Has anyone run their tank dry?
 

We all know when the light comes on but how much does the damn tank actually hold?

Have you a 16L or 19L tank?

https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...k-range-25284/

16L. Did some searching and I guess 3.3 is average with .9 gallons worth of wizbang engineering left unusable?

Ran my 19litre dry, or I should say the bike stopped and I coasted into the Service Station and could only get 16 Litres in.

Poor design that is!!!

To answer your first question, yes. Shortly after the light came on it started running on one cylinder (kinda like a low-tech cylinder deactivation :) ) long enough to coast into a gas station.

I came really close last weekend. I was pushing it to see how much range I could get out of it. The RROD light came on at 90 miles, and I was on the freeway in 6th gear. I went into the conservative mode and nursed it for 20 more miles. I stopped to fill up at 111 miles.

I put in 4.07 gallons. Judging by my grade-school math, if the tank holds 16 liters (4.23 gallons), I was getting 25-27 mpg, and I had around 4 more miles of freeway travel before it became a push-bike.

I think I'm going to pick up a small fuel reserve bottle and test this a few more times. With a range this short, I want to be able to use all of it.

http://www.motorcycletraveldvds.com/...motorcycle.jpg

If you get a fuel bottle, the MSR bottles are a great design and come in several different sizes. One will actually fit under the Superhawk's seat with a little modification.

http://cdn.pnwriders.com/images/smilies/plusone.gif The MSR bottle is exactly what I'm looking at. What kind of modifications are you referring to?

I was able to fit the 20 fl.oz. MSR fuel bottle under the Superhawk's seat. The place where I purchased it had three different sizes and the nice lady at the cash register let me leave my motorcycle jacket with her as collateral while taking the three bottles outside to the parking lot to my bike to see which one fit.

It looks funny on an angle, but that is the only way to get it to fit. By placing the fuel bottle in this spot, you need to relocate your Honda bag 'o tools to between the battery box and the fuses. It fits. My bag even has a crap load more tools inside of it. The bag barely closes.

Attachment 22928

For the fuel bottle to fit with the seat closed, you need to remove three plastic tabs (shown below)

Attachment 22929

Although I went with the K.I.S.S. rule on mine, if you wanted to go further and have more room, you can remove the two trays that the fuel bottle is sitting ontop of. A dremel and some plastic welding will take care of it.


You know, while I was looking at this stuff, I opened my MSR fuel bottle and...it has F'n RUST starting inside of it! Damnit all. It's just spotty surface rust, but still. I purchased this back in September or August of last year! It has had its top tightly closed since I bought it too. What the hell?

Attachment 22930

Got lucky, coasted into the gas station last night, engine died completely just as I turned in. It took 3.995 gallons = 15.15 Liters.

Rust in an aluminum bottle?

Cheap aluminium. Oxidizes easily.

I tried really hard to ride to dry even carrying a gal reserve with me. I was trying to calibrate my CBR float in the tank to show empty at true empty. Kept chickening out or just gettng sick of riding around.

These are the things that baffle you about Honda. Its like a half engineered bike. Lots of their recent bikes are worse.

One thing though, be aware that as you run empty you may start getting the crud and water from the bottom of the tank. Thats a common way to clog carbs.

This whole thing inspired me to install the fuel filters.

The best modification is a Sargent seat. The seat pan has a curved pocket in it with a small bungee over the top. The seats originally came with a clear tube with rubber caps for storing small items. The fuel bottle will fit right in there.

One other thing. My under seat bottle is a .6 liter SOTO and after a few months with gasoline in it the hollow plastic gap swelled and was very difficult to remove. It was all but impossible to get it back in.

Here is the answer
https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...my-foot-32483/
and here
So give or take a little, ~four gallons. Because of YMMV there's no way to know how much has been used until it runs out. Better have a full fuel bottle with you if you're going to flirt with the RLOD.
I have never seen an MSR bottle do what Crux's did. Been using them since the '70's. I have only used white gas in mine so maybe it's the alcohol in the fuel.
The Honda "bag o tools" will also fit to the rear of the seat latch, up against the tail light housing. I'm using a slighter shorter Sigg fuel bottle, and it fits without having to angle it. Saves a bit of room.

You are using the bottle just to dump in the tank when you can right? I always thought it would be great to use the space on the sides of the subframe in the tail fairing.

There is a bmw and an aprilia that use that space. You could just plumb it into the tand or petcock it to make it your reserve. How hard could it be?

Might need to pump it in

I worked on that for a bit and never found two small bladders that would work..
The concept is easy..
2 each 2 liter bladders connected by a Y to a small pump... Wait for primary tank to be close to empty, activate pump and move fuel from bladders to main tank.

I even had a small filler I found that could be fit into the tail section. (airplane part)

But the road block was the bladders...

A later idea was to MOD a seat and seat cowl... basically cutting the seat off just behind the cowl and using that space for a 1 gal bladder which I did find readily.

In the end I decided the work was not worth the result. Other than my Iron Butt ride to the Indy Moto GP last year and a few other longer distance rides I've done.. I have no need for more than 100 miles per tank..and I have that now.

skokievtr solved this long ago. Just look at his avatar.