We still have non ethanol gas available at almost every gas station. I avoid ethanol when I can.

 

Not really in my nature at startin arguments at all. I like you am fed all kinds of bs from every angle possible. Happens in every aspect of life. And HD is no different. They know that alcohol in fuels will eventually lead to deterioration.
There are motor companies out there that are deeply against Ethenol for all the right reasons. Think Harley knows more than them? That was a question not a challenge.
Asmfar as the coolmaid that we're bein served, there's plenty of literature disproving claims that Ethenol is safe. And those additives that we use are just like adding fuel on the fire.
I'm only tryin to help. If anything, at least my self

 

The worry about combustion chamber deposits from E10 is unfounded. You WILL get combustion chamber deposits from your factory head breathing ports to the air filter, but I find the benefits of burning the combustion byproducts much greater than the minor combustion chamber deposits you get from ingesting a bit of oil along with the oil mist. I do not like the "road draft" circa pre-1968 systems guys often install on their Harley by running hoses from the head ports to the ground, with or with out a filter. By not applying a vacuum to your crankcase you are not properly expelling combustion byproducts and your engine will look like a pre-1968 engine with similar sludge.

I am also personally a big fan of StaBil, I've been using it for 35 years. Great product to keep gas fresh, works perfectly in my hurricane gas that will sit for a year before I use it in my car and replenish the cans.

There are two very bad things about E10 - it does not have the shelf life of real gasoline so StaBil is very important for gas that won't be used up in a couple of months. On older vehicles built before E10 became a mandate the alcohol can and does eat the rubber hoses and gaskets. I never had any trouble with my 71 and 72 muscle cars but I ran them once every other week at least and always kept StaBil in the tanks with every fill up. In the old days gas would keep for a year, but no more.

 

I run good gas in my bike and around here, I buy my gas from Chevron, it seems to work the best in my bike. There are a few stations around here that have cheaper gas but it runs like crap in my bike so I don't use it. I think it has 10% ethanol in it.

 

One good thing about deposit build up on the piston is it will eventually raise your compression- free added performance

Anyway- can't do much except run E10 in Cali, so just ride and keep my fuel tuning adjusted accordingly. I use Stabil on my storage gas.

 

Beautiful bike you have there. I only use Sunoco or Shell super in my FXDC. No complaints and no problems. Considering the tank is just over five gallons the few extra dollars per year do not make a difference.

 

Must be nice to ride a true fuel.
Here in MASS or any other near by state there are no options other than race fuels at near or above ten bucks a pop.
Unfourtunetly my ECM is pre set and makes NO adjustments for octane variations (some might) typically common with E10 or the like.
I'd like to find an alcohol free fuel addative to help maintain a proper and consistent octane rating, but have yet to find one locally, other then purchsse one on line.
Yeah. They exist.

 

Not entirely true- the HD ECM calculates in Lambda values, not AFR ratios-

If you use a tool like Powervision's WinPV to edit your tune file, you can view the Lambda table in either Lambda values, gas AFR, or E10 AFR. the AFR conversion is solely there for the user of the tuning software, you are always tuning in Lambda values. The ECM / Delphi system only knows about Lambda and that is same regardless of fuel type.

For example, lets say an area of your lambda table is 0.89. you run fossil fuel, the ECM reads the NB O2 sensor and does its best to hit 0.89. you then fill up with E10. the ECM again attempts to hit 0.89, even though the stoich of E10 is different. you'll be using more gas with E10 since it has less octane per volume than pure fossil gas. so you'd see the injectors pulse faster with E10 vs pure fossil fuel when hitting that same 0.89 Lambda value. If the ECM wants 0.89, it is going to get that from either type of fuel.

To try and keep this short without more of a dissertation on it, your bike is adjusting for the same AFR ratio *lambda equivalent* whether you have fossil gas or E10, the Delphi system is designed to work that way and it is good thing.

Now keep in mind our bikes stock only have narrow band sensors, so their calculation of any AFR (lambda) outside of a very narrow range is a "best guess". So hitting things like WOT and calling for richer AFR lambda equivalents is going to be a best guess scenario. Narrow band O2 was solely designed for pollution control and maintaining economy. that's it. so their use in any type of performance metric is seriously limited.

The ideal situation is to have wide band O2 sensors that monitor and adjust lambda in real time and keep the entire AFR ratio in closed loop operation. And thank goodness, Powervision just delivered that with the Target Tune add on.

All that's not going to make up for a tank of crap gas though- crap gas is crap gas

[edit] If I misunderstood and you were talking solely about octane ratings and variances, then apologies- octane rating is generally going to be consistent regardless of fuel type- unless it is just bad gas.

 

Thanks Dog. I value your opinions to heart. And yes, you understood what I said correctly.
Not all ECM's are created equal. Some doo a real **** poor job at maintaing a proper air/fuel ratio let alone adjust for octane levels with bad gas.
Glad to have you aboard.

 

Thanks Splatttttt - Yes I definitely agree with that- hence the reason HD has different strategy maps for each successive ECM iteration and it's slowly gotten better over the years. Remember when HD EFI first came out with the magneti-marelli TBs? Yeck. . Current ones like 2012-up are pretty good. I do wish we had MAF-based systems though and could make use of the (many missing) Delphi tuning parameters stripped from the HD version.