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Fuel

pearl54

New member
Hi All,
I will be riding my GT from NYC to southern California this summer. I'm sure high octane fuel will be hard to come by in some areas. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks.
 
Hi All,
I will be riding my GT from NYC to southern California this summer. I'm sure high octane fuel will be hard to come by in some areas. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks.

Mine runs fine on 91. Mileage suffers a little bit.
93 is readily available along the interstates.
Look for name brand, high volume stations.

Have fun.

Joe
 
When I had a 2011 K1300S BMW recommended 91 AKI.
We use our bikes mainly for touring and there was only a few times 91 was not available.
When that happened I put in a gallon or 2 of what ever was available.

Does your manual recommend 91 or 93?
 
Hi All,
I will be riding my GT from NYC to southern California this summer. I'm sure high octane fuel will be hard to come by in some areas. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks.

I wouldn’t worry about it. If you are worried, use the gas that you get and bring along a couple of bottles of octane booster.......it’s available at almost any auto parts chain.
Ride happy.
OM

If you find non-ethanol gas.....you will really ride happy.
 
Don't cheap out, use the proper grade octane

Hi All,
I will be riding my GT from NYC to southern California this summer. I'm sure high octane fuel will be hard to come by in some areas. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks.

Check your owner's manual and look to see which octane rating system they are referencing, then use the proper grade. Using a lower octane fuel (than required) has disadvantages, using a higher octane (than required) wastes money.
I haven't been to any service station in the southeast USA that didn't have 93 or 91 octane.

http://www.pencilgeek.org/2009/05/octane-rating-conversions.html
 
As Lee and "d maritn" identified, the manual specifies 89-AKI so no conversions, etc. necessary.

Running 87-AKI from a premium/1st-tier station should not hurt anything unless you are stressing the motor with constant loads which is pretty hard to do with the K1600 engine unless you are tearing through the mountains 2-up or blasting down the super-slab at triple-digits. Most everything else is very low stress for that engine and so it should tolerate it very well.

My suggestion would be, if you have a concern over it, to consider looking at how you break up your day. If I have the time for a slow easy trip, I typically shoot for 6-7 hours a day of actual riding. Specifically, ride 1.5-hrs after breakfast, stop for 10-15 minutes and top up the gas tank and stretch, then ride another 1.5-hrs and stop for gas. Repeat in the afternoon. If you are concerned about putting 87-AKI in (I wouldn't be, but that's me), then simply fill up with 91 or 93 when available and if you are doing the 1.5-hr stints between topping up even if all they have is 87-AKI you likely won't be below the 50% full point so filling a half-full 91-AKI tank with 87-AKI = 89-AKI for the tank and if the next top-up is still only 87-AKI topping that up with 87-AKI only takes you to 88-AKI. Absolutely no concern in my books. Just ride and enjoy. PS - don't pay any attention to any wierd noises you hear right after filling with 87-AKI, they will almost certainly only be imaginary as it is human nature to be overly concerned about these things. ;-)

Top Tier Gas: https://www.toptiergas.com/licensed-brands/

Use this link to plug in your fuel economy and capacity (leave some reserve) and identify that you want "premium" (91-AKI) gas or "Midgrade" (89-AKI). It will identify stops for you, etc. You can only do one "via" point so it won't allow you to use your exact route at once, but it should give you a good idea that you can do it. I use their phone app.
https://www.gasbuddy.com/TripCostCalculator
 
I cant imagine hi-octane fuel will be hard to come by anywhere.

You'd be surprised, we even have lectricity in most of the flyover states now.



Ethanol free, will be an issue in areas, but 92 and under is everywhere.
 
If you ride in Montana and Wyoming you might be surprised what you find for gas. Many times I have miscalculated gas stops and ended up buying gas at some hole in the wall that sold diesel and regular and I was happy to find it. If you are careful and fill often in larger cities finding premium is not a problem, but if you venture off the well traveled highways be prepared to be happy just to find something that resembles gasoline! You might even find yourself running ethanol blend!

As for running regular blend in a K1600 it will run fine, I would run it and not even worry about it one second.
 
Voni and I have traveled all over the US and Canada for years. Our motto in the west is get gas early and often. Don't count on gas in small places. For example: from our house in Texas the nearest gas is 25 miles away. Look at the stretch between Roswell and Vaughn in New Mexico. No gas.

I could point out many other stretches of 100 miles with no gas.
 
I cant imagine hi-octane fuel will be hard to come by anywhere.

You'd be surprised, we even have lectricity in most of the flyover states now.

Ethanol free, will be an issue in areas, but 92 and under is everywhere.

Not always the case where I live and ride. Don’t think I have seen 92 octane, just 91, but that may be a function of our elevation. Ethanol free 91 octane is readily available in our local area. There are some long gaps between stations and places where only 87 octane is available. Not long ago you might find only 85 octane in some high elevation areas. I do not recall seeing 85 anywhere for quite awhile; maybe they have given up on it.

As to your comment on “lectricity”... quit bragging. :)
 
This summer I plan on running from Lander, WY, to Farson, then to Jackson. I am planning on filling in Lander and running the 200+ miles to Jackson on one tank. Gas looks pretty sparse the remainder of the route. I know there is gas available, but I am not betting on finding premium.
 
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