Hello, Background story. Ive recently bought a 2019 Scrambler Cafe Racer. It's not got a beast of an engine so I've put a full Akrapovic system on it, with a K&N filter to follow shortly. I'll then look to get it mapped. I'm not sure what fuel is in it, so I'll dump it, as I'm not a fan of E10. So my question is, to get the best out the old girl, should I run E5 or the highest octane I can get (98/99 I think). Ideally I'd put this is before the remap? Cheers, Bob
I’m not sure what you expect from an 803cc, air cooled, 2 valve engine. It doesn’t have the big valves and high compression to benefit from high octane fuel. I’m also concerned that the rolling chassis isn’t up to much more performance, the suspension is budget (and that’s being generous) and the single front disc brake is severely limited by a shite master cylinder. I put an Öhlins rear shock and an upgrade master cylinder on our Icon. Still trying to persuade my girlfriend to let me get a Nitron fork cartridge kit for it but she still has a lot of fun on it and is by no means slow Andy
You will get no performance benefit from a high octane fuel whatsoever unless the engine has been tuned to match. The only reason for a high octane fuel is to to prevent detonation from a high compression ratio. They however have a lower alcohol content which can have other benefits- less corrosion, less likely to damage fuel system components. I've ran my Scrambler Classic on ordinary E5 from new but it's been running happily on E10 for the last couple of years with no issues. I brim the tank with E5 before laying it up for the winter though. No kind if alcohol free fuel is available here in Scotland.
I don't think ethanol-free petrol is available anywhere in the UK since Esso added it to their E5 in September last year?
Yep, I'm not expecting much but a little tweak won't harm. It'll mainly be for short journeys on the road but I might do the odd trackday. The exhaust and remap should get a few more horses out of it, and in total I've taken about 10kg of it so far. I had Dave [ex Mupo] Croft fit some Bitubo internals and I've fitted a matching rear shock. As you suggest, the standard suspension parts are very budget. My biggest disappointment so far is the overall build quality. So many Allen bolts are made of chocolate and I've just had to take the air box cover off while it's still attached to one of the front panels, as the captive part in the airbox lid is just spinning. I've had about half a dozen similar issues so far. I've not managed to get an upmap [yet] for the Akrapovic, so I may have to get it properly mapped on a dyno. Cheers, Bob
