Is it recommended to use injector cleaner on my 85 k?
I thought the other day i could use an addative in the petrol to give them a bit of a clean but remembered hearing somewhere its not recommended on older engines as it could clean the muck around the valves that actually help to seal it, remove this muck with addatives and the valves arnt sealed properly anymore.

Is this right? or is it ok to just add a little to give them a clean?

thanks

Badgerdid,
I have used it on all my bikes without problems. Have a go as the instructions "Slick 50" is my choice. Halfords.
Ajays

Thanks, will get some and give them a clean

I use redline injector cleaner occasionally, premium fuel from the pump should incorporate injector cleaner when you buy it BP and Caltex do anyway.
Regards,
K-BIKE

Having worked both at BMW (car and bike) and Subaru dealerships over time I have used BMWNA's (Chevron) fuel system cleaner and Subaru's (Castrol) cleaner in smaller doses than recommended combined with BP, Shell or Caltex 95/98 octane premium fuels, here in OZ at least. Does it work? I'll let you know in a hunnerd years or so when I tear down the top end for a look-see. The bike runs well, never a splutter or hiccup, and the plugs are clean and light brown at the tip, though my fuel pump has begun to exhibit a slightly higher pitched whine than normal - might be a gradually clogging fuel filter from The Long Ride. I'll whack a new one in there tomorrow!

I whacked a new fuel filter in today and discovered the short, output fuel line was perished and cracking. I snipped a bit off the other end and fitted the new filter. The fuel pump's whining diminished significantly and the bike 'seems' to be idling and accelerating a bit easier. Some fuel system cleaner went in too for good measure.

I work for BP Australia (technical) and BP Ultimate 98 has heaps of injector cleaner, so no need to use any other type of aftermarket cleaners / additives there a waste of money, check out bp.com.au.
give it 2 - 3 tanks fulls before you see the benifit

Hi DBK,
The US has a standard called Top Tier Gasoline which only a few US companies comply with. Can you tell us is the BP fuel in Australia and NZ Top Tier compliant?
Regards,
K-BIKE

Hi K Bike,
I have not heard of the top Tier before but I will find out, it will take me until the end of the week,
regards,
DBK

Thanks DBK here is the web address http://www.toptiergas.com/
Regards,
K-BIKE

Hello K Biker,

top Tiers fuel additive appears to be a simlar product to BP Ultimate and I would recommend using it,
regards,
DBK

Hi DBK,
I guess the crunch question is it either fully complies with http://www.toptiergas.com/deposit_control.html or it doesn't so it would be really valuable if BP could either confirm complete compliance or no we don't fully comply.
Regards,
K-BIKE

I have asked around about Top Tier and in the states this is now a governement reqiurement that the fuel must meet level 1,2 or 3 in top tier cleanlyness, all BP fuels (petrol) contains injector cleaner additive with BP Ultimate having the highest and best performance cleaner this is the same foe New Zealand

Thanks for that really worth knowing!
Regards,
K-BIKE

I found that here in my area, only 3 of the 5 major retailers are selling TopTier gasoline.

I also spent some time checking the Material Safety Data Sheet of the major gasoline retailers in order to find the exact content of Ethanol.
They can tell you what they want, but the MSDS doesn't lie!

In Canada, the average content of Ethanol is as follow:
87 Octane = 10% ethanol
89 Octane = 5% ethanol
91/92 Octane = no ethanol

As I always use 91/92 Octane, I am safe but will start to buy gas meeting the Top Tier standard.

Thanks for the information about Top Tier

Bert

I have recently read that starting soon (with a 100% roll out by mid-2011) in the state of New South Wales, all 91 octane regular unleaded petrol (same as 87 octane No. American rating) will be 10% ethanol at minimum, and the pumps will be labelled with the now familiar yellow label and note the percentage of ethanol present in the fuel. If we don't want ethanol we will have to use 95 or 98 octane (same as 89 and 91 No. American), which I use now anyway. Ethanol in Australia is made from sugar cane or grain and replaces a proportion of refined, mineral base petroleum product.

Yes, that is correct, I believe. I am not really sure if this is going to be a big problem. What will be affected?

Rubber components in the fuel circuit only? If so there are a number of things that can be done:
a. use ethanol fuels when touring or when the bike is in frequent use.
b. alternate between no ethanol and ethanol fuels.
c. store the bike with no ethanol in fuel
d. remove all the rubber components with ethanol tolerant plastics. Ok, but the problem child is the fuel pump mount (rubber). Is there a replacement?

As far as i can see all other things like fuel lines and o rings, which are in constant contact with fuel, can be easily replaced. By doing so the bike can be made ethanol tolerant.

Performance? well that is another question.

I've also read that because there will be a fuel compatibility issue with some older vehicles, that non-ethanol 95 (and perhaps 98 too) will be made more readily available where it has not been common in the past. I noted that quite a lot more servos than in the past in the NT (and in WA too) had 91 and then jumped up to 98 with no 95 bowser at all. This pleased me as the bike 'likes' 98: better mileage under similar conditions, a gut sense that it is smoother (psyche marketing?), and better throttle response/quicker starts.
I'm personally steering clear of all ethanol products, and not just for compatibility reasons. Having used the corn-based variety while living in the States a few years back, on my carburetted Boxers the idle would increase 2-300 rpm at idle on hot days due to the highly oxygenated nature of the ethanol fuel there, and the fuel mileage was crap. Call it, Gasoline or Petrol Lite. Also, there's the political issue of vast areas of subsidised farmland being used to grow corn for ethanol instead of feed corn and/or food for humans.

Call it, Gasoline or Petrol Lite. Also, there's the political issue of vast areas of subsidised farmland being used to grow corn for ethanol instead of feed corn and/or food for humans.

Without doubt, the whole thing is political and not really environmental. If I remember correctly the previous government here was responding to sugar cane growers problems in selling sugar. The obvious solution was to burn the stuff as alcohol and reduce that "nasty polluting oil" we are addicted to

I think that converting corn to alcohol is madness, but grass like sugar cane is tolerable. Having said that, the diet of sugar in our vehicles will only increase as newer cars become resistant to chemical attack of ethanol and water to internal components. Brazil is a good example of what you can do with alcohol in transport.

The problem I have is environmental... if it takes off and becomes profitable, the growers will switch to cane in favour of anything else. M'asia comes to mind with their palm oil. The whole country i covered with it... one giant green desert.

Ned,

Well said, and I agree 100% with you.
What nobody is talking about is that the Ethanol doesn't produce the same energy per liter or gallon as gasoline(or petrol for the British).
This means you have to burn more ethanol to get the same HP out of your engine.
It's certainly a big saving for the oil companies but the environment is still suffering and your wallet still gets depleted too.
In North America, they produce Ethanol from Corn. This is the worse crop that you can grow. When you grow corn on a field, you cannot expect to grow anything else for few years. The soil becomes depleted of all nutrients. This is a lot of natural resources used for something that even our stomach doesn't digest (It always comes out in the same form as it came in )
A year or so ago, I remember watching a program(discovery channel) saying that in order to have all the cars in the USA running with pure Ethanol, the whole surface of the states would have to be transformed into a huge corn field....

Thinking of the future generations, I become more aware of the the way that we utilize the resources and as a result, this year I already spent 1000s of $ to reduce my carbon foot print and become greener. I am not a fanatic, but if everybody can do a little bit, it may help.
We could have a long debate on energy efficiency here, but I do not want to start a political debate about the way that our governments are dealing with the problems.
Lets just tune up our toys and reduce our CO2 emision!

Years ago, on Earth Day, I spotted a cartoon image of a pinstripe-suited, fat cat businessman with a big ol' ceegar in his mouth going on about how he'd placed a brick in his toilet to 'do his part for the environment'. He reckoned it was enough. It spoke volumes. The point is that we need to do more but that every little thing we do is important. From little things big things grow.

This is too funny...
Part of the money spent to reduce my energy consumption was to buy low dual flush toilets made by an Australian company (Caroma). Believe me, at over $500 a poop (sorry a pop), it wasn't cheap.
This is a great product that I highly recommend. The only problem is that it doesn't come with a sport fairing. I has the RT fairing to increase the comfort when spending long hours on the saddle (sorry you call that a toilet seat in Australia. Aussies and Canucks don't speak the same language!)

Why do we have a conversation about toilets in a subject like "injectors cleaner"? The power of pressure? That must be the corn!
From now on, a fuel injector should be called a pea shooter (or corn shooter).

Australia invented dual-flush toilets out of necessity due to a distinct lack of large water resources. Caroma is certainly a poopular brand. Some of my best thinking, writing & reading takes place during my daily ablutions, what a mate of mine calls his daily vespers. I know you needed to know that!

The crucial environmental issue has been and is now being deliberately obfuscated by tax hungry governments and people who stand to make massive profit from carbon taxes and carbon trading.

Saving resources is excellent sense for the future as is conserving energy to reduce cost and potentially pollution, also recycling to conserve resources is an excellent plan for any country.

You will recall we were told only a few years ago that we faced massive global warming until the "inconvenient truth" of actual facts not spin showed we are in a cooling cycle at the moment. Desperate to avoid a disaster of people waking up to the fact that they have been duped the spin meisters morphed global warming into climate change.

Remember the shrinking polar ice caps we were all told to be scared about that were going to flood the earth? The University of Illinois is the only place in the world which maintains accurate space based observational records of what is happening to the polar caps north and south, they show whilst parts are receding other parts are expanding - result little or no nett global change. If he really believed the water is going to rise why did Big Al buy a beach-front mansion close to tide level?

But the big problem for us is that tax hungry governments and profiteers like Al Gore are brainwashing people and worst of all our children that reducing our carbon footprint is a good idea and that CO2 is evil especially if emitted by human activity, they also want to tax and trade CO2 emissions.

There is no credible evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate, actual geological evidence and ice cores show that there have been times when CO2 has been 12 times what it is now and temperatures have been around the same. The effect of vehicles on global temperatures is minute, stand outside what is the thing you feel heating your body it is the sun that is what is causing climate change and reducing or trading CO2 will not make the slightest difference to how hot or cool the sun is, and don't get me started on the CO2 greenhouse myth!

It is just brainwashing to make us feel good whilst they are ripping us off.
Regards,
K-BIKE

The Amazon. If we keep up what we are and have been doing since we worked out how to hunt down and kill for a feed we will not have anything left. Humans might well be the most intelligent beings on the planet but we're certainly going to be the shortest-lived beings on the planet at this rate. There'll be no need to worry about your injectors then...(actual motorbike content)

Good on you TWB it's about conserving not about CO2. CO2 is good, plants need it like we need oxygen and in return for CO2 they give us oxygen.

The destruction of resources is what we should be limiting, that we can do something about. Climate change we cannot alter one iota and handing money to greedy fat cat politicians for their false promises diminishes our chances of doing something about the real issues as highlighted by TWB above.
Regards,
K-BIKE

Everything goes around. If you conserve energy you also reduce the depletion of natural resources to produce it.
Carbon foot print takes in consideration a lot of factors but every small improvement is good for the environment. I believe that we have different views about all the fuss going around with the climate change but I know for a fact that if I care about future generations I MUST help reducing the depletion of natural resources as well as the pollution generated when transforming it into energy.
I am certainly not the type of person preaching that we should not ride a bike just for pleasure, or having a leather jacket because it's made from animal skin or.....
We have to live and enjoy our life but we have to take responsibility for our actions.
I wish a long and happy life to your kids even if I personally don't have any. Why should I care? Because my parents made the best for me to enjoy the life and I should carry on this tradition.

Right on, brother. There's truth in those words.

Thanks you to the contributors of this subject.
I love it when we could debate as civilized people. We are expressing our strongest feeling without denying the others to have a different opinion. This is the real meaning of the word 'forum'.
Now, everybody should have a drink of ethanol and get a buzz out of it. .
Tomorrow, we will analyze the CO2 content of our exhaust and make some adjustment to our intake. We may talk with Ralphhhhhhhhh (the big white telephone made by Caroma)

After putting on the beer goggles and sinking a coupla cans of courage with your mates on the forum, praying to the porcelain God, the big spit, the wretching excess, the technicolour yawn, and many other versions, could be what you'll be doing over your Caroma toilet (Made in Australia). As for C02 sniffing, I reckon I'd rather blow the froth off a few Castlemaine XXXX Bitters, a Toohey's New or two, or a schooner or three of Coopers ale instead. (Juvenile content included)


Cheers, mates!