Hello from greece,
i own a gs 500f 2006 for 2 months. I read in other topics that everyone gets 50+ mpg (21 Km/liter ) i get around 35 mpg (15 km/l).
I have installed a KN drop in air filter .I haven't rejetted as in KN instructions it said that if you keep the restrictor (not sure for the name,i mean that plastic that you can remove from the filter) you dont need rejetting.
Maybe i need valves adjacement but i do not know how/if this affects consumption.
Any ideas about improving consumption because i run the bike for 100 Km per day ?

Quote from: adminious on March 17, 2009, 02:50:45 AM
Hello from greece,
Any ideas about improving consumption because i run the bike for 100 Km per day ?

Go back to the stock setup.
Never go above about 3.5krpm
Keep your tyres pumped up.
Oh yeah........loose about 5st.

I have a slightly better suggestion than Sledge here.
Usually high float causes fuel over flow into air box, a rich mix that causes power loss and makes you use more throttle to get the same power etc etc.
I suggest you check that out.
Cool.
Buddha.

No more than 3.5 RPM??That's to slow driving.On a highway with 6th gear its about 70Km/h (about 43 miles per hour).Cant drive so slow.
To have a 50mpg have i to drive so slow?For normal driving about 6000 rpm what is the normal mpg for the GS?

Budha what do you mean high float?I am no a mechanic,thats my first b ike and i am still learning...
Thanks you all for replying

I drive freeways a lot so in my case going +2 on the front sprocket gave me a jump from around 60 mpg to 70 mpg, and when I took it really slow I have seen as high as 85 mpg.

There are a number of things that might be up. I get by fine at 50-ish MPG without being quite so restrained as Sledge seems to think, but on the other hand I didn't bother to post in the "how fast have you gotten your GS up to" post, either. I do have stock intake and exhaust (well, exhaust "returned to equivalent of stock by addition of a soup can", anyway.)

It's possible that a previous owner swapped to a smaller front sprocket - that would hurt mileage. Open the sprocket cover and count the teeth. 16 front 39 back is standard.

Here's the float height page, to check on what Buddha mentioned
http://www.bbburma.net/FloatHeight.htm

Are the brakes binding? If you have a section of traffic free road (or parking lot) with a very gentle downhill, can you roll down it in nuetral, starting from a stop? Are your brakes hot every time you stop, even if you have not been doing much braking?

Here are some old mileage threads:
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=40298.0
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=38965.0

I seem to recall someone that had terrible milage which did turn out to be valves way out of adjustment.

Quote from: adminious on March 17, 2009, 02:50:45 AM
Hello from greece,
i own a gs 500f 2006 for 2 months. I read in other topics that everyone gets 50+ mpg (21 Km/liter ) i get around 35 mpg (15 km/l).
I have installed a KN drop in air filter .I haven't rejetted as in KN instructions it said that if you keep the restrictor (not sure for the name,i mean that plastic that you can remove from the filter) you dont need rejetting.
Maybe i need valves adjacement but i do not know how/if this affects consumption.
Any ideas about improving consumption because i run the bike for 100 Km per day ?

I recently typed all my gas receipts from the last year into fuelly. When I first bought my GS, I got pretty bad mileage and have been doing better ever since without any changes to the bike's setup. I have done valves, but I haven't rejetted or changed the intake or exhaust. I figure it must have been my lack of smoothness when I first started riding. Concentrate on riding as smoothly as possible and avoiding doing things like revving way up when starting from a stop and see what that does to your mileage. You can check out all the data for my bike here: http://www.fuelly.com/driver/fredzyda/gs500e-2. As you can see, I don't get 50mpg all that often and I've even reported a couple of tanks of gas in the low 30's right when I started out. It sounds like your mileage might be a little low, but nothing that couldn't be explained by driving style...

Adminious?
Are your figures based on the imperial gallon used throughout Europe or the more `generous` US gallon?

Bare in mind that 1 imperial gallon = 1.2 US gallons so if you havent factored this in to your calculations you shouldnt be surprised to see US owners quoting 20% more mpg than the rest of the world gets.

Other way around, sledge - the imperial gallon is about 1.2 us gallon - and that means more miles per imperial gallon, which there is more of.

4.5 liters/imperial gallon 3.8 liters/US gallon

Quote from: fred on March 17, 2009, 08:32:05 AM
It sounds like your mileage might be a little low, but nothing that couldn't be explained by driving style...

+1

I get lower mileage when I ride alone because I ride more aggressively and do highway driving.  When I slow down and take back roads 2-up and with a pack, I get better mileage.  adminious, you asked "To have a 50mpg have i to drive so slow?".  In short, yes, the slower you go, the lower the wind resistance and the more efficient your ride will be.  If you do highway riding at 60+ MPH all the time then, yes, you will get lower mileage than if you drive back roads at 30 MPH.  Although your MPG do sound low, I have to agree with fred's comment that it can be explained by driving style.

Another point to be made: driving slow can mean one of two things: driving at lower speed or accelerating less quickly. Under heavy acceleration, your bike will burn tons of fuel and I'm willing to bet that getting up to speed more slowly makes more of a difference than the actual speed you're going. Clutch technique might be making a difference as well, if you're slipping the clutch a lot while revving the bike really high every time you start, you might be wasting a lot of gas as well.

Sledge, imperial pints are larger, which is why imperial gallons are larger. An imperial pint is 20 ounces while a us pint is only 16. It is all about beer, the US adopted the British wine pint while the British eventually decided to get rid of their multiple definitions of pint and went with the one for beer...

Even at those speeds I have almost always gotten over 50mpg on highway commuting.  58mpg on city commuting.  This is before any changes. 

This is riding fairly hard--accelerating quickly and getting on the brakes pretty good.

Now that I have a K&N drop-in, Micron slip-on exhaust, and gone up one size on all three jets I have gotten as low as 42-44mpg on 80+mph highway runs.  However, I regularly get 50-52mpg on mixed driving.


Your driving style *might* be able to account for that...but, you probably need to check your carbs, valves, and brakes like suggested.  I would suspect something's awry with those numbers.

Quote from: jt_234 on March 17, 2009, 11:18:12 AM
Your driving style *might* be able to account for that...but, you probably need to check your carbs, valves, and brakes like suggested.  I would suspect something's awry with those numbers.

Wouldn't the easy thing be to check the plugs first? They should give you a pretty good idea of what your mixture is doing. If they are all black, you are running crazy rich and should investigate further...

Quote from: fred on March 17, 2009, 12:57:06 PM

Wouldn't the easy thing be to check the plugs first? They should give you a pretty good idea of what your mixture is doing. If they are all black, you are running crazy rich and should investigate further...

Yeah, that's probably the best place to start.  Examining my plugs wasn't very educational, they didn't show anything that I could see, but there may have been some subtle things I didn't catch.

How are the bikes set up in Greece?  Ours supposedly come out of the box pretty lean to meet US emissions standards.

I'd say it's all about riding style and frequency. I do notice that frequent short trips can reduce your mileage considerably. On weeks with short commutes less than 10 miles each way I would only get around 55 mpg but longer ones return me to my usual 70 mpg. But riding style most definitely impacts it. The way I accelerate is usually to shift early, around 3.5k but to get quick acceleration I open up the throttle a lot often times going full throttle but shifting that early like when merging on the freeway. Less throttling restriction that way and lower rpms will help mileage quite a bit instead of letting the engine scream to 7k while only giving it 1/8th throttle on every takeoff. That's probably the least efficient way to drive yet it seems to be the way most people ride. Try riding a whole tank conservatively, as conservatively as possible and damned if you don't get 50+ mpg.

I think my mixture is lean especially now with the K&N.I should check valves,clean carbs and i will check again. i suspect thats there is the problem.
My driving style is normal for "greek stadars" on highway i drive at around 140 Kmh without big accelarations. I think that there is  a problem in the bike

Don't forget to take a look at your plugs, they may give you an answer before you tear into things.  There should be a plug guide with pics around here somewhere.  If not, every Chiltons, Haynes, and Clymer manual I've ever seen has had a section on plugs.

Good luck.

Yes i will look them first.Thanks for the answers..

Adminious our measurements kinda match.

Traveling from Thessaloniki to Chalkis at about 130Km/h I got around 18Km/l... that is stock
After some mods (exhaust / K&N Lunchbox) and driving more aggressively at about 140 - 150Km/h I got around 14Km/l.