It seems we may have caused a bit of confusion as to why Hot To Go Racing used a blend of premium performance fuel in its Hot To Go Racing 1000cc trail mod that we tested in our Trail Mod Invitational this past December. We misquoted HTG's Rob Schooping as saying he recommends running higher-octane fuel in this motor. Rob explained that while HTG used a premium fuel blend in the break-in period for this trail motor, he does not recommend running a 50/50 blend of fuel for regular day-to-day use of this trail format motor as it runs fine on regular pump gas.
Since the sled's engine was never dyno-run nor track tested nor seriously run prior to arrival at our tests, the HTG crew opted for a higher-octane fuel. As Rob is quick to point out, "We've run these engines thousands of miles on 87 octane pump gas and they run fine." In fact, after the Trail Mod Invitational, the test engine/sled combination delivered yeoman service as Rob's personal trail sled -- on available pump gas!
The confusion arose during our trackside fuel check for illegal additives - which this fuel was NOT. Our tests revealed the use of the premium blended fuel, which Rob readily confirmed at the time. But for everyday riding with a properly broken-in motor, Rob states that any good quality pump gas is more than adequate for this one-liter HTG trail engine.
We regret the confusion on this issue and hope that this sets the record straight. For more info about the HTG Racing trail motor, see page 63 in our Spring 2000 issue of AMERICAN SNOWMOBILER or click on Hot To Go Racing at
www.HTGracing.com.