Only get five gallons before empty

[Sierra1]

Yeah, something's off. I've never dropped below 39mpg.

 

[EricV]

I just got back from a little 120 mile highway round trip (Austin to Burnet and back) and should refill to check my mileage before tooling around town manana. The last tank, which did not have highway cruising, only netted about 31.1 mpg (filling to the hole in the well and using calculator. The bike has no mods on it whatsoever except for Arrow headers. Methinks this sounds abnormally low.

It is. Your wrist control sucks moist ass.

 

[Cycledude]

I usually reset trip meter when filling up, my goal is over 200 miles before refueling but I’ve gone past 250 many times when running 2 lane highways, if running at freeway speeds I prefer not to go much over 200 miles.
The fuel gauge on mine doesn’t usually seem to move below full until after about 75 miles but then it drops pretty fast.
Out in Montana a few years ago I rode past a gas station out in the middle of nowhere because GPS showed another station 30 miles down the road but when I got there no station, I was getting pretty worried when I got to the next town the first gas station was closed but luckily the next one on the other side of town was open.
For some reason my 2018 gets much better mpg than my previous 2013 did.
I’ve always used premium fuel except on the rare occasion when only regular was available.

 

[AusTexS10]

It is. Your wrist control sucks moist ass.

This was essentially a highway cruise at about 60-65 with a few stops going through small one light towns on the way, so my wrist wasn't really having much fun..

 

[EricV]

This was essentially a highway cruise at about 60-65 with a few stops going through small one light towns on the way, so my wrist wasn't really having much fun..

31mpg is really bad for the Super Ten. Fully loaded in rally trim I averaged 42 mpg. Over 9k miles of event riding, long, short, interstate, multi-country, on and off road, still 42 mpg. On K60 Scouts. Unless you had a hideous headwind, something else has been done to your bike besides Arrow headers and no cat.

 

[EricV]

I usually reset trip meter when filling up, my goal is over 200 miles before refueling but I’ve gone past 250 many times when running 2 lane highways, if running at freeway speeds I prefer not to go much over 200 miles.
The fuel gauge on mine doesn’t usually seem to move below full until after about 75 miles but then it drops pretty fast.
Out in Montana a few years ago I rode past a gas station out in the middle of nowhere because GPS showed another station 30 miles down the road but when I got there no station, I was getting pretty worried when I got to the next town the first gas station was closed but luckily the next one on the other side of town was open.
For some reason my 2018 gets much better mpg than my previous 2013 did.

Old quote..."never pass known gas for unknown gas".

 

[JJTJ2]

Could it be running too rich or maybe running E85 gas?

 

[EricV]

This was essentially a highway cruise at about 60-65 with a few stops going through small one light towns on the way, so my wrist wasn't really having much fun..

you said

The last tank, which did not have highway cruising, only netted about 31.1 mpg

So for the 31.1 mpg tank full, what kind of riding were you doing? And have you filled up after the Austin-Burnet-Austin run and calculated that mpg yet for comparison?

 

[AusTexS10]

31mpg is really bad for the Super Ten. Fully loaded in rally trim I averaged 42 mpg. Over 9k miles of event riding, long, short, interstate, multi-country, on and off road, still 42 mpg. On K60 Scouts. Unless you had a hideous headwind, something else has been done to your bike besides Arrow headers and no cat.

I'm on K60s, too, sonthat's a pretty direct

31mpg is really bad for the Super Ten. Fully loaded in rally trim I averaged 42 mpg. Over 9k miles of event riding, long, short, interstate, multi-country, on and off road, still 42 mpg. On K60 Scouts. Unless you had a hideous headwind, something else has been done to your bike besides Arrow headers and no cat.

I'm running K60s, too, so that's a pretty direct comparison, and not a good one. Not sure where to start looking, bike runs great. Normal fan operation, so I'm told it likely hasn't been flashed. At first, I ran it a lot in S mode, but went quite awhile back to T to see if mileage would improve, but i

you said So for the 31.1 mpg tank full, what kind of riding were you doing? And have you filled up after the Austin-Burnet-Austin run and calculated that mpg yet for comparison?

Actually, a very long time between fills. Parked in garage a lot and only local in-city commuting. In 4Runner this morning due to rain, but will tank up.before doing any more riding once rain stops. In re other's comment, onvious must be running too rich but only running premium fuel, no E85.

 

[EricV]

For reference, all my riding is in S mode. No flash, stock pipe/header. And I weigh 260# w/o gear. I also run 36F/42R air pressure. That could account for low mpg too, if you're running much lower air pressure. The Yamaha numbers are way too low for highway riding.

 

[Don T]

A couple of days ago I ran my bike dry.
I knew I as was pushing my luck (without any good reason). The price for stupidity was a mile of pushing the bike to the next gas station.
It's a heavy bike...

It took exactly 23 liters to fill the tank to the brim (top of the filler neck).

 

[Checkswrecks]

A couple of days ago I ran my bike dry.
I knew I as was pushing my luck (without any good reason). The price for stupidity was a mile of pushing the bike to the next gas station.
It's a heavy bike...

It took exactly 23 liters to fill the tank to the brim (top of the filler neck).

Surprising, as that’s 6 gallons and the bottom of the filler is normally around 5.2 as others have noted. Maybe it’s the smaller more efficient nature of your Danish gas?
[j/k]

 

[EricV]

Surprising, as that’s 6 gallons and the bottom of the filler is normally around 5.2 as others have noted. Maybe it’s the smaller more efficient nature of your Danish gas?
[j/k]

Humor aside, my experience is that the bottom of the filler neck is 6 gallons or better. The one time I ran it dry I got 6 or 6.1 in. As discussed in this and other threads, most people get gas much sooner than they need to. No one likes gas stress though, so no harm.

 

[Sierra1]

My concern, car or bike, is fuel is the fuel pumps coolant. Not much of a concern in a car keeping plenty of fuel in the tank, but, with the smaller tank on the bike, I have to let it get lower when I fill to get "more" premium in the tank. The regular in the hose is insignificant when a tank holds 13+ gallons. But, when it only holds six. . . .

 

[EricV]

Many cars don't have in tank fuel pumps. I think it's a misconception that fuel pumps require cooling to begin with, fostered by a couple of brands using very low quality fuel pumps that have "burned up" or failed, reportedly due to being run with low fuel in the tank. IMHO, that's BS. The pumps failed because they were low quality to begin with, not because of low fuel in the tank.

I have consistently run down to Reserve and very often well into it, tank after tank after tank for the last 400,000 miles with Yamaha motorcycles and never had a fuel pump failure, even on my 160k+ mile FJR that almost exclusively did rally riding with a fuel cell and routinely saw 500+ mile runs deep into reserve on one fuel fill of 11.5 gallons running at speed.

In regards to the volume of fuel in the gas pump hose, (which could have been premium or mid-grade as well as regular before you got there), is 0.1377 Gal for a 6' hose of .75" diameter. LINK That's 17.6256 ounces, so just over a pint of fuel in a 6 gallon, (48 pint), tank. A ratio of 1 in 48 blended means you're not diluting the 91 octane by very much by mixing in a pint of 87 octane fuel.

edit - Almost forgot, you might be surprised at the temperature of the fuel in the tank while riding. Sure, it comes out of the ground tank cool, but my FJR would boil fuel on occasion and was well known for hot gas tanks while riding, especially on hot days. Ditto for the Honda ST1300 and other Sport-Touring bikes, none of which were known for fuel pump failures.

 

[ballisticexchris]

We have a 1932 Caterpillar D4 diesel crawler tractor. It starts with a gasoline pony motor that warms and turns the Diesel engine.

Hey I remember those on the TD 20 dozers we ran in the Navy!!

 

[Sierra1]

I thought that anything FI had a pump in the tank; easier to push than pull. I also thought I read on here that there was a little less than a gallon. And, cool is a relative term. 'Cuz, the bike's coolant, is a "cool" 180+/-.

 

[EricV]

I thought that anything FI had a pump in the tank; easier to push than pull. I also thought I read on here that there was a little less than a gallon. And, cool is a relative term. 'Cuz, the bike's coolant, is a "cool" 180+/-.

It's just an easy place to hide the fuel pump on a bike. Lots of cars have external fuel pumps. Miata is one of those, '90's Volvos, (I don't have any experience with late model ones, but they might too). When you're talking about the pressure involved in EFi, push/pull, single dead head systems or return systems, it's really moot where the pump is, it's more about design preference and convenience. The Miata was designed by enthusiasts to be easy to work on. A lot of it's features are specifically designed for owner maintenance and repair. Until Ford got ahold of Mazda and started changing to dedicated parts like fuel lines, instead of generic hose from the auto parts store, etc. The Ford mentality is do what ever you can to get the customer to bring it to the dealer. Sort of like BMW...

Google found this quote: According to the American Petroleum Institute the gas-pump hose typically retains about one third of a gallon of fuel.

 

[WJBertrand]

I thought that anything FI had a pump in the tank; easier to push than pull. I also thought I read on here that there was a little less than a gallon. And, cool is a relative term. 'Cuz, the bike's coolant, is a "cool" 180+/-.

I believe that's true for almost all modern EFI equipped cars. Sucking fuel from the tank vs. pushing it also sets up the opportunity for vapor lock issues, so primary external fuel pumps are pretty much obsolete these days. Putting a submerged pump in the tank keeps the entire fuel run under pressure and has pretty much eliminated vapor lock problems these days. I believe there are a few cars that use a secondary external pump, but they still have an in-tank primary pump.

 

[dadio]

Well. I'm on the side of i95 awaiting gas can. 205.6 miles=walk. Full camping load, 1 up, all highway 70+. Questions?