i posted a few days ago about buying a 04 ninja 500. I haggled my way down to $3100 including tax, tag, etc. I love the bike so far! Rain has put a hamper on my fun but logged a good 60 miles on it. When it comes to refueling this thing what do u guys reccommend? friend told me 87 is just fine but wanna make sure. Also anyone know of any good sites for ex500 aftermarket accessories(i.e. custom lights/fairings)?

 

i use denniskirk.com for cheap overstock stuff and it's worked for me but i bet there is 100X more sites out there.


sounds like a great deal and good luck with your new bike!! Welcome to KF

 

Gratulations.
Anything higher than 87 is a waste of money.
Depends on what kind of accessories you want to put on your bike. (Stock is best in just about everything except for suspension (Racetech springs), rearview mirrors ('02-'03 ZX9R OEM Kawasaki) and fairing dampers (OEM Kawasaki).
Ride safely and good luck with the new baby!
Peace!
-CCinC

 

Sounds like you got a fair shake to me too. Hope you have fun with it. I got a used '05with 2,500 miles on it a while back and have ridden it almost 10,000 miles now. It hada little damage but nothing significant and its been great so far, though I'm itching for a bigger engine now.

Don't know what to say on the gas, but the tank only holds a little over4 gallons so you're not talking a ton of money using the pricier stuff when you fill up, less than a buck really, even with today's prices. I know that adds up over the long haul but it does seem to make a difference gas mileage-wise so its probably a wash paying that extra for the good stufffor a fulltank.

 

well my gas hog of a car requires 93+ octane so i dont mind getting it at every fill up just wondering what everyone else ran. how about a splash of sunoco race fuel? I keep a drum of 260 gt plus(104oct) for the camaro and was wondering if it would hurt this little motor?

 

Higher octane = less available energy in the fuel. Those magic additives they put in pump premium and race gas is not as flammable/energetic/volatile as pure gasoline, no matter what Chevron's marketing and our own ambivalence-avoidance tells us.
Higher compression engines like your 93+ gas-hog require the higher octane (less energy) fuel to keep the temperature under control to avoid detonation and pinging hot valves. Lower compression engines (like our excellent 500) perform just as well (or perhaps better, sorry JChris) with lower octane fuel.
If anyone has any links or information proving otherwise, I'm open to reading them. (But I haven't seen any that were convincing enough so far.)
Peace!
-CCiNC

 

well higher octane keeps the engine clean, less carbon build up and actually prevents it.

 

Negative. More marketing claims about Techron which are absolutely untrue.
The same hillbillies who think race-fuel (which is formulated for higher compression engines which cannot handle the higher heat generated by the more energetic (lower octane) fuel) will automatically make your bike faster, also buy the line that less flammable additives will somehow burn cleaner?!
All you need do to prevent carbon build-up is:
~Minimize use of the choke. The choke is used only to keep an engine running long enough for you to put on your helmet and gloves, not idling your engine at 2500+ rpm for 5 minutes to 'warm-the-engine-up'.
~Stick with stock jetting. Most dynotuners manipulate settings on a dyno to give the appearance of power gains. But they really just solve any carburetion problems by throwing more fuel at them across the entire rpm range. As an old EX500 racer once told me: "We spent thousands of laps and thousands of dollars trying to learn how to be a little faster than each other, and what we ultimately learned is that Mr. Kawasaki knows alot more about internal combustion engines and hydrodynamics than Mr. K and Mr. N do."
~Winterize your bike if you're not going to ride it for several months. Starting the bike for 10 minutes and running it long enough to move the thermometer needle is a terrific way to increase carbon build-up and shorten the life of your engine.
~Ride it on the freeway at least once a week. These 500's are frequently used as around-town bikes or learners, and they don't see much time on the freeway when the rpms, workloads, and oil pressure are higher. But this engine is basically half of a Concours (ZG1000) engine, which is based on the Ninja 1000 (which was the hottest sportbike of the mid- to late-80's when the national speed limit was 55 miles per hour) and it's made to REV. Idling, riding around at low-rpm in stop-n-go traffic will therefore kill an engine deader than fried-chicken.

Ignoring these guidelines are more detrimental to your engine than 87 octane. But it's your money and your bore, so have fun either way.
Peace!
-CCinC

 

running higher octane than recommended can cause incomplete burning which actually causes more carbon to build up.