A coupla questions about the R850R

[pdmeikle57]

#2895

Hi all.Well I finally found my way back to a Beemer boxer bike  😀I've just picked up a sweet 1997 850, bought through TM, picked it up from Nelson on Saturday and got it back to Auckland Sunday arvo... what a great ride!Anyhoo... hoping someone here can help me out with a couple of questions:will a 1997 850 have a CAT in the exhaust? it is an NZ market bike not an import.On the tank and in the owner handbook it specifies 95 octane yet when I had the RT1100 it happily ran on 91. I wouldn't have thought there was any real difference in the 850 and the 1100?cheersTracy

[Murray]

#11822

Welcome back to the fold Tracy. You've got yourself a nice bike.Yes, it will have a catalytic converter, if the bike has the original muffler. It's in the muffler (joining the muffler and cat into a single unit is a really bad design, if you ask me) and some would say the best thing you could do for the bike, being a little under-powered for its weight, is to find an aftermarket like a Staintune or similar.The R bikes should all be fed premium unleaded relative to their compression ratios, I think the 850 runs about 10:3. They'll run okay on lower octane (some models have an electronic octane adjustment, like your 1100RT I expect) but eventually you'll start to get fuel knock and risk burning the valves. Without getting too technical using a higher octane fuel provides an extra amount of time before the fuel/air mixture ignites. Under high compression, this mixture gets hotter faster and using a low octane fuel could result in the mixture igniting too early and trying to push the piston back down when it's still in its "up" stroke (that's detonation). Using a higher octane gives you some extra insurance. The reason low compression engines don't need the extra octane is that the mixture will not burn as complete anyway, and you'd get worse gas mileage.CheersGarry

[Grant Freeman]

#11823

Hi Tracy,I have an R850R mine is a 1999 model and NZ new and I asked the same question, as there is no Lambda probe stabbed into the collector box before the muffler. I checked my bike details out on http://www.bmw-z1.com/VIN/VINdecode-e.cgi and when you enter the last 7 figures of your VIN number mine came up with "NO CATALIZER" so given no Lamda probe and that statement, I figured out that I dont have one? I have been unable to remove my collector box and muffler to check the weight of it, as there are two screws that dont want to come undone, but I figured that as there were no anti smog regs in NZ in 97 or even 99 or even now 😕 probably they were not fitted with one.Nice bike, I hope you dont have the same problems that I have just had with the dreaded Hall sensors. How many Kms on the clock on yours? and does it have a service history?Cheers,Mike

[Grant Freeman]

#11824

Forgot the bit about 95 octane as well! I run mine on 95 octane and have even tried the gull 98 with ethanol in it and it runs well on that too. I have not tried it on 91, but there are no knock sensors on the engine to retard your ignition, but you may here pinging if you do run it on 91. General rule is anything over 10:1 compression ratio needs 95 octane as a minium.Cheers,Mike 🙄

[pdmeikle57]

#11825

Thanks guys 🙂Mike, it has done 59,000. Two owners, always serviced at BMW dealer. Mostly in CHCH then at Experience where the previous owner got it from.Thanks for the VIN decoder, I'll run my VIN through it now and look to see if I have a lambda sensor.CheersTracy

[pdmeikle57]

#11826

well there you go… no sensor and the decoder lists no catalyser 🙂  Sweet! one less job to do 🙂cool, thanks MikeTracy

[Grant Freeman]

#11827

Hi Tracy,My 99 R850R has done 54000 Kms and service history done from new and I recently had problems with fuel filter and hall sensors which caused the bike to cut out - hopefully you will not experiance this, but if you do, I can let you have more details. Enjoy your R850R and hope to see you on the road one day!The Lambda probe (if there is one) is just behind your rear brake lever area on the stainless collector box. I doubt if there will be one if the VIN thing says that there is No Catalyzer. Are you thinking of dumping the muffler collector box and fitting a pipe and after market muffler? I have thought og it but not got there yet as there are a few tales of woe on line about doing such things. But check this out http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1836053106167881514 Sounds nice hey?  🙄Cheers,Mike Cheers,Mike

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