Riders Of Vision

I just topped off the Blue Hammer this morning after I hit the usual "RESERVE" limit, which in my case is about 260kms and am currently using Shell V-Power 91 octane.  The only erason I am using that brand and octane right now is because it is supposedly the only one that hos NO Ethanol in it.

So I calculated my fuel usage and it came out to be 5.731481481481481 liters/100kms and travelled 270 kms.  Which works out to be 167.7702219040802 miles in distance and a usage of 4.088062510242347 gallons, which in turn gives me 41.0390549273021mpg.  And it cost me $16.76 CDN to fill up.

I am very very very very very envious

I get 190km from full to reserve. I really think that my carbs need to be leaned out a bit

 :) I'm not really 100% sure what "The Mistress" does...it all depends on the speed, road conditions, weather, single/two up, etc...I know she's around 250/260 to reserve, on whoever has the cheapest regular gas around.......but then again, I don't really care to much about such things, she's my 'toy' and runs like a top... 8)

               

I always run 300km before hitting reserve with any type of combo driving, the last tank (regular octane 87) I did about 315km.  It's possibly my carb settings and maybe my modified MAC exhaust that has higher back pressure for better low to middle range performance would be my guess.

Now I do know that my speedometer does not read correctly as it shows slower (100km is really about 108km) then I am really going possibly due to larger 100/90 tire on front (stock was 90/90), which means I am most likely getting better than 315km to a tank.  NV gets really good mileage too and seems to be more comparable to mine.

Additionally, those who opt out of using the YICS will undoubtedly have lower gas mileage. You can squeeze more distance with that little unit helping to push  ;).

Hi Guys,  I usually get fuel economy in the low 50 mpg range and my last tankfill was 221 miles ( 356 km ) with 55.9 mpg. I use the regular grade fuel with an octane rating of 87. I do work at getting good fuel economy and recently rebuilt my carbs for the first time in 26 years.
Things I do to improve fuel economy are : upshift at lower rpms using the awesome torque of the V-twin motor, ride at the speed limit,  maintain momentum by avoiding braking and acceleratiom, anticipate stops by looking far down the road and adjusting accordingly and avoiding the full stop if I can, avoiding excessive idling, etc. As far adjustments to the bike, I keep my tire pressure at 40 psi front and rear and make sure that I have no brake drag. The vision can be very fuel efficient if you keep it well maintained and ride it that way. Fuel efficiency has been an interest of mine for a long time and I'm glad to help others. Some great sources of tips and information can be found on hypermiling forums such as www.cleanmpg.com, www.gassavers.org and www.ecomodders.com
best wishes,   DarkV

DarkV, are you running with the YICS or without?  Any changes from the factory stock equipment?

Hi Fretnut,   I run with all standard settings and with YICS connected. When I rebuilt my carbs for the first time after 26 years of ownership I was suprised to see how clean they were. Taking the floats off was a b!!!!h but other than that it went pretty smooth. I have drained the carbs a few times so that may have helped.
My best tankfill  was 61 mpg and I think I can top  that with my recent tanks being in the mid 50mpg range.  We'll see.
Best wishes , Dark V

Non-stock items on my Vision:  Uni air filter, modified right side mirror ( smaller for less aerodymnamic resistance) , 40 psi tires and a shark fairing.

I used to get 138 miles city before I switched to the vacuum air box and bulletin jetting,now I'm at about 127! I   think I'm going to put back the original '82 air box and jetting back. I get more low end power now,but in orriginal form I had more top end and better mileage!

I just got 270 klms today and never hit reserve.I put some MotorMaster fuel injector cleaner in the tank a few fill-ups ago and it works wonders.

I re-jetted my carbs recently and tonight I got to check the MPG since I needed some eGas

I'm at 47 mpg / ~20km/liter... mixed riding (testing and cruising)

I went BIG on the jets... 127.5 / 130 mains and 62.5 fuel pilots (custom made).. and I kept the 130/135 air pilots I had been running

I was surprised when I pulled the plugs.. .they looked perfect and not rich at all...
she runs great, got rid of my 4.5-5k "surge" and only dropped a couple of mpegs

 Touring on the Red/White 83 loaded with Krausers & a waterproof duffle usually nets me 50 to 56 mpg (Imperial Gallon) 5 us = 4 Imp.
  The big variable is the wind speed & direction, I have got 72 mpg with a tail wind & 36 heading into the same wind.
                    Cheers Ken S.   

Yes...Kenny and you forgot to mention you run the Euro gearing which has to boost your mileage figures  ;).  Totally respectable with everything in proper order on a Vision.

Cheers

I'm like Tiger, as long as she's running great she's my toy and I flog her if I feel like flogging her.

Oh these north of the border people and their KM's!

Not really caring I figure 35-40 normally, low 40's on a longer trip.

Yeah, Kenny does get better mpg then me, he made the next gas stop, I was dead in the road! Must be that European gearing.

For those with 82's and running the 100/90 tire when the stock setup was 90/90 you will have a speedo correction to consider.  You are actually getting better mileage than you think if you can factor in the speedo correction.  I checked mine with my GPS and the error increases by as much as 10% when travelling the speed limit of 100kmph or 62mph.  The speedo is setup for the stock tire and they no doubt changed that for the 83 model, but I really don't know for certain how Yamaha may have handled this.

Hey CLouie When you rebuilt my carbs, did you change the jets?

I run an Avon 100-90-110-90 (front, rear) and have been told by other riders that when my speedo says 55 I am going 60 on their speedo's. Sort of wish it were the other way around as it means if I think I'm only going 7 or 8 over I maybe 11-13 over, that puts me in ticket land.  So, if I go down the road for an hour at an indicated 60 mph-which appears to really be 65 mph, what will my odometer register-I suppose if it only registers 60 miles when I did 65 miles that would sure over the long haul throw off MPG calculations.

But I'm not really too worried about any of this-other then perhaps watching my speed so I don't get in ticket land.   

Don ,  when I was battling  speedo error , while living in OR. I discovered the same error , except that it got worse with increased speed, At 80 mph  the error was much worse. 80 mph was actually 100 mph. My solution was to get a Canadian instrument set. like the US '83 speedo, the Canadian one is far more accurate. The 85 mph one is not much.
I was stopped by the OR. HP  and informed I was doing 82 mph , while my speedo indicated 68. I checked the error on I 5 ,which has a 5 mile stretch of mile markers. This prompted me to hunt down a Canadian '82 speedo, as the US '83 is very hard to find. Since then I found a Canadian '83 , which is a bit different .  It seems to be very accurate.

Interesting, I'll keep that in mind if it gets out of control. I find it kind of interesting when I ride with other people and my speedo is at 55-and I know there speedo says we are going 60-it just seems like we are just slogging along anymore-the V enjoys it more when the my speedo says 60-65.

You are right Rick as the answer is to update to the 83 setup and I think that the US model should also make the right correction for the larger tire.  The thing is I don't know if it corrects in the speedo or in the worm gear on the front wheel.  I picked up an 83 wheel gear that I intend to try (sometime in the near future) to see if it does the correction.

You are right Don the error compounds with increased speed.  You are safe under 45 mph or 70 kmph, but once you hit 50mph or 80 kmph you are about 5 over the speed limit and at 60mph or 102kmph you are almost 10 over.  Get up around 70mph and you will doing some explaining to the enforcement people.  Everyone who runs the larger front tire should keep this in mind.  I verified these values with my GPS so it is a fact.

P.S. Raj - you have stock jetting for the Canadian models & you have no YICS.

Well now you got me worried, guess I'll have to see what it does at the higher speeds, at this time the other riders-were I in the lead-would tell me I was pretty much always five over. Lets see now, where were the local cops putting their radar trailer, you know they have these small trailers with a flashing sign telling you your speed, saw it about two days ago or so..... 

Actually I think it stays pretty constant, I don't find myself zooming past the traffric around me-usually I'm just going with the flow-as most everyone around here seems to drive 5 to 10 over.   

For speeds under 60 your only going to be about 5-8mph over, and most of those speed radars are in the slower speed zones, so pretty hard to tell or hold a consistent speed.  A GPS will confirm, and it makes sense that the more revolutions your wheel spins the larger the discrepancy, so normally it is not a problem for any legal limits, but a very good thing to keep in mind if you are pushing the limits and relying on your speedo for accuracy.

Hey...any good riding out your way?  I am planning a western trip next summer and might scoot through your territory.  We can test your speedo accuracy  :D.

Well you know, small hills, corn fields, bean fields, loss hills on the Iowa side, come on by!

OK, so who is our math wiz, Vision in 5th gear, rear tire Avon 110/90, speedo says 60 tach says 5400, what is real speed, next quiz, Vision in 5th gear, same tire, speedo says 70, tach says 6300, real speed is ??. 

Fudge factor, sort of tricky to keep speedo exactly on speed and look at tach and of course the road-so tach reading could be 100 plus or minus. 

Common, this should just be a math problem, we need the Visions final gear ratio, circumferance of tire, we know the engine speed, there figures should all be on the internet someway, common math wiz!   

Don...next time I'm out with the GPS I will note the speed corrections and post them for you. The math hurts my head. But at 60 it is out 5-8mph and at 70 you are closer to the 8mph so that it where it will bite you in the ...let's say wallet for now, if you end up running a radar trap.

The rear tire and rpm's really don't matter because it is the front tire ratio that has changed and lowered the speedometer reading as a result.  The circumference is larger on the front and covering more road than the smaller 90/90 tire for the same rpm's so it is like the front tire has slowed down in revolutions and as a result your going faster than you think.

Fortunately, this error is almost neglible on the lower speeds where most speed traps are.  I start thinking about it when I go over 50mph and start keeping to the actual speed limit and not pushing it say 5mph over.

Hardly anyone has really noticed this until we started using GPS.  I just thought my buddies were all slowpokes and the Vision never complained, but at highway speeds I always wondered why everyone tended to drag back from me and this pretty much explains it.

Have fun anyway... ;)

Basically the same here, I couldn't understand why the two guys I was with weren't moving along when the speed limit changed and so passed them thinking that they thought that I, on the smaller bike (they were on a Ventura and sprint) didn't want to move up to the higher limit-in reality they were already going the limit.

Actually it wasn't until the fall of last year that the friend on the Ventura told me if he followed me I was always going five over or so.

I still think it would be an interesting math problem and since it's about checking true speed the front tire only plays in the problem as your checking the accuracy of the speedo.

Quote from: don_vanecek on June 18, 2010, 12:40:24 PM
I still think it would be an interesting math problem and since it's about checking true speed the front tire only plays in the problem as your checking the accuracy of the speedo.

Actually no.  The drive train is basically going through the back wheel :-)

The basic formula is RPM / <gear ratio> / <rear-end ratio> * <circumference rear tire in inches> * 60 / 12 / 5280

gives you miles per hour.

I found on lucky's site that the overall gear ratio for the Vision in 5th gear is 6.59.  So, assuming that the rear tire circumference is 75 inches, you get:

5000 / 6.59 * 75 * 60  / 12 / 5280

which gives you 53.89 miles per hour at 5000 RPM.  Now I am guessing on the rear tire circumference and am probably a little large. I am at work and the bike is in the garage.

Brian

Yes... you fellows are both right and speedo accuracy is what we were talking about, and it seems that Brian enjoys the math challenge so you should be able to get your answer that way too, although the fact that the rear tire circumference changes with speed (and air pressure), could throw a wrench in your accuracy (which may well be the most common cause of small speedo errors) there  :-\. I'm a fan of technology doing it for me, but certainly appreciate the thoughtful theory.

Sometimes it is easier to not think too hard... ;D

yeah, I usually just use a GPS :-)

Brian

I usually have a problem running away from people I ride with, but the speedo has nothing to do with it. My friend David Bright , commented that he usually rides a maximum of 5 mph over the limit and I countered with " I usually ride 5 mph over double the speed limit"  . LOL
I'll have to watch it though, the Hualipie Police have acquired  a 6 passenger Ford pickup , which looks like any one of the thousands that are seen around here, except it has a light bar INSIDE the cab at the top of the windshield. I was lucky enough to see it in action , aimed at someone else and again sitting still at the Gas and Grub mini mart in Truxton. I'll have to keep a weather eye open for it , when I'm riding through the reservation.