Was removed from an old Mini Sprint Race Frame that I sold minus the engine, and is now sitting at a mates place with the radiator keeping it company!
Might have to get him to mount it onto a display/run stand so we can make some noise and smoke with it again 
He is the same as Allan millyard
V12 Kawasaki
His 6 cylinder Z900
HIS 4 cylinder H1
It must be something they put in the water over in the UK
I think itās the boredom of talented retired blokes who are retreating away into their sheds away from the missus and out of the dreary wet weather outside thatās creating these masterpieces 
I always had a bit of interest in these things, as an Australian Invention and something completely different
Another one has left the building 
sold to the same mate who now has 29 bikes
SO THE WIFE SAID I AM NOT ALLOWED ANY MORE MOTORBIKES BECAUSE WE ARE MOVING TO THE STATES.
SHE DID SAY THE ONLY BIKE I WAS ALLOWED TO HAVE WAS A PUSH BIKE FOR EXERCISE.
SO I BOUGHT MYSELF A HIGHLY MODIFIED EBIKE
FROM A FRIEND IN THE DUCATI OWNERS CLUB.
THIS THING IS Quick OF THE MARK AND BLOODY QUICK ON ROAD.
HE RECKONS IT WILL DO 80KPH
IM NOT THAT GAME TO RIDE A Pushy THAT FAST (WELL NOT YET)
PROBABLY ILLEGAL BUT Thatās NEVER STOPPED ME
AND BEST OF ALL I DONāT HAVE TO PEDDLE IF I Donāt WANT TO
SO CHECKMATE WIFEš
GOT TO GET ME THIS T-SHIRT ITS GOING TO RUFFLE SOME FEATHERS
I concour been riding since last year. F Iām sore now 
Hi. Just a question some of the two wheel and engine fans might have some insight on. I have a bit of trouble with petrol these days.
Have you noticed the quality of petrol is shit? It seems to go off within 30 days.
Near to me servos only sell standard unleaded. With that I have trouble starting auger motors, even the ag bike, couldnāt even light up my yz450. Chainsaws, everything.
Mate came up after xmas from Adelaide and had BP98 premium and I tried a bit of that and both my bikes lit up straight away. They used to run ok on standard unleaded a while back. Iāve been using fuel stabilizer for a couple years that seems to help.
Itās a long travel for me to acquire 98. Not realistic when I donāt use much.
Iāve ordered some octane booster so will try that next see if that helps.
Even my Mum in CBD had trouble with her beep Barina, was missing under load and carrying on. Filled up with 98 premium and now itās fine.
I used to buy BP100 from OG speed shop out the pump. But that got restricted and need a racing licence for. Leaded fuel. The old kingswood ran great on that stuff and so did everything else.
I am seeing the same problem everywhere.
Itās always been a common theory that the higher octane you go the shorter shelf life.
Maybe the fuel suppliers are dropping the octane count like the do in the outback.,
Using only opel fuel so the indigenous population donāt get high on fuel sniffing .
An octane booster is the way to go just use it sparingly., unless you injoy bent valves.
Most of the population would not know there are using bad fuel because
They adopt the "if it starts and runs itās fine " . mentally
And not care about the long turn effects
I run 98 in everything
But for yourself you could try storing a Jerry can of 98 and use fuel stabiliser. To pre long shelf life
There was one Caltex a hundred k away that sells premium 98. That seems to not work as well anymore. Maybe because it is rural and they would not sell much it is already stale. I know they had problems with their underground tanks getting water in so stopped buying at that place. It destroyed a couple landcruiser diesel farm utes.
Diesel is fine as I bulk buy that and get it delivered on farm. Itās what I use most of. They can deliver petrol too but minimum order is 1000ltrs. Take me 3 years to use that amount up lol
Wellā¦ā¦ where do I start!
You are absolutely correct on all points, modern Unleaded Fuel is a big issue in many many ways, not only for the customer but also for the Manufacturers and the Environment 
Being in the business that Iām in, Iāve had to seek out aLOT of information from the Fuel Companies over the years and am lucky enough to have 3 good mates who worked in the industry at many levels.
Weāve basically all been sold a lie about āthe dangersā of the old Leaded Fuel by both the Government and the Environmental Protection agencies as to why we had to make the change to Unleaded Fuelsā¦ā¦ā¦ for us peasants and the fuel available for our vehicles anyrate!
Everyone here is old enough to remember the rolling Fuel Crisisās of the 70ās and 80ās, the first development of fuel injection for passenger vehicles and the biggest con of all timeā¦ā¦ LPG Gas vehicles.
These all play a big role in the clusterfck of the reason why we now have Unleaded fuel for our personal vehicles, and yet Leaded Fuels are still available for Military/Government/Aviation use.
The Oil Crisis had the Government/Fuel Industry looking for alternatives to straight leaded fuels, which kickstarted the process of developing the new Unleaded fuels we have today.
Old Leaded fuel had a higher Oil ācontentā and Tetra-Ethyl Lead was a cheap additive mixed in as an octane booster/anti knock agent to raise the quality of the older lower octane Leaded Petrol.
Because of the higher oil content and TEL additives, old Leaded fuel was very stable, had a very long shelf life and was very easy/cheap to produce because of its lower refining requirements.
Remember that old Leaded fuel would never āgo offā no matter how long you left it sitting around, everything would still start/run/drive quite happily
The fuel crisis/environmental/EFI evolution etc got the companies to thinking about how they could make more fuel out of the same given amount of oil in their refining process, and eventually came up with the modern Unleaded Fuel that we have today.
This is a mixture of higher refined (thinner/less oil) fuel blended with a mixture of different chemicals to stabilise its properties in combustion passenger engines.
A large portion of those additives are Xylene, Benzene and Toluene, which are all volatile Aromatic compounds that evaporate in the atmosphere at very high amountsā¦ā¦ā¦ and are also known as all being highly dangerous Cancer causing chemicals! 
So the old leaded fuel was deemed ādangerousā to our health and the environment, whereas in reality, it wasnāt, and they replaced it with a very dangerous and toxic replacement instead! 
Scientist studies proved that the microscope TEL particles in old leaded fuel once burned in the combustion chamber, were turned into microscopic hard little inert ābrickā type particles that once emitted from the exhaust pipe, simply fell to the ground and were no longer a soft āleadā type compound that could cause any danger to the environment or your healthā¦ā¦. But thatās not what the government/environmentalists told us was it?
Why did Fuel Stations stop having āPetrol Attendantsā? It wasnāt because of labour costs or whatever other bullshit reasons the public were told at the time, it was purely health and insurance related risks that no company was wanting to have on their hands involving this new Unleaded fuel.
Iām sure that you can all think back and realise that the introduction of Unleaded fuel is the exact same time that Fuel Attendants all disappeared from the industry, simply because any company/employer who hired these people to spend their working lives breathing in this new highly toxic and cancerous fuel would all be launching their Cancer/Sickness Law Suits against the companies for the rest of their lives 
FUN FACT: In some states in the USA, they have gone a step further by adding āsocksā to the nozzles of the fuel hoses that have a vacuum system to capture these volatile gases being emitted from your fuel filler whilst filling up, which is a great idea to protect people from breathing in this toxic crapā¦ā¦ but that costs money, so not many fuel companies care enough about your health to make it a global health standard.
Mechanically wise, remember the introduction in the mid 70ās of Anti-Pollution ADRās and the crazy crap they started putting on the vehicles to āreduce emissionsā from fuel evaporation and exhaust fumesā¦ā¦. well that was the very first attempts by the car manufacturers to start developing systems for the āfuels of the futureā.
Those clumsy first attempts were the very start of controlling highly evaporative fuels and exhaust gas recirculation systems required āmake safeā the toxic additives in developing fuel types such as Unleaded.
Hereās why EFI was developed, along with āfully sealedā fuel tanks/systems and other components such as Catalytic Converters etc, all required to try and capture/burn/exhaust this toxic Unleaded fuel.
Because itās full of extremely volatile/evaporative additives such as Xylene, Toluene and Benzene, a fuel system needs to be fully sealed to prevent it from evaporating to atmosphere when exposed to airā¦ā¦ā¦ are you starting to see what Iām leading towards here with my long rant on this subject 
Engines/vehicles that are old style Carburettor fed and are running non-sealed fuel systems simply cannot prevent Unleaded fuel from evaporating off their volatile compounds, which quickly makes the fuel āgo offā once those compounds are no longer present in the fuel mixtureā¦ā¦ basically leaving dishwasher in your fuel tank
Even one week old standard 92-95 octane Unleaded will not mix/burn efficiently in an old carby type engine due to this fact where the volatile compounds are so depleted, that the fuel doesnāt evaporate/mix with the air in the Venturi and enters the engine in large droplets instead of a fine air/fuel mist.
This means loss of power, spark plug fouling and high fuel consumption. Unleaded left in these vehicles/machines any longer than four weeks will give bad starting issues and will even destroy spark plugs in the first few minutes of running, to the point of losing cylinders one at a time depending on the age of the fuel and how long you run it for
BP ULTIMATE 98/SHELL VORTEX 
These are our only saviours for us who are in the world of old carby fed petrol vehicles/bikes to keep them running, but also still requires certain measures to ensure the best possible conditions for using them.
In the meetings I had with the BP/SHELL Fuel Reps who were sponsoring various Drag Cars/Vehicles I had over the years, they explained why these premium 98 Octane Unleaded fuels are very different from the standard 92-95 Octane rated fuels.
Basically they have less volatile compounds, which leads to that higher āoilā concentration, and therefore are much more stable than the normal unleaded.
BP 98 is actually refined at 103 Octane, and is the same level when they deliver it to all the various fuel outlets across Australia.
They do this because they are fully aware of the problems with fuel degradation over time, and they allow for this by delivering 103 Octane fuel to the distributors and calculating that fuel will have to survive for 4 weeks in storage on average in the underground tanks at the fuel stations before it is replenished.
They said that through testing, they can 100% guarantee that the 98 Octane fuel you are buying out of their pumps is always a minimum 98 Octane after being stored for that amount of time in those conditions, and depending upon what time you fuel up your vehicle after delivery, it may still be anywhere between 100-103 easily if only in the station tanks for a week or two 
They also stated that is why the standard 92-95 fuels with high levels of volatile compounds evaporates/goes off much faster than the 98 Octane.
We confirmed this with our Drag Car being fuel tested by the Scrutineers at the Perth Motorplex. We kept winning races against much larger/expensive competitors and were constantly having protests against us by the losing teams, which meant we had to take the Drag Car straight back to scrutineering before we could carry on racing.
The protests were always accusing us of running ājungle juiceā fuels, and the scrutineers had to take samples/tests straight out of our tank as soon as we finished the race.
We always told them that we were running BP 98 straight out of the bowser, and yet many times it tested 100-103 Octane depending on whether it was fuel we got that day, or was leftover from the last meeting a couple of weeks beforehand.
We had to get a letter from the head of BP explaining why our ā98ā unleaded was returning such high octane levels, and we were always having to explain that we werenāt doing anything dodgy with additives/fuel mixtures etc in our Drag Car
Soā¦ā¦ā¦ if you are still awake and interested, yeah, BP98/SHELL VORTEX and use within a month of putting in your tanks for best performance, donāt leave vehicles/machines sitting with full tanks for months on end!
Final point, ALWAYS use an upper valve lubricant additive in all of your old leaded engines, even if you have had the heads rebuilt for unleaded, that only protects the valve seat and not your valve stems/guides from excessive wear/damage from the lack of lubrication that they used to receive from leaded fuel.
Any questionsā¦ā¦ or am I now banned from replying or being restricted to 4 sentence comments instead ?
I had to read that in two sittings with a cuppa inbetween.
But very informative
I meant to get on this topic the other day last I spoke but I got interrupted. I knew youād know a fair bit about it.
Lots of interesting info there. That rings true with my little experiences.
Like in my experience BP98 would run better than Caltex premium that may have been sitting at the servo for months if not weeks. But to get BP98 I have to go further away. So the BP98 would have been fresher.
Makes it hard at times when I only want 5ltrs to get the '91 AG bike going for a couple hours to round up sheep then be stuck doing something else for weeks on end. Or get a call that the truck is coming in an hour and I canāt start the auger to load it up with grain.
I know about the evaporation of ULP as I did buy 1000ltrs several years ago and oh&s law states on farm above ground fuel tanks must be vented. Or the delivery company will not fill it/sell. I could see it vented out the vent and the gauge dropping before I could use it all. So stopped buying that, might as well throw money in the air. And it stank.
Got used to smelling off ULP now smells like varnish. Clean carby float bowls looks like snot in the bottom.
Very appreciative of the info Biker and Doc.
I think Iāll just have to make time and drain the fuel if Iām not going to use it for awhile.
Damn I miss the days of Super.
I know I have to stay away from that E10 shit as that eats the rubbers, like the accelerator pump diaphragm and float valve in my bikes. As far as I understand. I just steer clear of it or that E85.
Good to hear BP still do the good stuff. Iād always try get that over any other brand as my bike would always run better, start easier, run cooler. The manual says 95ron for it.
Iāll try this octane booster, Iāve already ordered it, says it will raise by āup toā 7 numbers. Nulon brand. I usually just buy a jerry can of ULP at nearest town, to run the generator when the power shits, chainsaws, lawnmowers, auger motors. See if that helps.
I use this Castrol Fuel Doctor 1 Litre (4100450) | Google Shopping in all my fuels including diesel. Bought a big bottle.
Failing that I guess Iāll have to make more trips to the big smoke once a month to get a jerry can of BP98.
Thank you guys for your knowledge 
I had 2 beers 
I now have a broken thumb and aching tendon in my arm, because believe it or not, I type everything out one letter at a time using only my left thumbā¦ā¦ much to the amusement of my daughter and any millennials watching me!
@Maiphut ā¦ā¦ no beers were harmed in the making of this reply, but I had 3 coffees though @Bikersmurf !
Speaking of beer though, Iām going to crack a Black Duck after that comment 
Octane boosters/fuel stabilisers are unfortunately a waste of money @Maiphut , which advice came directly from my mate who works in the fuel industry who highly advised against them.
(EDIT: Just researched the fuel stabiliser you linked, and is a proper product 
I naturally thought it was just the cheap gimmicky stuff you find on the shelf at the local servo!)
Unfortunately the only go around is to use BP98/VORTEX (Caltex fuels are a lower quality blended product according to his knowledge).
Also advised about the need to fill fuel tanks with just enough petrol to get the job done, otherwise must be kept/stored in airtight containers in a cool/dark environment.
The 98 is guaranteed minimum octane when stored like this at a 4 week period, but again is still more likely to still be 100+ octane after a month and quite possibly still 98 octane after 5-6 months of proper storage
Upper Cylinder Lubricant also works well as a fuel stabiliser/anti-knock agent/lubricant when mixed in a fuel tank as you are about to be using the machine for a few days/weeks, but not if you mix it into bulk containers for long term storage before using.
I have run the Australian Made FlashLube on all my vehicles/engines for 25+ years and is highly recommended
Shitā¦ā¦ getting a sore thumb again, time for a can or two of āpainkillersā
Flashlube yes was using that in my diesel conditioner for 15yrs probly longer. Dad was running it through his truck as well. But have switched to that Doctor one due to supply issues.
To not turn you into broken thumb Bob . If I get a jerry of standard ULP locally and drop in the recommended amount of Pro-Strength Octane Booster (PSOB) (nulon.com.au) thatās no good?
Reply another day Doc. There is no rush. Just thought of it I got spare time as this storm goes over. Thought Iād make a bit of a discussion on here
Late reply because my thumb/forearm is in traction, plus just been on the phone catching up with mates/family for the new yearā¦ā¦. and canāt operate the phone with my beer holding hand!
I would definitely drop the NULON product, again from experience with another couple of long time mates who were involved in the vehicle sales and large aftermarket retail industries.
My memory is still hazy, but from recollection, I do remember being told that NULON was a scam headed by the FORD Motor Company of Australia in the late 70ās- early 80ās as the first manufacturers to introduce the concept of āon sellingā products to new car buyers/customers as a means for financial gains for both NULON and FORD Australia operations.
This bullshit practice still operates today with New Car Salesman āsellingā upgraded after sales products to unwary buyers to boost their profits and after sale prices.
I believe that it was first introduced with the release of the new XD Model Ford Falcon in 79-80 that they massively marketed and pushed various NULON products into their advertising and sales pitchesā¦ā¦. obviously through a contract that benefited both NULON and FORD profits.
I could probably google search the exact history and the plethora (bobs favourite word) of dodgy products that were offered to new car buyers in the showrooms, but that would be too much work, so Iāll just stick with whatever comes to mind at this moment 
I remember their were Engine Oil/Coolant/Washer Bottle additives, gearbox/diff oil additives, special greases/lubricants, paint protection products, interior protection products for plastics/cloths etc, blinker fluid and high performance ashtrays or whatever other bullshit they could come up with to get their customers to pay for these products, on top of the sales price, and also add into their āmaintenance schedulesā to extract every last dollar out of their customers
Iām sure that this sort of crap will still ring true with buyers in this market even to this day about āadded extra productsā such as paint protection, anti rust systems and whatever else they can dream up to push their products onto the market.
From every single mate that I have known since being in the industry, not only back then, but even to this very dayā¦ā¦.
( just had a mate visit 2 hours ago who is the top new car Salesman for a major Car Dealership in Bunbury turn up in a new display model to give it a ātest driveā)
ā¦ā¦ā¦ who we have both laughed about this sort of crap being onsold to the buyers
Every single mate that I have in the industry have all stated that none of these products do what they claim to do, mainly because from the very beginning, the car manufacturers still have to comply with their factory warranties on all of their vehiclesā¦ā¦ā¦ which basically means that any product that is added or applied to the factory vehicle CANNOT alter the engineering/manufacturing guidelines of ANY PART OF THE VEHICLE!
This means that if NULON products actually effected any mechanical parts, paint finishes or interior components, then they COULD NOT be claimed under warranty by the Car Yards/Distributors if anything went wrong with the product altering the manufacturerās product off of the production line!
Think about this statement REALLY carefully!
A manufacturer invests millions of dollars in designing/developing/building/testing a brand new vehicle for market.
Those millions of dollars spent guarantees that vehicle is fit for service for X amount of years/miles when operated with the correct factory specified engineered oils/filters/greases/coolants etc etc that they were designed for.
If the new buyer pours all of these new fangled products thatās sold to them by recommendation by the dealerships and something failsā¦ā¦ then thereās absolutely zero comeback from the dealer regarding warranties because they āmodified the specifications of the vehicleā.
So how did FORD and NULON manage this situationā¦ā¦ simpleā¦ā¦. just make sure that the NULON products didnāt actually do JACK SHIT to the factory specifications that they were applied to!
Big win/win situation where FORD/NULON got to scam billions of dollars out of their customers for bullshit products, which at the same time didnāt alter a DAMN THING in the claims that they were making about these miracle productsā¦ā¦ all to ensure that they could not interfere/influence the factory developed oils/fluids etc that were proven to be safe and long lasting for their vehicles to mitigate any warranty issues.
The best outcome for NULON is that they built their brand name and reputation over all of these decades as selling products that were ābackedā by FORD Australia themselves, so in the public domain, they MUST be legitimate products
Sooooā¦ā¦ getting back to modern day times, how many Vehicle dealerships to this day still try and on sell āextended warrantiesā, āPaint Protectionā and āElectronic Rust Prevention Systemsā etc etc?
Can you also guess what all of the above actually do for the customers who are paying all of that extra money for such bullshitā¦ā¦. yep, absolutely feckall!
Three Black Duck reply
After that biblical reply, I just clicked the link to the NULON octane booster.
Can only tell you that my mate who was the Regional Manager for every single AUTO ONE store in the whole Southwest region of WA gave me a pallet load of this stuff to āget rid of it somewhereā.
That told me lots without even having to ask the question
I think we used it for fire lighting and washing parts or whatever!
Oh right. Bugger I shouldāve asked first and bought later. Didnāt know Nulon was a Ford thing. Canāt have that shit in my Yamaha! Oh will if it ignites at least I can start my house fire with it in Winter. Expensive kindling but eh whaddyoudo.
Doing finger of scotch reply length now. 
I had to have a lie down earlier after the information dump.
Actually I had to buy that special fitting (Nulon) to do an oil change on the Ranger gearbox. That thing sucks, who designed that should be shot and the rear pan bolts. Prick of a thing to do. To adjust the bands up gotta take a splash guard off and can only get to the first two anyway. Took me bloody good 5hrs. Apparently itās a shit gearbox and blows up because they never service it as itās meant to be a sealed unit. Or something like that.
My condolences upon hearing that you own a Ford Redhead/Ranga!
The manufacturer spent millions of dollars making sure that the average Australian in their back shed had absolutely no chance in trying to access/service their own vehicles
More after sales dollars where every single customer MUST bring their vehicle back to the dealership for simple maintenance requirements
I wonāt inconvenience anyone with another long Doc Bob rant this evening, but I will rest up tonight, get some medical treatment for my left thumb and forearm tendonsā¦ā¦ and then unleash a rant tomorrow about manufacturers purposely designing their products to be completely untouchable/unserviceable for their customers!
EDIT : 8 Black Duck reply and still counting, so might be a bit late joining in tomorrow 
