Fuel and oil

Well given the FZR250 was designed to run on unleaded (91 RON or higher), i'd be swapping over to unleaded now. I'm not sure on the side effects of swapping over from leaded to unleaded, although perhaps one of the more trained mechanic types on here would like to let us know.

Also, regarding the oil - Yamaha recommends oil between 10w50 and 20w40 if i recall, although given the warmer climate of South Africa i'd imagine you'd be wanting to go for something around 15w or 20w.

 

From what I understand leaded fuel will not harm the bike. The idea behind adding lead is to lubricate. The bike was designed to not need the lead in the fuel so you should switch over to unleaded, if nothing than for the environment and your health. I will agree with koma on the oil, most people run full synthetic oil in the bike.

 

lol If I could lay my hand on some good old fashoned leded fuel I would be using THAT!! why?? higher RON number thing (more power) burns at lower temp... more power... and keeps the engines cleeeeeen!!

As for oil... good quality semy synth is all you need... make soure it is motorcycle not car oil... (though there are a number of different oppinions on that)

 

You aren’t going to get any more power out of lead. If you want a higher RON use premium, and let’s not start any of those debates again. Cleaner for the engine yes and no, if you are running on this 'higher RON' and your bike isn’t tuned to deal with it bla bla bla encounter slightly rich mixture bla bla bla.

It won’t harm your engine but for any small benefit it provides it doesn’t outweigh the negatives in my mind, they did get rid of it for a reason after all. Just my 2c.

 

well actualy the FZR250 has been designed to run on japonise fuel... which does not contain any led (or as far as I know it did not in the early 90's) but itis thicker and does have way more addetives than any other fuel...

It has a very short shelf life.. basicaly it turns to jelly in about 3 weeks... (I have been told by a car importer that this is their bigest problem)

the 2KR neds a very quick fix when brought into australia... just lower the needles... the 3LN... needs more.. most importers just throw away the fuel pump (coz it is all pluged up) and set the float levels higher... what it realy needs is (in theory) to have a new fuel pump put in and leaned out... eather by droping the float levels or droping the niddle... but than all of this could be solved by running the bike on leded petrol as it is slightly "thicker" and has different boyency so the bike runs just fine on it streight out of Japan...

 

I will take your word for it but wouldn’t that mean that Optimax would work just as well?

While lead in fuel is a good thing for engines it isn’t so good for you. If I didn’t have to run it I wouldn’t. I have had my bike tuned for the kind of Australian petrol I use 90% of the time (BP 95 RON) and I would recommend it to anyone with an FZR. I am still not convinced their is any need for lead in fuel. Maybe I am just new school, last car we had that ran on leaded fuel was a 5L V8 VB commodore, sage green, custom cams, good memories, I was still in primary school. <!-- s:lol: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing" /><!-- s:lol: -->

 

Higher octane fuel by itself produces no extra power and can in fact produce less power because of engine tuning, etc.

On the other hand I was reading STREET MACHINE mag Oct issue. There was an article about E10 fuel and how ethanol blend actually produces more power (tested in V8 commodore on dyno) and they went to the trouble of optimising the ECU to make it richer (ethanol needs less air to burn than petrol) and advancing the timing 4 deg (ethanol has a higher knock resistance) for a significant boost in power over unleaded. I cant remenber the exact figures but I think it was around 40hp more.

The net result is that more fuel is used but on the other hand it is cheaper than normal petrol.

DAVE

 

Interesting. I doubt that 10% ethanol is realy going to make much of a dent to the price in the long run. After a few months a huracane will blow over brazil and we will be in the same situation we are in now. The oil companys are the ones to be aiming the cross hairs at if you ask me but I think that is far enough off topic.

 

not knocking the theory but...v8 commodores are tuned way to conservatively so 40 hp would be more out of the tune no matter what fuel it is running. there would still be a gain but it would be far less evident if you ran it on standard or premium unleaded with the tune. as far as lubrication is concerned get valve saver lube from autobahn or repco or similar if you are worried about it. just stick to the ol' unleaded unless you drive a supercar/superbike.

 

Ive noticed with My 3LN.. that lower octane petrol makes the bike run off... like it feels like something is holding it back..

would that be that its not tuned to use the lower octane petrol then?

 

Whatever fuel you had in the tank when you take it to get tuned and balanced you should ideally stick to it. It's possible that your bike was tuned with one of the many higher octance fuels - if that's the case then continue to use them or get the bike retuned for a lower octane rated fuel.