I like parody too, but hang a smiley or some other disclaimer on sarcastic humor (e.g. cross drilled brake lines & muffler bearings). Some people are bright enough to learn, but naive enough to take the joke as serious advice.

Let me start the thread with some serious topics, correct me if I'm wrong, and add what you want. Maybe if we behave ourselves, it can become a sticky and we can avoid future 8 page hose threads.

1) Yes, Harley's should use 93 Octane. That's what they are designed and tuned to use. You can use regular (at your own risk - not my fault if you do). Too low of an octane combined with throttle position brings a risk of pinging (detonation). Pinging can damage an engine. If I was out of gas & the station only has regular, I'd use it but I'd also be gentle on the throttle.

2) 3 hoses vs. 1 hose. Only about a quart in the hose, so for a 5 gallon fill-up, you aren't going to have any problems. Fuel has to meet a minimum of 93 octane, and the oil companies make it just a little better than that to avoid penalties when the pumps are tested. If you top off with a gallon or so on multiple occaisions, you might start to see a difference.

3) Additives like Seafoam, Stabil, Gumout, etc. are good products for avoiding gum and deposits in injectors or carb jets. The DO NOT increase octane.

4) "Dry Gas" is now a waste of time, since we already have 10% alcohol in our gas. If you have water in the bottom of your tank now, it's time to get a siphon hose and drain the tank. The petcock will only get a solution of alcohol and water, because the gasoline is all floating on top.

My $.02 - now flame away.

 

No flames here. Sounds like some solid info.

 

1) Yes, Harley's should use 93 Octane.


True for Twin Cams, old bikes not so much.

 

I noticed also that using gas that *doesn't* have that corn crap in it, makes my engine run better *and* it starts right up even after it's set for less than a minute after just shutting it off (with the 'other' gas, if I try to start the bike after just shutting it off, I have to try 2 or 3 times to get it to fire up). YMMV maybe, but I don't see how.

 

It's hard to get gas without the corn alcohol or other adulterants that make it go stale about a month after you buy it. I usually keep some Sta Bil in the gas tank just to counteract the bad, watery gas they sell now. I don't know anywhere that sells just pure gas anymore. Most of the pumps have that "contains up to 10% corn crap" or whatever it says.

 

+1 on that! This whole "reformulated gas to clean the air" is a load of BS too. Any closed loop EFI fixes the "oxygenated" effect by using more diluted fuel to produce the same CO2. It costs more to make, gets lower fuel mileage, get less energy buning alcohol than it took to produce the alcohol, and kills old boats with fiberglass fuel tanks. The only good thing is that ethanol replaced MTBE. MTBE = Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether = clean the air & poison the water.

 

I believe you will find that HD's highest octane requirement, see Owners Manual, is 91 not 93. In some parts of the country, 91 is the highest octane available.

 

Well what do expect with politicians in charge,common sense?

 

I'm not sure where you get your info but preminum gas in California only goes up to 91 octane, same for Nevada and Oregon. Some may have 92 but very, very few. My owners guide say use 91 octane.

Octane in these three states start outat 87 for Regular, 89 for midgrade and 91 for premium.

I have had to put midgrade in before beause I was out in the middle of nowhere and the station had no premium. To be honest I did NOT notice any difference in performance.

BUT what does seem to make a huge difference is the amount of Ethanol.

Up until last year, Oregon did NOT have ethanol in thier gas. I would get much better mileage with Oregon gas than I would with California gas. Then Oregon decided to jump on the band wagon and mandate 10% ethanol is all gas.

At first, my BMW car ran like crap and mileage droped about 30%. After about 4 tanks, the computer adjusted and it runs okay now but mileage is still about 15 to 17 percent less than the old gas.

Funny part about the government forcing ethanol is it takes more real gas to make the ethalol. Seems like a lose/lose situation to me. Not good to saving oil and not good for the environment and it causes food prices to go up. Everybody loses using ethanol.

 

Well said, Rawhide!