Octane Experiment

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flatblackbuddy
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Octane Experiment

Post by flatblackbuddy »

First off, I know there's another thread on this, but it's sort of buried so I thought I'd post here.

I decided to do an experiment on running different octane levels on my Buddy 125. I wasn't sure exactly what I was looking for, but mainly gas milage and how the scoot would run.

I started with 87, ran a couple of tanks and then switched to 93. I filled up at the same gas station every time to eliminate that variation.

I found that on 93 my Buddy ran SLIGHTLY better at WOT and there was a noticable difference in vibration at idle. The big difference was milage. On 87 I was averaging 81 mph, but when I switched to 93 it jumped to 94 mph. I rode the same way on both types of gas, about half throttle most of the time and only going WOT up long hills. I really only ride to and from work so the route taken was approximately the same on both octanes.

I'm wondering if the milage difference is due to combustion at a lower temp on the 87 octane. Also, I'm 6'0", 200 lbs, so the motor may have had to work a bit harder to lug my fat butt around - hence, higher temp combustion resulting in better milage / more power per stroke. Maybe things would be different with a lighter rider. OR, correlation doesn't neccesarily prove causality and it's something different entirely...

I'd be interested if anyone has tried this and had similar / different results?
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Post by jmazza »

There's a lot more than one other thread on this! I'd venture to say there's possibly hundreds of others.

I'm inclined to go with the correlation ≠ causation argument but, from the information I've read about octane related to our scooters' performance, I say if you think it's working better for you, go for it!

There's a fairly well-known post from pocphil that I couldn't find but did find a quote from it:
pocphil wrote:Culled from the inter-web, but i've printed my own version far too often:

Virtually nothing is gained by filling up with a premium or more expensive grade of fuel than the vehicle manufacturer has recommended, the experts say. And many of the same experts explain that drivers may not lose much performance from their cars by using a lower grade of fuel than recommended by the car manufacturer.

There is little difference in energy content of regular versus premium gasoline. They both contain about 111,400 British Thermal Units of energy per gallon.

The price difference, however, between the fuel grades is anywhere from 20 cents to 40 cents, depending on where you live in the United States. The experts' consensus goes against the long-held belief by thousand of drivers who fill up with premium only, or on every third or fourth trip to the pump. The idea is to fill up with premium every so often to clean out the engines or rev up the performance of older engines.

But according to the experts, this practice is like tossing quarters in a wishing well, since most engines are designed to operate on relatively low-octane regular unleaded gasoline.

Octane is defined as a fuel's resistance to knocking. There is no benefit if the octane is higher than what the engine needs. Engine knock occurs when fuel in a combustion chamber ignites before it should.

The American Petroleum Institute says if you find that your car runs fine on a lower grade, there is no sense switching to premium. The Institute recommends following manufacturer's recommendation, but even those manufacturers say that it is more of a suggestion than a command.

Now my own opinion. I am an expert. I've dyno tested many scooter engines on both 87, 92 and 100+ octane. The results vary based on the compression of the motor.

The results as they apply to scooters on this forum:

Neither the Buddy 125 nor the Buddy 50 REQUIRE anything higher than 87 octane.

Higher octanes do not run cleaner *the same detergency recipe is used in all of a manufacturers formulas*.

Higher octanes do not provide more power.

Higher octanes DO detonate later (which may screw up your timing).

Higher octanes DO cost a LOT more and their only benefit is how quickly they make big oil RICH.

When a independent test was done in 2005 over 50% of the gas stations selling "92 Octane" were actually pumping out fuel with an octane rating of 88.
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Post by Silver Streak »

Your data set is too small and your controls are inadequate to establish much of anything from a scientific standpoint (retired US government laboratory director of research speaking here).

It boils down to this: if the engine isn't knocking (detonating) with any of the grades of fuel, and all other things are equal, then the engine will perform just as well with the lowest octane grade. This has been established in studies far more rigorous than your experiment.
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Post by flatblackbuddy »

Silver Streak wrote:Your data set is too small and your controls are inadequate to establish much of anything from a scientific standpoint (retired US government laboratory director of research speaking here).

It boils down to this: if the engine isn't knocking (detonating) with any of the grades of fuel, and all other things are equal, then the engine will perform just as well with the lowest octane grade. This has been established in studies far more rigorous than your experiment.
I guess this was more of an observation than a scientific experiment. Any ideas on what would cause such a drastic difference in milage or the vibration at idle? If it's not the octane, maybe I did something different while riding that I'm not aware of. I tried to control the approximate amount of throttle, rider weight, outside air temp was relatively constant, etc... What else would affect milage?
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Post by illnoise »

Quoting myself from another thread:
Remember, all these things can affect mileage, some very signifcantly:

Rider Weight
Riding style (agressive or not?)
City vs Highway traffic/lights
Seating position/posture
Cargo
Cargo position/center of gravity
wind speed and direction
grade (up/down hills)
temperature and humidity
altitude
road surface
tire inflation
tire wear
state of engine break-in
quality of gasoline (not octane, quality!)
quantity of gasoline (you'll be lighter when your tank is empty!)
aerodynamics affected by luggage, rider, windscreen, accessories, etc
again, ANY of these can have a pretty severe effect, notably temperature and humidity and other factors you simply can't control in the wild.

And I've never seen a mileage figure I could trust. Unless you're calculating with a graduated cylinder and a ruler, it's simply not accurate. It's impossible to know how much gas you've consumed without measuring it, you can't go by how much you needed to fill up. When you're getting 60mpg, a tenth of a gallon of sloppy measuring can give you 66mpg, and google mileage/speedo inaccuracies can do the same.
Last edited by illnoise on Thu Aug 18, 2011 4:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Octane Experiment

Post by illnoise »

flatblackbuddy wrote:Also, I'm 6'0", 200 lbs, so the motor may have had to work a bit harder to lug my fat butt around
This is an argument that I've heard that seems to maybe make a little sense and has been made by a handful of people that seem to know what they're talking about. Bob Weber ("Motormouth" auto columnist) had a column a couple weeks ago that implied that higher octane may be beneficial when towing a heavy load. I've been meaning to look into it more. I'm skeptical, but it could be true.

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Post by Silver Streak »

flatblackbuddy wrote:What else would affect milage?
Mostly variability in your recorded data and in riding conditions.

With a small tank capacity and simple visual observation, it is nearly impossible to fill accurately to the same level each time, and the difference is a significant percentage of the tank capacity. The variability would average out over many fill-ups.

In a true scientific experiment, the scooter would have been run from a precisely calibrated reservoir where the volume of fuel consumed would have been known to a very high degree of accuracy. The riding would have been done under completely controlled circumstances to remove all those variables, or to, at least, reduce them to the point of insignificance.
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Re: Octane Experiment

Post by Silver Streak »

illnoise wrote:
flatblackbuddy wrote:Also, I'm 6'0", 200 lbs, so the motor may have had to work a bit harder to lug my fat butt around
This is an argument that I've heard that seems to maybe make a little sense and has been made by a handful of people that seem to know what they're talking about. Bob Weber ("Motormouth" auto columnist) had a column a couple weeks ago that implied that higher octane may be beneficial when towing a heavy load. I've been meaning to look into it more. I'm skeptical, but it could be true.

Bb.
When an engine is on the verge of knocking, increase load (towing, steep hills, etc.) will indeed push it over the edge. In that specific situation, higher octane would indeed be beneficial.

But, if it ain't knocking, it ain't gonna make any difference.
Last edited by Silver Streak on Thu Aug 18, 2011 4:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Skootz Kabootz »

Silver Streak wrote:...This has been established in studies far more rigorous than your experiment.
Yes, but did those tests include ANY scooters? I doubt it. POC Phil, for all our benefit, provided us the first scooter specific testing.
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Post by Silver Streak »

Skootz Kabootz wrote:
Silver Streak wrote:...This has been established in studies far more rigorous than your experiment.
Yes, but did those tests include ANY scooters? I doubt it. POC Phil, for all our benefit, provided us the first scooter specific testing.
In what way that matters is a 4T scooter engine any different from any other 4T internal combustion engine? The laws of physics don't care.
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Post by Skootz Kabootz »

Silver Streak wrote:
Skootz Kabootz wrote:
Silver Streak wrote:...This has been established in studies far more rigorous than your experiment.
Yes, but did those tests include ANY scooters? I doubt it. POC Phil, for all our benefit, provided us the first scooter specific testing.
In what way that matters is a 4T scooter engine any different from any other 4T internal combustion engine? The laws of physics don't care.
But when it comes to octane and engine performance engine compression does. So testing done on cars is not entirely relevant to scooters.
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Re: Octane Experiment

Post by illnoise »

Silver Streak wrote: When an engine is on the verge of knocking, increase load (towing, steep hills, etc.) will indeed push it over the edge. In that specific situation, higher octane would indeed be beneficial.
Exactly, that's the argument. So the scooter corollary to that is that the average 40-year-old American Midwesterner weighs roughly twice as much as the average Taiwanese teenager.

This internal Piaggio sales document:
http://dealers.piaggiousa.com/ExtranetD ... bruary.pdf
suggests that the maximum load rating for a Buddy may be 178lbs. I wish I weighed 178 lbs. Using Genuine's published numbers, it's 340 so it's not clear.

So there's MAYBE something there, but I'd want a LOT more data before I believed it wholeheartedly. And again, if you're not knocking, there's almost surely not an issue.

Bb.
Last edited by illnoise on Thu Aug 18, 2011 5:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Octane Experiment

Post by Skootz Kabootz »

illnoise wrote:... This internal Piaggio sales document:
http://dealers.piaggiousa.com/ExtranetD ... bruary.pdf
suggests that the maximum load rating for a Buddy is 178. I wish I weighed 178 lbs.
Just because it needs to be said... ANY information or stats on the Buddy or other Genuine products coming from a Piaggio should be taken with a grain of salt the size of Texas. They have a track record of being as far from accurate as Italy is from Chicago.
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Post by illnoise »

Yeah, i updated that with Genuine's numbers.

There is a bit of mystery there, though, as explained in the Piaggio text explains. I would take it with a grain of salt, though, certainly.

In any case, published weight limits would be conservative, but on a small bike with a small engine, added weight really makes a huge difference to top speeds, mileages, etc, and could conceivably affect engine performance.

Bb.
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Post by Silver Streak »

Skootz Kabootz wrote:
Silver Streak wrote:
Skootz Kabootz wrote:Yes, but did those tests include ANY scooters? I doubt it. POC Phil, for all our benefit, provided us the first scooter specific testing.
In what way that matters is a 4T scooter engine any different from any other 4T internal combustion engine? The laws of physics don't care.
But when it comes to octane and engine performance engine compression does. So testing done on cars is not entirely relevant to scooters.
I don't understand that line of reasoning.

Complete and efficient combustion in the combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine doesn't care whether it's taking place with the engine mounted in a car or a scooter. It depends on such things as compression ratio, fuel mixture ratio, intake turbulence due to combustion chamber shape, etc., and the design principles for those things are the same for either a car or scooter engine. Probably the most important factor in this case is compression ratio, and the range of typical compression ratios for scooters is no different from that for cars.
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Post by Syd »

The problem I see with testing performance or consumption using either a carefully calibrated starting amount or a couple tanksfull is the small amount of fuel involved.

Run your scoot for several months with 87, run your scoot for several months with 93, or whatever octanes you wish to compare. Better yet, run it for a year each, keeping track of every fillup, with Fuelly, a notebook, whatever you like. After two years, compare. If you see a difference, make the appropriate change.

I don't think many of us are setup to accurately measure performance, so it's all seat of the pants anyway.
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Post by jasondavis48108 »

Syd wrote:The problem I see with testing performance or consumption using either a carefully calibrated starting amount or a couple tanksfull is the small amount of fuel involved.

Run your scoot for several months with 87, run your scoot for several months with 93, or whatever octanes you wish to compare. Better yet, run it for a year each, keeping track of every fillup, with Fuelly, a notebook, whatever you like. After two years, compare. If you see a difference, make the appropriate change.

I don't think many of us are setup to accurately measure performance, so it's all seat of the pants anyway.
agreed, even myth busters had issues when trying to accurately track mpg and they were on a race track. My sh150i says to use 87 oct or higher and so I use 87 the vast majority of the time. Every so often I put in some 93 when it's running a bit rough and it does seem to vibrate less but my guess is that it is perceived and not actual results. We are hard wired to believe that the more expensive stuff is better when in all reality it's often just more expensive.
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Post by BuddyRaton »

Higher octane will cost more and make a Buddy motor run hotter...that's it.

I have seen enough of these threads and done enough research to definitively declare.

Run whatever makes you feel good. No arguments or facts are going to change anyone's mind.
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Post by uncleralph »

jasondavis48108 wrote:Every so often I put in some 93 when it's running a bit rough and it does seem to vibrate less but my guess is that it is perceived and not actual results. We are hard wired to believe that the more expensive stuff is better when in all reality it's often just more expensive.
I agree 100%. A test that is relying on individuals input as to how it "feels" with different octanes would have to be a blind test, where the participants weren't aware of which octane they were using.

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Post by Mikie M. »

[quote="flatblackbuddy"][quote="Silver Streak"]Your data set is too small and your controls are inadequate to establish much of anything from a scientific standpoint (retired US government laboratory director of research speaking here).

It boils down to this: if the engine isn't knocking (detonating) with any of the grades of fuel, and all other things are equal, then the engine will perform just as well with the lowest octane grade. This has been established in studies far more rigorous than your experiment.[/quote]

I guess this was more of an observation than a scientific experiment. Any ideas on what would cause such a drastic difference in milage or the vibration at idle? If it's not the octane, maybe I did something different while riding that I'm not aware of. I tried to control the approximate amount of throttle, rider weight, outside air temp was relatively constant, etc... What else would affect milage?[/quote]

Lots of things affect gas milage on scooters, but Silver Streak is entirely correct. Gasoline is gasoline. The octane ratings only reflect a gasoline's ability to resist knock, or ping, or pre-detonation. Lot's of names for it. The internet is full of data on this subject.
As for scooters (or any other vehicle with an infernal combustion engine) mile-per-gallon figures are directly related to: tire pressure, rider weight, rider and passenger weight, wind resistance, road surfaces, and some others I have failed to mention.
The change in idle quality can change from day to day. Hot, cold, high humidity, low humidity, et al. Scooters, especially the carburated ones are sometimes finniky.
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Re: Octane Experiment

Post by TVB »

Skootz Kabootz wrote:They have a track record of being as far from accurate as Italy is from Chicago.
But Chicago makes such good pizza! :clown:
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Re: Octane Experiment

Post by Lotrat »

TVB wrote:
Skootz Kabootz wrote:They have a track record of being as far from accurate as Italy is from Chicago.
But Chicago makes such good pizza! :clown:
Giordano's stuffed pizza...mmm.

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Post by beastmaster »

i run my scoot on the tears of broken dreams, i get about 60 mpg , not bad
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Post by sotied »

Closing in on 10,500 miles on my 2008 Buddy 125. I've put 93 Octane in it from day 1 and every fill-up since.

I can say with absolute certainty that the mileage I have gotten with 93 is immeasurably better than any mileage I've gotten when using lower octane gasoline.

#justsayin

#nocomparison

#ifyou'reconfusedreadmywordingagain

#neverusedanythingbut93
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Post by Skootz Kabootz »

sotied wrote:Closing in on 10,500 miles on my 2008 Buddy 125. I've put 93 Octane in it from day 1 and every fill-up since.

I can say with absolute certainty that the mileage I have gotten with 93 is immeasurably better than any mileage I've gotten when using lower octane gasoline.

#justsayin

#nocomparison

#ifyou'reconfusedreadmywordingagain

#neverusedanythingbut93
Uh, yah. Given that you've never used lower octane gas since you've been filling up with higher octane since day one...
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Post by Edwub »

Skootz Kabootz wrote:
sotied wrote:Closing in on 10,500 miles on my 2008 Buddy 125. I've put 93 Octane in it from day 1 and every fill-up since.

I can say with absolute certainty that the mileage I have gotten with 93 is immeasurably better than any mileage I've gotten when using lower octane gasoline.

#justsayin

#nocomparison

#ifyou'reconfusedreadmywordingagain

#neverusedanythingbut93
Uh, yah. Given that you've never used lower octane gas since you've been filling up with higher octane since day one...
Hehe, yeah, that's the easy interpretation.

Could be the opposite? A satiric critique of everyone who uses the lowest octane gas while posting that higher isn't better, but haven't actually tried it?
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Post by Silver Streak »

Feeling lousy about the slow death of science education in America and its obvious effects on the general populace... :roll:
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Post by gitsum79 »

Silver Streak wrote:
flatblackbuddy wrote:What else would affect milage?
Mostly variability in your recorded data and in riding conditions.

With a small tank capacity and simple visual observation, it is nearly impossible to fill accurately to the same level each time, and the difference is a significant percentage of the tank capacity. The variability would average out over many fill-ups.

In a true scientific experiment, the scooter would have been run from a precisely calibrated reservoir where the volume of fuel consumed would have been known to a very high degree of accuracy. The riding would have been done under completely controlled circumstances to remove all those variables, or to, at least, reduce them to the point of insignificance.
All of the above is completely accurate. However, there is no reason you can't fill up 5 or so times and take the average mileage. Not scientific, but I bet it will give you a pretty close estimate of what your gas mileage actually is :wink:
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Post by Edwub »

Silver Streak wrote:Feeling lousy about the slow death of science education in America and its obvious effects on the general populace... :roll:
heh...what type of research did you do?
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Post by ScootLemont »

sure.... and the gun thread gets locked




:wink:
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Post by Silver Streak »

gitsum79 wrote:
Silver Streak wrote:
flatblackbuddy wrote:What else would affect milage?
Mostly variability in your recorded data and in riding conditions.

With a small tank capacity and simple visual observation, it is nearly impossible to fill accurately to the same level each time, and the difference is a significant percentage of the tank capacity. The variability would average out over many fill-ups.

In a true scientific experiment, the scooter would have been run from a precisely calibrated reservoir where the volume of fuel consumed would have been known to a very high degree of accuracy. The riding would have been done under completely controlled circumstances to remove all those variables, or to, at least, reduce them to the point of insignificance.
All of the above is completely accurate. However, there is no reason you can't fill up 5 or so times and take the average mileage. Not scientific, but I bet it will give you a pretty close estimate of what your gas mileage actually is :wink:
That's exactly what I said.
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Post by Silver Streak »

Edwub wrote:
Silver Streak wrote:Feeling lousy about the slow death of science education in America and its obvious effects on the general populace... :roll:
heh...what type of research did you do?
Telecommunications. I was in charge of the research group at the Federal Communications Commission Laboratory.

Generally, when a new telecommunications technology was proposed, we studied potential interference effects of the new technology on existing users of the radio spectrum, as well as whether the new technology lived up to its claims of effectiveness.
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Post by jasondavis48108 »

ScootLemont wrote:sure.... and the gun thread gets locked




:wink:
:rofl: fuel is definitely way more controversial than firearms around here :lol:
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Post by Howardr »

I tracked the mileage on every tank of gas for the first 2 years I rode, approx 15k miles. My mileage varied from about 50mpg to 95mpg. a 1 gallon tank is definitely too small to ever really get too much accuracy.

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