I'll be touring in places in Canada where premium gas may not be available. The Owner's manual specifies 91 octane fuel. What do you do when premium gas isn't available? Add an octane booster? How did (or does) your bike run on regular unleaded?

Thanks.

 

I only put in enough to get me to the next station. If I have to run it I will. At elevation the octane requirement drops if you're going to be higher up.

 

The manual also states to use what is available until you can get 91.

 

There are a few guys that claim they run regular in their M8's. Not sure I would want my timing retarded that much.

But I have run all 3 grades to see the difference. I would run mid-grade until I could get some 91/93 octane, and I have done exactly that when I came across pumps in BFE without any 91/93.

 

You will get some noise usually, pinging, but I rarely notice and performance change you may also notice. Get premium as soon as it is available but like you said not always an option. If you have room to carry additive but if you don't have room I would not worry about it.

 

It's all based off of compression, so just don't give it more than 50% throttle and it should be fine.

 

Buy the best I can get and be easy on it till I can top off with 93.

 

Buy the best I can and don't pin the throttle. Just a heads up, I did Great Lakes loop several years ago. A Canadian friend on another motorcycle forum told me not to buy gas from anything other than reputable franchises if possible as they are known for not changing the filters in their systems as they are required to. I carried a spare fuel filter, only gassed up under name brands franchises and never had a problem. Just something to be aware of. Forum members to the north may have other input if things have changed. But as for Premium fuel, I don't recall not being able to find it.

I see you hail from WI, not knowing what your plans are, I'd highly recommend you loop at least through St Ignace and maybe circle back down through MI making a loop of that. Between Sioux St Marie and Toberymory Bay its kind of down hill from the north shore of Superior which was the best. Lots of windmills south of Tobermory There is/was a stretch between Wawa and Thunder Bay without gas for 100++ miles I believe. I happened upon 2 HD riders on my trip. One on an Ultra and the other on a Dyna. The guy on the Dyna was packing extra fuel cells on his back seat, said he needed them.

I stayed only at mom and pop places but nearly got hung out to dry in Espanola as there was some kind of a convention in town and all the main street hotels were booked. But, it always worked out with a kind word and asking the right questions to get a room somewhere.

 

The best you can do is get what you can. Here in So CA we get high heat and lots of traffic in the summer months and the best we can buy is 91 and plenty of times that's not around, so you have no choice but to run 89 or 87. As long as you ride the bike normal and no hotrodding around you will be fine. Adding the amount of Octane boost to a tank works but no more than whats recommended, adding extra typically reduces it effect.

 

Just carry an octane booster. If you find that you need to use it, stop and pick up another bottle before you fill up again. A lot of fuel additives will act as an octane booster although that isn't their intended purpose, so even though a gas station may not have premium fuel, they will likely sell an additive that can get you by without too much pinging and timing retard.