Thinking of switching to Shell Optimax when I fill my Daytona, is this a complete waste of money or would it like it?                                                                                                                                                                             

yes its a waste of time and money seb it will make a small difference but not that youll notice it except in your wallet get a pipe filters and power comander mate be better spent that way                                                                                                                                                                              

According to an article in Ride Magazine, using higher octane fuels makes no difference to a bike's performance. It made a marginal difference to the latest GSX-R 1000 and none to the new supersports BMW which they expected to adjust its fuelling map to take advantage of higher octane petrol. My advice is to save your money and use Euro 95 or 95 RON. 

Bikes with carbs will see a slight difference in performance but not enough to start popping champagne corks about, fuel injection bikes will have next to no difference.
The only place to use higher octane fuels is at altitude to compensate for thinner air but then again fuel injection models will compensate with out changing to higher octane fuels.

Personally i cant understand why when manurfactures have designed and built a bike like a modern sports bike why it needs a race can and carb and injection tweeks to improve performance.
If its not fast enough buy a bigger faster one.
Police,warranty and cost amongst others are reasons not to but it is personal taste.

my best mate just did a rebore on his harley 883 to a 1200, with a hypercharger on too, and got told it will run alot better running on high octane fuel ....maybe just cause its a harley ....                                                                                                                                                                              

Whats a Hypercharger Is that like a super charger on steroids                                                                                                                                                                                 

OK, a technical explanation. This issue is all about combustion. If an engine is prone to pre-ignition i.e the fuel starting to ignite before the spark you get a knocking noise called pinking and if sustained damage to the engine. The only ways round this are to retard the ignition or use a higher octane fuel with more anti-knock additives. So a high octane fuel allows an engine prone to pinking - highly tuned or with poor combustion characteristics, to run properly. It won't give more power to an engine which already runs properly. Modern engines particularly with electronic management systems can run on high compression ratios because fuel and ignition can automatically be adjusted and are happy on 95 octane. I suspect that Ian's mate's bike has poor combustion characteristics and needs the high octane fuel to run properly. 

look it up on any cuctom site micks, it replaces the original ait filter                                                                                                                                                                              

mick a hypercharger is an air filtter with holes in them "wooooh" it lets custom folk think there getting more hosre power by making the noise nearer the rider so they can hear it on the move !                                                                                                                                                                              

Might explain why it wont run right on std unleaded then                                                                                                                                                                             

Ah got ya the light is now on Cheers