New gas mileage standards - are they gonna hurt Harley riders?

Bush signed the new standards, the evil is in the fine print. My 2008 RKC has been clocking at 43mpg and it still is not broken in. BUT, the new requirements are forcing oil companies to use even more ethanol. A LOT more ethanol. My owner's manual says 10% ethanol maximum no matter what octane rating the fuel has. I typically buy Chevrom because up until now they have not blended with ethanol. ARCO (now Valero) blends over 10% ethanol, so I won't get near their pumps. So if even the 91 octane premium blends start using 10% ethanol, you know what is going to happen: a drop in power and a drop in mpg. Maybe even constant trips to the dealer for "tuneups."

 

Mine is a 2000 RK classic with 19,000 miles, before I had it triked in september I got 50mpg, Now down to about 40mpg with the extra wheel and weight.

John.

 

Most of our gas up here in Alberta has no ethanol YET; but I guess the day will come. Not much a guy can do about it.

Rod

 

We have had ethanol in our gas for quite some time now and I don't see any down side to the running of the engines. Maybe the mileage has changed but not enough to be concerned about.

 

I heard that the ethanol would cause the engine to heat up a little more than normal. Would a good Syn. oil and a oil cooler help? I run mine stock, and I am getting really good gas mileage.

 

Syn oil will help with running a few degrees cooler (about 10*) and an oil cooler would too (about another 10*) but the main reason for the syn oil is that it will withstand more heat before breaking down than dino oil will.

 

What about this ethanol they are putting in the gas. I heard that is would make the engines run a little hotter. Is there any truth to that? And why are they putting ethanol in gas to start with?

 

Don't know about the properties of ethanol but I do know that it is corrosive to engines in larger quantities. I would imagine it's purpose was to reduce the fuel use itself by volume.
Try doing a search on google and I'm sure you'll pull up enough pages to keep you reading for at least a week.

 

Isn't ethanol made from grain, and with all the stories about food shortages around the world won't the use of ethanol be curtailed?

 

Its an alternative fuel...it supposedly will help curtail our need for foreign oil. I'm not convinced it does. All of our gas in Texas is blended with 10% ethanol. It makes my bike run hotter than I like. It is always hot in Texas so I run a synthetic and an oil cooler on my bike. It makes me feel better !