Fuel Catalyst

My buddy recently rebuilt his 1340 EVO in his 97 Softail which he bought used a while back. When taking it apart we found that something was clunking around inside the tanks. It turned out that they were these fuel catalyst capsules. I did some research and found this site which appears to be exactly what we found.

Fitch Fuel Catalyst - Product Finder

They claim an increase in tourque, acceleration, mileage, etc. I am curious if anyone has tried these and noticed any difference. We reomoved them from his. I could be wrong but I can't help but think this is just yet another snake oil product. Of course the site does not mention ANYTHING about how or why it works and they have a nice hefty $50 price tag on the product with shipping.

Any thoughts?

I agree. I remember getting race fuel over the border in New Hampshire a number of years back. It was only available at the one gas station that I know of. If memory serves, it was 100 or 101 octane or something like that and it did make quite a difference. I used to run it in my 1970 LeMans every once in a while since it was built for leaded gas. No pinging with that stuff! I doubt you can get it any more although I haven't checked.

As for those little pills, up close they just look like plastic shells with aluminum or maybe magnesium pucks inside. I ain't no enginameer or nuthin but I just don't see how they could do a thing. It makes you wonder how they can make such claims without even the slightest shread of an explanation on how they came to those conclusions. Just, "yeah it works" and that's it.

I run 93 octane in my 02' Heritage. Gotta tell ya though, I use to own a business in northern Michigan. It was a gas station, general store and we had 8 rental cabins. One day this guy rolls in on an 03 EG classic. He starts pummping gas and I notice on the monitor that he is putting regular 87 octane gas in the bike. So I run out there and say, hey ya know your pumping regular into that bike. He says, ya I know, been doing it since it was new and never had a problem with performance. So I don't know if he was just cheap or telling the truth.

I usually run 93 in my bike too. I have however run 87 several times for various reasons and it did run fine. It does seem to perform a little better with the 93 but I didn't have any issues with the 87. I also have a Toyota truck. I see no difference in that so I run the 87.

With a near stock motor, there is no need to run super premium. You can get by on 87 forever, but personally I'd still put in at least mid grade 89-90.

In late season riding [November] I will drop down to mid grade and not have any problems, because the cold 20-40* air keeps the motor from getting hot enough to ping.

I had the fitch fuel catalyst in my previous bike also. I can't say it did everything it claimed. It certainly did not make mid grade gas into high octane premium to keep my bike from pinging in the warmer moths with the 10.6 compression I was running. Having said that, I bought them after I read reviews in American Iron magazine and Hot Bikes that did back to back dyno testing and found an extra 4 horse power by adding the pellets. Those tests were done at least five years ago when the product was new. Over on the VTF, I've read several guys in California swear by them when running their crappy California standard gas....so take it for what its worth. If I found them in the gas tank of my bike, I'd leave them in. They certainly don't hurt performance any.

logic v s love

I doubt they is any logical reason to run anything but reg. in a stock harley. I run the best most expensive fuel i can find because i love my bike, and this is my way of showing it. i talk to em too.:drunk:

Well we took them out because we didn't know what they were at the time. I saw them in the back of a magazine later. I just saw the add again the other day and it reminded me of it so I thought I would put it out there to see if they really work.

Now that they aren't in his bike, he hasn't notice a lack of performance either. I guess I'm still not a believer. Maybe I'll try to find one of those articles you mentioned. I'm still curious as to what actually makes them do what they claim.

they used to have people taping cow magnets to the fuel lines also, I run premium and oct booster, syn oil, tires inflated get good power and milage. on a stock engine with the pipes I got from flht, didn't remap it and sofar every thing is running and looking fine. have a 300mi trip coming up to the colo mountains to work I'm curious, if the milage increased or not.

Their old website actually was quite good at explaining it. I see they've changed the site to be more vague. The way it was explained before not all hydrocarbon atoms were the same and some would have more carbon atoms than others. The catalyst action somehow would balance the carbon atoms out between the individual fuel molecules so all the fuel burned evenly and more completely.

They have different answers now on the faq page: Fitch Fuel Catalyst: Products - The Fitch FAQ

I can say I never had a problem with fuel stability storing the bike for our Minnesota winters. I just filled the tank up and connected the battery tender for the winter and never bothered with other stabilizer additives....Having said all this, I didn't notice enough of a difference to justify buying them again.

One place to get high octane fuel is at an airport. Small planes still use 100ll. With the newer bikes I don't know if there will be a consequence with putting leaded fuel in the motor or not. I used to fill the tank of my car with this once in a while to clean off the carbon, and the motor would run better for a while. I have been told that this could eventually burn up the rings, but I don't know, it works in planes with no problem. My scooter runs great with 93. I have never put the cheap stuff in it, so I son't know if there is a difference there. I put a magnet made for fuel lines on my truck once. The instructions said to put it as close to the carb as possible. I could tell no difference in performance. I think I was taken on this one, however I never removed it, just in case. One thing I truly belive in is a throttle body spacer. I installed one between the carb and the intake manifold of my truck, and it was an instant hp, and mpg gain that was phoenominal. I have seen one for Harley's in the past, but have not got it for my scooter as of yet.

Recent independent tests confirm that the catalyst beads only work if you also wear an Aluminum Foil Beanie Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie and wear a twisted wire bracelet with brass balls on your left wrist.

Oh my!!

No, not really Chuck, I can easily relate to you! :roflmao: