what fuel do you run?

did a search on this but nothing came up.

i've been running 91 fuel, does anyone know if premium is worth the extra $$$?
what does everyone put in their bandits?

I've been putting in 98 and getting much better mileage. today I filled up and noticed the trip meter which I reset every fill was at 377km and I had 2 more segments on the gauge to go before empty.
Mind you if I can't get premium and desperately need fuel I'll happily put in plain unleaded but not E10 crap.

I only use 98. But same as baz, happy to use 95 if thats all there is.
Fuel economy is much better.
Never use E10...EVER. reduces fuel consumption massively, and perofrmance suffers as well.
As a mechanic, ive seen many cases of vehicle running badly...and weve put it down to them using E10. Many of these cases involve water in the tank.
I baught my last car off a bloke who spent a lot of money trying to fix the problem...basically it would not idle, and would stall all the time. I knew he used E10, so i baught it off him cheap . Then straight away put 98 in. Never had a problem since.
That is in a car, but i cant imagine it would be any better for a bike.
Btw, is urs a 1250, or earlier carby?

I use 98, because mines an oil/air cooled model and figure the traffic and heat may cause pinging so use the good stuff just in case. It may not be needed, but it only costs $1 or so extra each week........so no big deal. I think if your bike is running well on any type of petrol and your happy, run with it.

Baz wrote:I've been putting in 98 and getting much better mileage. today I filled up and noticed the trip meter which I reset every fill was at 377km and I had 2 more segments on the gauge to go before empty.

some ruff and dirty sums make it 3.5 litres per 100 kms or better. now that is bloody impressive. gota say i've never got that good (my average is 5.2lt per 100 kms) but i do a lot of commuting or shorter (less than 250 kms) trips.
potentially 98 gives an almost 1.5 times better economy.
Interested to know which brand of fuel it is as i've herd some brands are better than others.



me personally use standard ULP, usually from the caltex woolies servo that gets a hell of a lot of use

well last time i filled the tank i used caltex premium [i usually use regular]. i refilled today and it was 14.1 litres for 280 km = 19.85 km/l [or about 5l per 100km]

I used to use regular unleaded, mainly because I never really noticed much difference between regular and PULP. Last winter I was getting carby freeze, nothing unusual there it happens every bloody winter, anyway I mentioned it to the workshop manager at work and he suggested that I try PULP, not just one or 2 tanks, but 4 or 5 and see how it goes. It didn't totally fix the carby freeze, but at least it wasn't stalling out every time the revs dropped below 1500.

As an added bonus I went from getting around 180km round town before reserve, to 200km+ before reserve.

Generally I'll put in 95, with the odd tank of 98.
Around town I'll normally get 250km until hitting reserve.

Standard ULP. But after reading this I am going to try PULP. I am going on short 600k ride tomorrow, so that should be long enough to tell the difference.

My dr650 did not run well on pulp at all. Best way I can explain it is it ran "FUZZY". Just wasn't the same.

dhula wrote:

Baz wrote:I've been putting in 98 and getting much better mileage. today I filled up and noticed the trip meter which I reset every fill was at 377km and I had 2 more segments on the gauge to go before empty.

some ruff and dirty sums make it 3.5 litres per 100 kms or better. now that is bloody impressive. gota say i've never got that good (my average is 5.2lt per 100 kms) but i do a lot of commuting or shorter (less than 250 kms) trips.
potentially 98 gives an almost 1.5 times better economy.
Interested to know which brand of fuel it is as i've herd some brands are better than others.



me personally use standard ULP, usually from the caltex woolies servo that gets a hell of a lot of use

it was mobil 98 and it was on our last sydney run, filled up at the meet point, reset my trip meter as I always do, went on the run dunno how many kays that was. but when I refilled during the week I really took notice that the trip meter was 377 as I've never had that good economy before (maybe it was a non normal batch of xtra strong fuel ??). standard unleaded a full tank would get 250 before I got nervous about running it dry.

Ok, went for a run today and filled up with 98 for the first time. First stop was 215ks for 11.44l. That was sitting on 110 to 120 in a group, with the odd quick pass.

On the way back however one of my mates "forced" me to race home. Figures dropped but who the hell cares.

I will be staying with PULP. Thnx for the info.

Baz wrote:

dhula wrote:

Baz wrote:I've been putting in 98 and getting much better mileage. today I filled up and noticed the trip meter which I reset every fill was at 377km and I had 2 more segments on the gauge to go before empty.

some ruff and dirty sums make it 3.5 litres per 100 kms or better. now that is bloody impressive. gota say i've never got that good (my average is 5.2lt per 100 kms) but i do a lot of commuting or shorter (less than 250 kms) trips.
potentially 98 gives an almost 1.5 times better economy.
Interested to know which brand of fuel it is as i've herd some brands are better than others.



me personally use standard ULP, usually from the caltex woolies servo that gets a hell of a lot of use

it was mobil 98 and it was on our last sydney run, filled up at the meet point, reset my trip meter as I always do, went on the run dunno how many kays that was. but when I refilled during the week I really took notice that the trip meter was 377 as I've never had that good economy before (maybe it was a non normal batch of xtra strong fuel ??). standard unleaded a full tank would get 250 before I got nervous about running it dry.

Now I'm beginning to have doubts ... I might have foot in mouth disease .. or foot in fingers. I know I'm getting better fuel economy, but 377 to tank, maybe that one time I didn't reset the meter .... damn, now I have to calculate it for my own piece of mind.

When I first got the B12 I ran ULP most of the time. I only used PULP when I was riding with my wife, her M750 only likes the good stuff. At the time I didn't notice any difference in power or economy. However, now that it's 50,000km old it appears the PULP helps economy and as mentioned before helps to reduce the effects of 'carby freeze'.

I may have been told the wrong thing, but, an engine such as the older 1157cc in standard form doesn't NEED PULP. However, if you have done some performance mods then maybe PULP is best. If you don't get pinging on ULP then you don't need PULP, although given the difference in price is only around a dollar a tank, it wouldn't hurt to use PULP.

How's that for some nifty fence sitting.

Now I'm beginning to have doubts ... I might have foot in mouth disease .. or foot in fingers. I know I'm getting better fuel economy, but 377 to tank, maybe that one time I didn't reset the meter .... damn, now I have to calculate it for my own piece of mind.[/quote]


It seems possible. 215ks using 11.44l is 18.793kpl. 18.79 X 19L is 357km. And I gave it a fistful reasonably often on overtaking.

Particularly if your bike is running the standard lean setup, mine isn't.

I have to admit when I saw the 377 figure I thought an error might have been made.

But now...

i think my fuel indicator starts flashing when there is about 5 litres left [or 100 kms] and that starts to happen about 240 - 250 or so kays i think

b12mick wrote:

I may have been told the wrong thing, but, an engine such as the older 1157cc in standard form doesn't NEED PULP. However, if you have done some performance mods then maybe PULP is best.

I have found it the other way round.
I have done a few mods and believe that my bike runs better on regular.

And fuel economy? It is a bike FFS, who cares?

I use either 98 or 95, depending on the servo. The usual servo (where one can pay at the pump with a credit card - no need to take off the helmet) doesn't stock 95, it is either E10, 91 or 98 ... so I go for 98.

My daily ride is a stop go traffic (no freeways) with most of the ride in 3rd gear with some filtering in 1st or 2nd. Economy out 98 is on par with 95. My last bar is flashing on about 190-200km. The average consumption is about 6.5-7L / 100km.

I am thinking of doing a dyno tune. Will be interesting to see if the economy improves.

Edit ...
Just came back from 150 km two up ride through the twisties - on combined cycle of 225 km (75 km city and 150 km twists) - 6.2 L /100

Suzuki do not recommend E10 in the Bandit. 98 is a good choice as it is a cleaner, denser and more volatile fuel than 91 and therefore should enrich the mixture slightly. I assume the engine management detects this - leans it out and hey presto better mileage.

I suggest with the lowish compression ration of the Bandit engines its more about fuel quality than octane ratings.
I guarantee I get less to a tank from my "united" servo than I do from my local Mobil (pay at pump too) and filling with 91 at both.
Not so much an issue while I'm doing the daily commute but guess where I get fuel from for a trip?

banditman wrote:Suzuki do not recommend E10 in the Bandit. 98 is a good choice as it is a cleaner, denser and more volatile fuel than 91 and therefore should enrich the mixture slightly. I assume the engine management detects this - leans it out and hey presto better mileage.

I have a 2007 1250S AND IN THE HAND BOOK IT STATES
" Use unleaded gasoline with an octane rating of 91 or higher"

Gasoline/Ethanol blends
"Blends of unleaded gasoline and ethanol may be used in your vehicle if the ethanol content is not greater than 10%"

^^^ I'm still not putting it in my engines until the day I have too.

stretch wrote:

banditman wrote:Suzuki do not recommend E10 in the Bandit. 98 is a good choice as it is a cleaner, denser and more volatile fuel than 91 and therefore should enrich the mixture slightly. I assume the engine management detects this - leans it out and hey presto better mileage.

I have a 2007 1250S AND IN THE HAND BOOK IT STATES
" Use unleaded gasoline with an octane rating of 91 or higher"

Gasoline/Ethanol blends
"Blends of unleaded gasoline and ethanol may be used in your vehicle if the ethanol content is not greater than 10%"

the manual for my wifes M750 says pretty much the same thing. The one and only time she did use E10 she got 15k's down the road and had fouled the plugs. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but we aren't going to run the risk again.

a few weeks ago i went for a ride out to bathurst and beyond - not banging it at all as we were in a big group and jusy sitting around 100-120 - and it did 22 km/litre.....so whats that - 4.5litres/100k - um - so on a 19 litre tank thats 420km

you might be right baz unless we both boobed the odometer, but i am sure it took 10 litres exactly with 220 on the trip metre

potatomasher wrote:
you might be right baz unless we both boobed the odometer, but i am sure it took 10 litres exactly with 220 on the trip metre

Thats probably about right. I have forced 12lt in at 280km just droning along the princes hwy. (with a full 35lt tail bag too)

Hey all, I use A1 jet fuel in my Bandit and get shit milage sitting on mack2, I think Mach 1 is a lot safer for u naked blokes using jet fuel.
As traveling at subsonic speeds naked is dangerous, bits may freeze and fall off