Mid-grade or 87 octane fuel in an LX?
Thanks to everyone who replied with your mileage numbers. A reader, Harv, posted this in the "comments" section, and I thought it warranted a post. I've only used high octane in all my scooters, so I can't answer his question:
I was wondering if you've tried a Vespa on lower octane fuel. Octane at the right amount for a given engine will prevent engine knock. The spark plug is trying to ignite the fuel at the exact instant when the piston is at tdc but the fuel wants to ignite later or longer. What you end up with is fuel trying to burn after the piston has begun moving away from tdc or is somewhere else in the cycle, maybe even when its trying to come back up to tdc. The engine is basically trying to fight itself. Things break.
But I know on older scooters you can often run 87 octane without any sign of knock whatsoever. Since my LX150 is brand new, I wondered if anyone else has tried running on mid grade or 87 octane and what the results were.
Do you know if anyone's tried mid grade or 87 octane fuel in an LX model Vespa? What were the results?
