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Cleaning fuel Injectors?


CoyoteChris

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BTW, I saw someone on this or another bike forum mention cleaning fuel injectors.

Has anyone seen a clogged injector on a bike that uses Premium Top Tier Fuels?

TopTier Premium has twice the level of cleaners as regular .

Back in the last century, I heard how the GM, Honda and BMW had warrenty problems with intake valves and injectors after the US went to a lower fuel standard for cleaners.

The top tier fuel cleaner standard was adopted by Honda and others and the problem went away. Now you have to work to find a fuel company (Maverick is one) that DOESNT meet the toptier standard.

Since the advent of fuel injection, my wife and I have put over  a million miles on our cars and bikes and have never had an issue with a fuel injector (that we know of). My wife puts 250,000 on her vehicles then dontates them.  

(I was suspicious of top tier being a marketing ploy till I read the Car and Driver Magazine article on Top Tier...then I was sold on it)

And of course the consumer reports article

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-maintenance/study-shows-top-tier-gasoline-worth-extra-price/

 

It is sad that the US feral govt refused to raise its standards...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Tier_Detergent_Gasoline

 

toptier final.jpg

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Hi CoyoteChris.

Welcome to the forum love your new 8gen and of course in the fastest colour! The 8gen has all the previous generation VFR electrical woes sorted along with all its additional bells and whistles, a great reliable bike. Just love mine.

 

You've touched a nerve with me on Fuels for the VFR. Speaking from an Australian fuel point of view. Fuel companies would love us all to run our cars and bikes on Premium Fuel, they make heaps more money from it and claim better cleaning properties and better mileage than our standard Unleaded 91 octane. It's mostly advertising bullshit.

 

There are bikes and cars with high compression that do of course require the higher octane Premium Fuel, BUT not from a so called better cleaning aspect.

Lets face it, if Standard Unleaded was so bad as some people AND fuel companies make out, there would be thousands of bikes and cars stranded, parked on the road side due to blocked injectors - this is Not the case.

 

Premium Fuels in a VFR will not give you extra mileage. A VFR does not have an anti knock sensor so it can't take advantage of the higher octane fuel anti knock qualities. There is no greater calorific value (energy content) between Standard and Premium Fuel.

 

In Australia our standard 91 octane fuel is what is specified in the Owners Manual for VFR's, so burning Premium Fuel is only burning a greater hole in your wallet!

 

Another issue with Premium Fuel is that the addictives in it to give it the higher octane also have an adverse effect on its volatility, it just doesn't mix with air as freely as standard fuels. Some particular cars and no doubt bikes, not requiring Premium Fuels can have  bad cold starting issues because of this lower volatility issue.

 

Generally purchasing Standard Fuel you can be assured of its freshness due to high volume turnover.

 

The four VFR's I've owned have all been fed a diet of Standard Fuel (other than test runs on Premium Fuel) and have never experienced any fuel issues. Cars I've owned have done over 300,00kms with not a single Injector issue! Short stop/start driving or riding might have more of an adverse effect on valve carbon build up or injector issues than the type of fuel you use.

 

I absolutely avoid Ethanol Fuels and consider Ethanol added Fuel as SHIT - But that's another story.

 

As Always YMMV.

Cheers.

 

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Grum: There are two different things in play here... "Premium" relates to octane, but "Top Tier Gasoline" relates to the levels of detergent additives... levels that are legally mandatory in many other countries. Generally speaking, all the fuel at a particular station is either top tier or it isn't, no matter the octane. I'm with you on the premium fuel though: burning money.

 

You really have to go out of your way to avoid ethanol in the US - our elected officials chose to disguise massive subsidies to the corn farmers as environmental legislation, despite it being anything but green in the long run. Most of our fuel is 10% ethanol. I don't find avoiding it to be worth the effort with fuel injected vehicles, though I will go out of my way to avoid it with carbs.

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Ethanol is effectively a cleaning agent. That said, years ago (1980’s) Shell in the UK introduced a “cleaning” fuel & as I had a new to me bike at the time I decided to use it. Seemed great & after a while the bike definitely seemed to be performing better.

Then I had a problem & when I stripped the top end, the reason became apparent. Where you normally get a little carbon build up on piston crowns from burnt oil, these pistons had a thick coating of a kind of calcite, a hard whitish deposit that had built up in the the combustion chamber. Strangely mostly on the piston, not the chamber, but also on the exhaust valve, so it appeared to adhere to the hot parts. It was really thick & had to be scraped off.

 

Once rebuilt with new rings, I stopped using that fuel. I stripped that engine a couple of years later & it had normal minimal carbon build up. This was a carb’d bike  so not fuel injector related.

 

As far as injectors go,  they generally don’t need cleaned unless they have been left idle for long periods, and have gummed up. I recently bought a set of 4 used injectors for another model & 3 worked fine after an external clean & an ultrasonic bath. The 4th one took 4 baths & repeated cleaning fluid through it between baths before it came back to normal.Old fuel or lack of use are your worst enemy.

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Local dyno tuner won’t tune older FI bikes without injector cleaning and has been going up a size on pilot jets for carb’s. Ethanol is nasty stuff, and leaves a hard varnish behind, which over time narrows passages. I guess like valve adjustments, some folks don’t think it’s needed. I’ve seen spray pattern tests that say otherwise. Made a huge difference when I sent my BMW V8’s injectors out to Marren Fuel Injection too... all 8 were squirting before, but flow rates were pretty variable before cleaning.

 

That said we are in New England and most bikes are laid up for a few months each year around here. To each their own I guess...

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

 

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15 hours ago, Grum said:

Hi CoyoteChris.

Welcome to the forum love your new 8gen and of course in the fastest colour! The 8gen has all the previous generation VFR electrical woes sorted along with all its additional bells and whistles, a great reliable bike. Just love mine.

 

You've touched a nerve with me on Fuels for the VFR. Speaking from an Australian fuel point of view. Fuel companies would love us all to run our cars and bikes on Premium Fuel, they make heaps more money from it and claim better cleaning properties and better mileage than our standard Unleaded 91 octane. It's mostly advertising bullshit.

 

There are bikes and cars with high compression that do of course require the higher octane Premium Fuel, BUT not from a so called better cleaning aspect.

Lets face it, if Standard Unleaded was so bad as some people AND fuel companies make out, there would be thousands of bikes and cars stranded, parked on the road side due to blocked injectors - this is Not the case.

 

Premium Fuels in a VFR will not give you extra mileage. A VFR does not have an anti knock sensor so it can't take advantage of the higher octane fuel anti knock qualities. There is no greater calorific value (energy content) between Standard and Premium Fuel.

 

In Australia our standard 91 octane fuel is what is specified in the Owners Manual for VFR's, so burning Premium Fuel is only burning a greater hole in your wallet!

 

Another issue with Premium Fuel is that the addictives in it to give it the higher octane also have an adverse effect on its volatility, it just doesn't mix with air as freely as standard fuels. Some particular cars and no doubt bikes, not requiring Premium Fuels can have  bad cold starting issues because of this lower volatility issue.

 

Generally purchasing Standard Fuel you can be assured of its freshness due to high volume turnover.

 

The four VFR's I've owned have all been fed a diet of Standard Fuel (other than test runs on Premium Fuel) and have never experienced any fuel issues. Cars I've owned have done over 300,00kms with not a single Injector issue! Short stop/start driving or riding might have more of an adverse effect on valve carbon build up or injector issues than the type of fuel you use.

 

I absolutely avoid Ethanol Fuels and consider Ethanol added Fuel as SHIT - But that's another story.

 

As Always YMMV.

Cheers.

 

Your standard is 91???????  Whow......wonder if you have different meaning numbers......

In the US, you HAVE to burn premium in many places, to be assured of getting ethanol free fuel.......

You are mostly right about premium being no advantage to performance. But if an engine does not have a knock sensor, and starts to detonate (ping) there is nothing to save your engine...except premium...just sayin'.  As an aircraft mechanic, I have watched many engines destroyed by detonation on the race course...using 100-130 octane gas.  Despite water/methanol injection.  But a VFR engine is not a racing engine.  YOu are correct. It doesnt NEED premium. But we are forced to use premium to get ethanol free fuel....I wont go into what an environmental disaster THAT is or what harm it can do to your engine, you know that...but I hate ethanol and will burn premium if I have to. Is double the amount of cleaners a marketing ploy?  Maybe.  But if I have to pay 10 percent more to get ethanol free fuel, I am all in. 😉

 

a gas pump.jpg

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11 minutes ago, CoyoteChris said:

Your standard is 91???????  Whow......wonder if you have different meaning numbers......

In the US, you HAVE to burn premium in many places, to be assured of getting ethanol free fuel.......

You are mostly right about premium being no advantage to performance. But if an engine does not have a knock sensor, and starts to detonate (ping) there is nothing to save your engine...except premium...just sayin'.  As an aircraft mechanic, I have watched many engines destroyed by detonation on the race course...using 100-130 octane gas.  Despite water/methanol injection.  But a VFR engine is not a racing engine.  YOu are correct. It doesnt NEED premium. But we are forced to use premium to get ethanol free fuel....I wont go into what an environmental disaster THAT is or what harm it can do to your engine, you know that...but I hate ethanol and will burn premium if I have to. Is double the amount of cleaners a marketing ploy?  Maybe.  But if I have to pay 10 percent more to get ethanol free fuel, I am all in. 😉

 

a gas pump.jpg

Hmm... I've been able to find ethanol free "regular" in my area, it just costs a premium...

 

Anyhow, they do calculate their octane differently in much of the world. Their 91 is roughly equal to our 87.

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6 hours ago, Marvelicious said:

Hmm... I've been able to find ethanol free "regular" in my area, it just costs a premium...

 

Anyhow, they do calculate their octane differently in much of the world. Their 91 is roughly equal to our 87.

Thanks. I use an app called pur-gas.org. I can bring up a map of all the real gasoline stations and get driving directions.  Some areas you can get standard non-ethanol gas for sure. Oddly, in the corn states of Iowa, Wisconsin, SD and Minnesota, its pretty easy to find real gas.  

Besides driving up food prices for poor people and everyone else,, ethanol has another little treat for small engine users. It burns hotter...how much? Dont know but my lawn tractor, weed wackers, lawn mowers, generator, chipper, chain saws,  snow blower, etc never see anything BUT ethanol free fuel.

 

I wonder if our Australian Friends can relate the relative costs of E10 and E free.?

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VFR's in the States run best on 87 octane (as opposed to 93 octane) and non-ethanol gas is easy to find in the Southeast.  VFR's produce more power with non-ethanol gasoline (all three of mine have).  On topic, top tier gasoline is easy to find anywhere and it does function better, noticeable over a long period of time.  The only fuel injector problems I've heard of in a VFR are rare.  VFR's seem to not mind any kind of 87 octane gas but they do produce noticeably more power with non-ethanol gas according to my accurate butt dyno.  

 

Ethanol in gas is a government welfare program for farmers under the guise of lower pollution.  Nevermind it requires more BTU's to produce a gallon of ethanol than is in the gallon of ethanol.  More government stupidity.  It does buy votes though at everyone's expense.  Term limits would help prevent some of this bullshit and our fuel would cost less and be better at what it is supposed to do.  Carbon on valves is a problem caused by incredibly bad fuel used for an incredibly long time.  Our elite politicians obviously don't care.  Separating this issue from politics is not really possible.        

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