss deal. To make it worse we have one of the highest rates of hunger of all advanced civilizations....not that corn is really all that good for your digestive health but it's calories that people could really benefit from (in moderation).

Cellulosic ethanol is another beast entirely. I'm supporting this as a stop gap until battery storage evolves to the point where nobody cares about range because it's a non-issue. Bio-diesel and Cellulosic Ethanol can power this countries liquid fuel demands by themselves for the foreseeable future.

Now...I'm off my soapbox. Has anyone tried running any higher concentrations of ethanol in their Forza? I'm not eager to be the first to try it.

p.s. just checked my "gasbuddy" app on my phone. Gas is $2.69 now. My typical $7 fill-up is now a $6 fill-up!

[kcpcx]

Biofuels are a great idea in some cases.

Corn, however, is a relatively poor choice from which to produce ethanol to use for vehicle fuel.

You use an incredible amount of petroleum to generate a gallon of ethanol. Farm machinery isn't solar powered, last I checked. Add to this huge amounts of water used in irrigation areas.

Then, you have cars running on a less efficient fuel blend, so they consume more fuel per mile.

Food prices go higher since so much grain goes into fuel, not food.

Small engines are damaged from crappy fuel.



Personally, aside from political gain and flag waving from people in agricultural states, I see no real benefit to the whole ethanol thing. Seems like a boondoggle to me. If the goal was really importing less oil or burning less oil, you'd have far higher fuel taxes and mandates for more efficient vehicles, not a bunch of corn going into ethanol for gas.

[Bigboss242]

When I got mine they said put 91 in it.

[gn2]

Look in the manual and use what that says.

[speedandstyle]

There are three different octane rating systems for cars/motorcycles. Almost all the world uses the RON system. Another system is called MON but is not used exclusively in itself. The USA along with Canada and Mexico use AKI which combines RON and MON together and then divides by 2. This is actually the better way of doing it. Aviation uses a system similar to AKI but not exactly the same which makes things even more confusing{AVgas numbers seem more impressive then they actually are BTW}.

As a general rule AKI is 4-6 points lower for the same fuel grade than RON. The PDF manual I have for the Forza, shows 91 RON as the recommended octane. This would be REGULAR! So for the USA the Forza is recommended by Honda to run on 86-87 octane fuel{depending on location - states with high elevation use a lower octane due to altitude}.

Using a higher octane fuel will not give you any advantage, in fact just the opposite. A slight loss of performance will happen{slower burning fuel} which also results in lower mpg. I highly doubt the valves will burn up with only a 4 point octane increase but it isn't going to hep them any. Higher octane used to cause excess carbon build up but modern detergents prevent this problem today. Use premium if you like but you are just wasting money.

Ethanol can cause some issues especially if the fuel sits for a long time. The thing I hate most about it is that it leaves a film on the carb/fuel injectors. It takes a long time for it to become a problem but it does. I run ethanol free every third tank full to help elevate this problem. If you can get ethanol free fuel it is worth a little more.