has anyone ever heard of KLOTZ? they make octane booster, two-stroke injection oil, ect... i usually add the octane boost to my sled in the winter,smells good and seems to be a little more responsive in the two-stroke. so iadded some to my bike(read the directions on the bottle and followed their recommendations, says for all gas engines), and seems to help that a little too. so can you guys tell me the pros and cons of the fuel additives to my bike? talk to you guys soon hopefully

 

Hi Malcolm,

PROS:
Good for the cash reserves of company who sells it.

CONS:
See Owner manual - page 27 - re fuel with additives...

BALANCE VIEW:

GIVEN THAT: The octane rating is a measure of the resistance of gasoline and other fuels to detonation (engine knocking) in spark-ignition internal combustion engines.
High-performance engines typically have higher compression ratios and are therefore more prone to detonation, so they require higher octane fuel.
A lower-performance engine will not generally perform better with high-octane fuel, since the compression ratio is fixed by the engine design.

The CBR1000F was designed with compression ratio of 10.5 to 1 and timing to suit so "enhancing the fuel" - from an ecconomy or power point of view - is a waste of money. (workshop manual pg 21-2).
[[ Obviously this will be different if you do radical mods and change the compression ratio, valve timming or ignition timming.]]

To prove part of this "theory" for myself below is my fuel comsumption for past 10,000 km. Part is using 91 RON and another part 95 RON with no difference to "power" or fuel Consumption.
Notes:
1. Using Regular Unleaded Petrol - 91 RON min (Standards = http://www.aip.com.au/pdf/fuel_%20regs.pdf)
2. Tried Premium UP - 95 RON min = made no difference to "power" or fuel Consumption. Date Range points 37 to 45 inclusive.

 

Good report, Martin !
I concur - no perceivable improvement with petrol additives.....

 

I might be wrong but I was under the impression thatOctane boosters were developed for older cars/bikes that needed "leaded" petrol or 5 star as it was once known here.
A lot of older engines need to have valve mods to be able to use the modern "cleaner" petrol, but still a "fix" to stop the meltdown caused by continuouspre-ignition.

 

Sawnee - maybe a bit before your time but ... believe it or not .... before 'leaded petrol" there was 'petrol without lead". "Lead" was added as an "Octane Booster".

"During WWI, it was discovered that you can add a chemical called tetraethyl lead (TEL) to gasoline and significantly improve its octane rating above the octane/heptane combination. Cheaper grades of gasoline could be made usable by adding TEL. This led to the widespread use of "ethyl" or "leaded" gasoline."

See reference ... http://tinyurl.com/63x46q

Octane Boosters have been around since then andthe science of my previous post still applies.

Current "unleaded" petrol - from time of manufacture - still contains "Octane Boosters" - but of a different type. see detail here.... (Standards = http://www.aip.com.au/pdf/fuel_%20regs.pdf).

Additional after market additives to currentfuel - such as being discussed here - are just redundent snake-oil; provided you have purchased the fuel with the correct RON /MON asrequired by the designer / manufacturer ofyou engine.

Shaun - as your in the UK - this UK specific precis / overviewmay be worth reading. http://www.petrolprices.com/about-fuel.html

 

Long, longbefore my time,
You seem to know a lot about this Naga, but I remember there was a BIG outcry over here in Blighty when the "leaded petrol" was removed from the forecourt, most of the shouting was by the classic/vintage car owners because they believed that cars like the E Type Jaguar etc would suffer damage because of this [&:]
Is that correct?
Or was it just a knee jerk reaction?
I understand the snake oil bit, there is plenty of that sort of stuff on the shelves for the gullible punter to buy.

 

Both the 3.8 and the V12 had (would still have if they had'nt been used ) a compression ratio of only 9.0 to 1. (Less than our CBR). http://www.carfolio.com/specificatio...car/?car=58894

Provided you could buy unleaded at the time with RON 92 the science says there is/was no problem.

Further - to now - bikes / cars with compression ratio of 13:1 cantake advantage of higher RON fuels. (Also the electronics in newer vehicles can change the timming and have anti - knock sensors tochang the tune of themotor for different RONs ...... and altitude ..... but that's another loooonnnnnnggggggeeeeerrrr story).

 

Cheers Nagi, very enlightening.

 

Martin, there was another additive called TML (Tetra methyl Lead) which was used in petrol to boost octane ratings and eliminate pre-ignition. The 4.2 E-Type had a relativley low compression ratio as stated ( I spent a year restoring my 65 model 4.2 FHC)but I wouldn't even have considered using petrol without a lead derivative in it in my engine, even before we rebuilt it........D Type cams and 350 BHP at the wheels ! Compression was upped by skimming 25 thou off the head..........ah, the days when I was young, carefree, wasn't married and lived with my folks !
Anybody ever put mothballs (naphthalene) in their tanks ? [:-]