My bike wont run on Brazilian Fuel !! Ideas ?
 

Has anybody else had major running problems with their bikes in Brazil ??

The fuel here is just crap. Its 30% alcohol and my bike (XT600E) keeps cutting out and leaves me dead at the side of the road. Its really dangerous and I dont know if I should keep going.

Im going to play with the carb a little and see if it helps but all advice and information is gratefully recieved !!

This site mentions the use of acetone to increase milage:

Acetone In Fuel Said to Increase Mileage

It also mentions the evils of alcohol in gasoline.

I can't say if acetone would help, but read the article and maybe give it a try. Maybe the acetone can offset the water in the alcohol a bit.

It is interesting article even if you don't have problems.

Here is a link to another resource for homemade octane booster:

Homebrew Octane Boosters

One other interesting thing is this: (how to remove water from gasoline)

Removing water from gasoline(Bruce Hamilton)


If you have time, then maybe test a few things and let us know the results.
According to the first article your problem may be that there is water in the gas, and this may (or may not) be offset by use of acetone or maybe by "de-watering" the gasoline.

good luck!

I had to get the chip reprogrammed on my F650GS... it ran barely better. in some gas stations they sell some additives to remove water, octane boosters etc.... try that.. also see/ask which gas stations use the least amoung of alcohol.. I would recommend taking your bike to the Yamaha dealer since they probably know the trick to make it run with brasilian fuel..
let us know how u fix it... keep riding Brasil is an amazing place to ride in!:thumbup1:

Dmotorider had a similar problem with his Suzuki V-Strom you could check out his posts to see what he did. I think he is still in Brazil so may still be having problems. I lived in Brazil for 4 years and never had any problems with my Suzuki 1200 Bandit or my Suzuki GSX1100 so they must do something to them in Brazil. Both bikes were imported by Suzuki Brazil into Manaus. Good luch and if you plan on coming to Mexico we can put you up for a few days and show you around.

Fuel problems
 

Seems like a traveler came thru and said his 500 honda single needed a larger main jet to run properly on the brazilian swamp water. The bigger main jet probably wouldn't plug up with water as easily. I assume you are draining your carb on a regular basis to get the crud out.

Well..

Last night I richened up the secondary carb by moving the clip on the needle. It was this carb that had the glazing on the engine side of it.

After a very short test ride, the bike feels a little better at larger throttle openings. Only todays ride north will tell for sure.

I tried an octane booster with no effect.

They sell three types of gas here. Commun, adictivada or super adictivada (I think thats how its spelled). The commun is REALLY bad and the others are really really expensive and I still get cutting out problems with them. I think they just add stabalisers or something.

I know that all foriegn bikes run crap here but mine seems to be REALLY crap.

Ill update this with my findings (if i ever make it to a PC again)

My God,
Brazil is still giving gasoline problems to bikes from another countries...
:oops2:

I'll send messages to some brazilian forums to know what we can do with this.
:blushing:

Podium gas
 

Ted,
I talked (and I'll still talking) with some Brazilian friends and we have an idea.
At Petrobras gas station we have the Podium gas, that is the best we've in Brazil, but, the must expensive of course.
Why you don't test one or two tanks, only do see what happen with the motor?
Can you do this?
And send notices please... :frown:

Also having major problems with the fuel in Brazil.

My Suzuki Vstrom DL1000 has done fine up until this point. No problems with low octane fuel or even low octane leaded fuel in Ecuador. In fact, I think it likes it!

But the ethanol. Yikes! It melted my fuel filter into some sort of Salvador Dali device.


Brazil's ethanol is killing my motorcycle. My Salvador Dali Fuel Filter. photo - rtwrider photos at pbase.com

The bike shut off and fuel went spraying all over my boots and the hot engine. Twice. On the bright side I met some really nice folks while wrenching on the bike.


I always had the occasional blip at 3100 rpms but after filling up for the first time in Brazil everything from 3000-4000 rpms is a horrible mess. Backfiring through the intake and exhaust, sputtering, surging, etc. Highway speeds are fine but low speed is really bad.

Given the prior blip at 3100 this could be an exacerbation of a pre-existing problem. The DL1000 hiccup problem is thoroughly addressed here.

V-Strom Forum - Standard answer - low speed issues DL1000

I spoke with the KTM importer in Sao Paulo, and he said that all of the gasoline is around 86 octane, it is just the additives that vary. And the additives are generally and anti-oxidant

He says that they jet the bikes richer than most other countries, run them with the optional low-octane fuel wire disconnected where this option exists certain models, and change the oil at no more than 5,000km whereas 6,000km would be ok in other countries. We didn´t get to finish this conversation, but I would assume that running the bikes richer is more as a safer approach, in the same way Japanese bikes are jetted slightly rich for each country, as this has less chance of doing engine damage if they are stressed in an environment where a richer jetting is required – low altitude, colder temperature, and low humity. So because there is less actual/normal fuel for every litre you would need to jet the bike richer.

And changing the oil more often i assume is because the additives contaminate the fuel. and plus alcohol doesn´t lubricate like gasoline.

(I have a KTM here now in Brazil and running fine with the wire disconnected, and wasn´t that bad before anyway)

Perhaps an EFI map adjustment would clear things up. I´ve been meaning to add that capability to the machine.

I see many Brazilians happily zipping about on DL1000´s so there must be a trick.

At any rate, I´ve reached my final destination, Rio do Janeiro. Its all jet fuel after this.

Watch out for melting fuel filters. It would be nice to identify the correct type of ethanol tolerant fuel filter for future reference. An aluminum filter might be better.

Alchohol contains much oxygen. therefore unless you jet about 10% bigger for a 30% mix it will run desperately weak. So if you have 135 main jet, try a 145/150 for example.
You will also need to richen idle setting but can usually get away with adjustment and not need jets. Without any parts available at all , just raise the needle a notch or two. This will help mid range significantly.. As an act of desperation, clog or restrict the air filter ( tape over 50/75% of its surface area )

I have no idea how to get around this problem if you are using FI.

It is just another example of teh survivability of old technology. It may not be optimum but is easily adaptable. beats walking anyway :)

What about filtering all this stuff out with a Mr Funnel? Would that leave the purer stuff to go into the tank? If it filter out water, it would filter out the alcohol right?

What Brazil labels Commun is "real" gas, though not nearly the octane or quality of petroleum gas sold in the US. The others are made from greater or lesser degrees of sugar-cane ethanol. I spent months riding around Brazil on a fuel-injected BMW F650GS Dakar without any modifications, burning Commun, without any additional additives or octane boosters--without any problems. Podium is much higher octane and boosts performance dramatically, but it's predominantly available only in the larger southern cities, and is quite pricey.