Motorcycle engines and the fuel they run on

[Steve Hart]

The subject of fuel RON etc sems to have been discussed at length recently, but I have a related question....

My race car uses a Kawasaki ZZR1100 engine. Firstly, because my understanding of engine tuning is very limited, can someone explain how motorcycle engines are different to road engines? Clearly they are designed to have peak power at the expense of torque as bikes are so light, but what does that actually translate to in their construction and set-up?

Secondly, any advice on what fuel would be best to use? The manufacturers say regular unleaded is ok, but am I likely to get better results with Super? I used to run a Kent FFord on 50:50 leaded:Super, which was apparently the thing to use...then last year a guy from Millers wrote a technical article in the 750MC mag (also promoting their lead substitute, of course), but in it there was a very brief reference to why this 50:50 mix was best - he says that 98RON leaded and 98RON Super combined to give 99RON because of "a reaction with between the lead and Super". I'm a chemist so could probably handle a technical explanation for this one, but it sounds a bit flaky to me?

I understand from the previous discussions that RON does NOT translate to more BHP unless the engine can use it so, again, could a bike engine do this?

Steve

[THR]

Um, bike engines come from bikes, and car engines from cars.
hehe

thats not wot u wanted to know really is it?

bike engines has less inertia, so they can run higher revs.
are designed to have less load put throu them and are therefore lighter, (less metal in shafts conrods etc)
more revs=more power.
they only have less torque cos of less cc's
and the way the are tuned for max power
i suppose u could tune an engine to have more torque, but less power. but then u might get probs with broken bits!

i cant see y u cant run super, and i would.
even super with um... additive, (dont tell anyone) cant hurt it can it! and if u dont get more power, so wot, but if u do great!