Rocket 3 R Hard Starting

Zutt said:

Seriously?
Funny, the other day a kid working at the gas station asks me why do all bikers fill up with Premium/Super. I told him that's what we were told but didn't have a really good answer.
I've been filling all my bikes with premium, because I've been told it's better for those engines (V-twins), so I applied the same for the R3.

I wonder how many here fill with Premium vs Regular!

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EskimoPie said:

Yes, dead serious. The manuals are a bit ambiguous on the subject, but many of us run regular with no pinging or issues whatsoever. I was having rough starts exactly like the OP described and when I switched to regular, it starts right up.

Makes complete sense to me as premium fuel isn't "more powerful", it's actually harder to ignite, thus letting an engine make more power (by advancing timing, increasing compression, etc) without having the fuel prematurely ignite and cause detonation (knock). If your engine is compatible with not needing the higher octane, not only do you not get any benefit from it, my theory is that it can actually decrease some performance as the fuel is harder to ignite than intended. No doubt there's a ton of science here I don't have the details on, but the change in starting performance is undeniable for me. What I don't understand is that when my bike was new, it started just fine on premium, but the rougher starts only developed after ~10k miles. Perhaps there was a change in the fuel/air ration for some reason (dirtier filter, change in tune, etc) or perhaps its slight degradation of the spark plugs, but in any case, switching to regular solved the issue, saves me some money, and I hear no detonation and feel no reduction in performance (for the engine reducing timing by detecting knock). Win-Win scenario for me.

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triplespeed said:

Thanks EskimoPie! I will try switching to 'regular' 87 (R+M)/2 fuel here in the USA and see how it goes.

At the risk of turning this into a fuel thread, I did try to determine the proper grade of fuel to use for my new 2022 R3 R. I asked the dealer when I purchased the bike, and he confidently said [without hesitation] to use premium fuel. I decided to fact-check his guidance, and the Owner's Handbook appears to have some conflicting information about this. The Fuel section in the Owner's Handbook states:

• "Always use unleaded fuel with a minimum octane rating of 95 RON"
• The next sentence states that "Triumph motorcycles are designed to run on unleaded gasoline with a CLC or AKI octane rating (R+M)/2 of 87 or higher"

From what I can determine on the interweb, 95 RON is considered to be 'regular' fuel (petrol) in the UK, but 95 RON is roughly equivalent to 91 (R+M)/2 'premium' fuel here in the USA.

Perhaps the Owner's Handbook Fuel guidance is really just specifying the use of the minimum octane fuel? If true, then that makes more sense to me: 95 RON appears to be the minimum octane rating in the UK, and 87 (R+M)/2 is the minimum octane rating in the USA.

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