P51Mstng

On the subject of winter gas mileage; I feel certain thee is a drastic change in winterr formulation of gas in Northern states, and this decreases our MPG. I drive a Honda Civic Hybrid, where I use cruise control all day long, running at exactly 72 MPH. On the interstate I ALWAYS get exactly 48.5 MPG, in warm weather, using the air conditioner. On a recent 1600 mile round trip out to Wisconsin, I got as far as Indiana before I needed to fill the tank the first time. As the trip went, my mileage was low to start with, then dropped all the way down to 35 MPG. My car is in perfect tune, and the only reasonable explanation I heard was the change in gas formulation for the season. Also, in the midwest, they use ethanol mixed with the gas, and in Wisconsin, they have further additives for EPA reasons. When I got home, my around town mileage returned to normal. On my Blackbird, I found that by using 87 Octane, I was running badly and getting terrible gas mileage. When I started using 93 Octane, the bike ran much better and got more normal mileage.

Of course, they say i t will run on 87 octane, but I know for a fact that it runs and sounds much better on 93 octane! In fact, I want to try Sunoco, because they have a 94 octane blend. My point is that 87 octane might be so marginal, that anytime they get the formulation wrong, we could have a problem. My engine had always tended to run too hot, now it does not do that anymore. I had been gettting terrible gas mileage, now it seems o be much improved.

On the kknocking, I'm surprised no one asked you about what octane gas you are using! Regular 87 octane is maybe not good enough for the Blackbird. With my XX, I was always running hot. Then, maybe they downgraded the gas or something, my red FI light started to come on. Uually, this came on after about 15 minutes of riding and it was intermittent. Diagnosed, it said it was the knock sensor. So, I did not worry about it. After awhile, I figured that it might be the reason I always got such bad mileage; maybe the fuel was being set too rich and the timing was off. So I did the diagnostic thing again and that time it looked like it was maybe the CPU itself! This sells for $558! Well, I decided to just try changing the gas I was using before doing something so drastic. Sure enough; 93 octane gas cleared up the problem, and the red light never comes on anymore.