Float level and fuel mileage...

[Bonz]

Manitoulin,

You boys north of the border have ethanol in your gas, or is it 100%?

[ManitoulinLad]

We do at some stations at 10%, but not all grade levels at the pumps & some don't at all. Believe it or not at one place the gas with the ethenal was the most expensive one at the highest grade apparently & the other 2 lower grades had no ethanol so I used the middle grade that time. This is the only timem I noticed ethanol at the pumps. As with shell I get the bronze - don't know if ethanel in it or not, never really noticed - probably not if I get such mileage with it. If it ain't shell I get the mid grade or highest grade & stay away from ethanol. - Dan

[3Phase]

The floats on my 80G Standard's carbs are set a little on the rich side of 23MM.

Probably more information than you want to know but my bike has 117.5/120 mains, 42.5 pilots and '78/'79 style jet needles with the clips set in the stock #3 position. It also has a '79 vacuum advance pot, 2 or 3 degrees of additional static ignition timing, iridium spark plugs and Accel ignition coils. Depending on the ambient temperature and altitude the tires' cold inflation pressure is 38/43 lbs front, 45 to 50 lbs rear.

On the trip I just finished a few days ago it got anywhere from 32 to 45 MPG. This was with a full fairing and the tall windshield, hard bags, my ALICE pack attached to the luggage rack (if the bike broke down everything I was carrying on the bike would fit on or inside the pack) and a duffel bag with my sleeping bag and ground mat strapped behind me on the seat for a backrest. At 75 MPH the mileage dropped down around 34 to 36 MPG.

With 75 MPH speed limits you need all the aerodynamic help you can get and keeping the cams in time helps, too. The bike got a couple of extra MPG riding the superslab on the way home from Colorado when I added a set of fairing lowers and a Venture cam chain tensioner.


For the modern fuel part of the equation: every single pump I saw had the ethanol warning label on it.

I only used it few times but Shell regular 87 octane nitrogen enriched fuel with ethanol gave the worst mileage and the least power, about 32 to 34 MPG. "Making too much power and getting good fuel economy with your usual fuel? No problem! Add some inert nitrogen so that pesky fuel won't burn and the customers will have to buy up to 1/3 more than before!"

Conoco regular 85 octane with ethanol worked great when I was in Colorado. Even when Motoman and I rode over 10,000 feet in elevation on the Million Dollar Highway to and from Durango the bike had... adequate power and got 40 MPG without the backpack and duffel bag.

In Utah, the Chevron 87 octane regular gas with ethanol had so much water in it that a stream of water ran out from under my bike after blowing out of the weep holes in the exhaust pipes when I started it in the morning. It steamed and leaked almost exactly like a head gasket had blown on a water cooled engine. The bike still got 37 to 40 MPG but the water was more than a little disconcerting.

[ManitoulinLad]

no 10% ethanol

Hey HBoner: I looked last night when I filled up at the Shell. They have bronze (what I use) grade & the highest premium & both of those don't have the ethanol in them. They have to mark the pumps if they do - Dan