Recently on a trip to Alice Springs on a motorbike that takes 89-91 octane, I started topping up with Opal fuel once I hit NT. By the time I got to Alice i probably only had Opal in the tank. I couldn't start the bike from cold each morning. Everyone else had been topping up with 95 (not Opal) and were not having problems. After several days I ran the tank dry and topped up with 95 and next day bike started as per normal. Used non-Opal for rest of trip without issues. If I was petrol sniffing, the extra few cents for a litre of non-Opal would not be an issue.
On another recent trip on a bike that takes 95-98 octane (straight or E10-95), I came across 101 octane. Just as E10-95 seems to be 91 with 10% methanol, E10-101 seems to be 98 with 10% methanol. Decided to try it. No problems running but the fuel economy was appalling. Got a second tank-full to see if I was just dreaming and the second tank was just as bad.
E10 blends are helpful to the environment in terms of reduced pollution. What no one tells you is that it increases your fuel consumption way beyond the savings of lower priced fuel.
Larry
Yes most bikes and small motors shouldn't be run on E fuels ..
I however would rather have our money stay here with our farmers than some Arab...
Sooner or latter we going to run out of fossil fuels ...
Petrol sniffers in general do not buy their fuel - they milk it from any vehicle handy be it car, mower, generator or outboard engine. 2 or 300ml will do and that's easily obtained with a length of garden hose.
We ran our Territory on Opal with no problems when in NT and generally we run the cheapest fuel which is generally E10. On the Territory we get the same economy with E10 as with normal unleaded - they Territory is possibly one of the few vehicles designed to run on Australian fuels and not exotic high tech European market fuels.
I have never used Opal in a car. But there were several of us on bikes in Alice who had trouble starting the bike first thing in the morning on Opal (carbie job, not EFI and it won't take ethanol fuel).
The bike I tried the E10-101 in I run E10-95 in summer but not in winter. Even though it's EFI, it starts OK but takes ages to warm up & run smoothly in winter. I believe an engine needs to be warm for ethanol blends to run properly. In early days, high ethanol fuel engines (E100 & E85) were actually started on petrol & once fired up switched to ethanol. The cars had a small petrol tank about the size of a windscreen washer bottle. Not sure if this is still the case. Fuel economy on the E10-95 is less than the straight 95 but cheaper overall with the E10. With a tank range to reserve of 280kms on E10 vs 310kms on normal 95 and next fuel stop 300km away, economy beats cost. Of course I could just slow down. The high speeds in NT are only available momentarily on a bike as running out of fuel is too easy.
I get same economy in my vehicles (Territory / Falcon) on both 91 & E10-95 but better economy on the normal 95 and even better on the 98. However the economy is definitely offset by the increased price of the non-ethanol. I generally fill up with the E10 in my Falcon.
Ford EFI vehicles (Aus & EU) will run on just about anything. In some of their manuals they actually quote power/torque figures depending on what fuel is used.
Had a 1998 Honda VFR800 for several years. Was always harder to start with the higher 98 octane fuel on a cold morning, was fine on either 91 or 95. The motor was 10.5 compression (from memory). would have thought the higher octane was better but not so, I guess it depends on how the motor is tuned by the manufacturer to run a particular octane.
regards,
John
