Posted on 05/16/2012 10:42:20 AM PDT by thackney
Gasoline vs. Ethanol Blended Fuels
Adding alcohol of any kind to gasoline, dilutes the fuel, and lowers the heat energy.
One US gallon of Gasoline (regular unleaded) = 114,100 BTU/gal
One US gallon of Ethanol (E100) = 76,100 BTU/gal
[67% of gasoline BTU]
One US gallon of 10% Ethanol/Gasoline Blend (E10) [114,100 X.9] + [76,100 X .1] = 111,300 BTU/gal
[97% of gasoline BTU]
Adding 10% ethanol to gasoline requires burning 3% more fuel to accomplish the same task.
All ethanol blended gasoline requires the consumer to buy more gallons of fuel in order to travel the same distance.
Highway fuel is taxed “by the gallon”, so governments collect more tax revenue from the consumer with blended fuels.
What happened to those bartenders in the old-west movies when they were caught watering down the whiskey?
Detonation occurs when you have too much timing advance and or too high of a compression ratio for the octane rating. The higher the octane, the slower the burn rate.
Detonation is basically what a diesel engine does. The way it is able to survive is that the fuel is injected directly into the cylinder at a predetermined time so that it detonates a few degrees before top dead center on the compression stroke.
Gasoline engines mix the fuel in the carburetor or in the intake runnier if fuel injected and compress the mixture.
Alcohol is only one of the ways to raise octane. In the days of olde, we used lead.
Methanol, ethanol, LPG and CNG all have higher octane than gasoline. For diesel it is called cetane.
I don’t dispute the calorie consumption. But I read the initial “removed from the food chain” to mean a reduction in available food.
In reality, the ethanol scam has created more corn in production. In spite of a history of dwindling farm acres, the actual crop acres harvested went up from 2002 to 2007 (first date set I found). The ethanol mandate went into effect in 2005.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/us.htm
My argument is that due to the swindle of tax-payer subsidy, more corn acres were planted and harvested, not all of it was taking other crops out of production, total acreage harvested actually rose.
To me, that sounds like an addition to the food chain, or more accurately a secondary production outside the food chain. There may be some reduction, but not all of it if the total acreage grew.
Actually, that's NOT the case. Especially in the case of older engines, the higher concentration of alcohol in the fuel acts as a solvent, even more-so that gasoline, getting rid of needed oil on both intake valves, and if there's any blow-by, from the cylinder walls as well. It will also play hell on any seals or lines not designed specifically for use with fuel that includes alcohol. Finally, being hydroscopic, it tends to attract water and cause rust.
Alcohol in fuel is a well known old engine killer. Sure, they can design engines to run on it, but it also requires more fuel for the same amount of driving.
Mark
I guess my Cummins diesel is flex-fuel.
I run used dino motor oil and any type of combustible hydraulic fluid I can get my hands on at about 5% by volume. Oddly enough, the mileage increases more than the volume added.
A friend of mine ran operations at a local summer camp and they couldn’t figure out why their gasoline storage tanks kept getting water in them (which they used to fuel the boats). Turned out it was the ethanol degrading and the byproduct was water. The ethanol gas has a short shelf life. If you burn through a tank of gas in a week or two, you won’t notice anything. However, if it takes longer, you’ll likely be pumping fuel into your engine that has 10% or more water.
The stuff is a total nightmare and needs to be removed from all stations.
I know all this. It was a question to make you think and realize your error.
yeah yeah
You ever heard of Ethyl grade gasoline? It was the fuel of preference(well, except for aviation fuel or straight alcohol) for all the hotrodders in the early 70s.
and it was the same thing as E10.
“...Ethyl grade gasoline...was the same thing as E10...”
-
mamel, you are just so full of crap.
“Ethyl gasoline” referred to “tetra ethyl lead” not to ethanol.
ethyl alcohol=ethanol alcohol. Look in your chemistry book.
I am stunned.
I just looked at wiki and they say you are correct. When I was a kid, I used to live next to a guy who owned the neighborhood gas station. He told me ethyl grade gas was called that for “ethyl alcohol” which was the old fashioned chemistry name for ethanol. He told me they got the idea from the old moonshiners who would fill their tanks with moonshine to make their cars go faster to evade the revenuers. Seemed logical to me since there is a whole class of drag racing who burn only alcohol(faster than gasoline but slower than top fuel).
I’ve been re-telling this to people for over 30 years and you are the first person EVER to call me out on it.
Good on ya’ mamel.
Too many people now a days refuse to admit when they are wrong.
FReep on, brother!
“Nothing more than E-10 on your prius gas cap?”
That’s the way I read that. I’ll confirm with the Owner’s Manual. But it’s got that small 1.5L engine so I’m not surprised.
I've been real careful to keep ethanol out of my two stroke bikes and older outboard motor, but it has been easy around here because little or no alcohol is actually blended into gasoline (although state law requires >= 2%).. Only once did I even detect a trace (less than 0.5%) using an EAA test kit. Now I purchase from a Conoco chain that advertises on their billboard "No Ethanol" so I don't bother to test.
Of course, most any bike or racing vehicle, two stroke or four, can be jetted to run on straight alcohol. Seals, etc. will have to be replaced with ethanol-safe ones. In some cases the diluting effect on cylinder wall lubrication must be taken into account. Shouldn't be much of a problem on hard-chromed (Nikasil, etc.) cylinder walls. Will run cooler depending on power output.
Diaphragms in older boat pumper carbs can be a real problem, as well as fiberglass gas tanks on boats and bikes.
Hold on though.
Something doesn’t make sense. I distinctly remember BEFORE unleaded gas came out they had two grades...ethyl and regular. Then when unleaded came out they had two grades...leaded and unleaded.
Ethyl was the stuff that made your car go fast. Regular was regular. Both had lead in them.
Then came unleaded gas. what the heck was regular gasoline back in the days before unleaded gasoline?
Something doesnt’ jive.
Just a lower octane blend, as always.
Historically, there have always been three pumps that ran off of two tanks at the station.
There was a high octane tank and a low octane tank.
The three pumps delivered high octane (premium), low octane (regular), or a mid-grade (a blend from the two tanks).
It is still basically done the same way.
Last Sunday, I bought “non-alcohol” gasoline from a “high-test” (premium) pump at a Kroger.
oops, i goofed.
it was like this:
regular or ethyl(both were leaded)
then...
regular or unleaded(regular was leaded)
then...
regular unleaded or hi-grade(both unleaded I think, but not sure)
then...
regular or premium or ethanol(three choices)
Old people could never figure out what to put in their car. The term “regular” was so over used it was nuts. Catalytic converters came out and people were burning them up right and left because they would drive to a small town with old pumps that didn’t specify “leaded or unleaded” If I remember right, Kerr McGee was the last station in my neighborhood to phase out ethyl...or maybe they just didn’t take the “ethyl” label off their pumps.
My daily driver is a 1988 fuel injected F150 that does not like E10 fuel.
My nearest “non-alcohol” gas station is a tank of gas away!
no, that’s not right. In the old days there were only two grades, not three.
I don't remember that at all.
Cars that used unleaded had a smaller fill pipe opening and you couldn't put leaded gas in unless the pump was not legal and had the small probe dispensing leaded gasoline.
And putting leaded gas into a converter car didn't cause anything to "burn up", it just made the converter non-functional - so if you had emissions testing you were in trouble down the road.
When the switch to “non-leaded” gasoline came about,
the manufacturers put smaller openings in the fuel filler on the vehicles.
The larger nozzles at the station pumps would no longer fit into the smaller fuel tank openings on the vehicles.
“...In the old days there were only two grades, not three...”
-
In the really really really old days there was only one grade.
So what is your freaking point?
assuming they put the right gas in the right underground storage tank and the station continued to used two different sized nozzles. Small town people tend to simply things.
the point is we’re talking about pre unleaded gas at the moment. They had 2 grades then.
I am perplexed. What is the error?
Sorry, I don’t do chat.
Ethanol increases your octane rating. When you lose the ethanol, you are left with the low grade non-ethanol-gasoline octane rating(in theory). Nowdays almost all gasoline has some ethanol in it. I don’t pay attention to octane ratings anymore, but before they started adding ethanol to everything, the middle octane rated fuel at the pump was ethanol. The lowest octane rated fuel was non-ethanol, the highest octane rating was premium. The difference between premium and the lowest octane rated fuel was that after filling the underground tanks, the tanker driver(or the station manager/owner) would dump an additive down into the tank of the premium grade fuel. Without doing that, the two non ethanol fuels were identical. At some point(about 5-8 years ago I think) many stations started putting ethanol in ALL grades of fuel even without advertising it at the pump. You still had 3 grades of fuel, but only one of them CLAIMED to be E10. The truth is they all had ethanol in them.
ok whatever that means
I remember the feds were VERY active in policing this aspect
Don’t waste your time on this one.
He, she, it is just not worth it.
I look at it that every time I burn a tank of gasoline with ethonol (being forced to do so by the liberal asshat moonbat social degenerates) I am killing a “less fortunate” person in some underdeveloped country. Great...liberal schmucks afe making me a murderer. Just great!
Just put the second fuel tank in the F150. Will pay for itself in a single trip! lol
No.. the 2012 sliverado is flex fuel. anything from E0 to E85 can be ran though it. He should not have seen such a loss in MPG but I wonder if it had anything to do with elevation or stop and go traffic or perhaps a pump that stopped a few gallons short of “full”
I’d have to ask if this was a vehicle with an onboard fuel economy display.
Completely impractical for my Rokon RT-340 and it’s 60’s Sachs engine.
Here we have no real choice about the damn Ethanol, it’s mandated, and comes from Kali. refineries, where it’s also mandated.
Once I get the engine back in the frame I suppose I will have to buy race gas, at what, about $9.00 or more a gallon?
I might be able to get 100LL Avgas, not sure what issue that might create.
I think it will work OK since I will be adding two-stroke oil.
As to my cars, that’s a bigger issue.
I am NOT putting Ethanol into my vintage Webers!
The bike is only ridden locally, but the cars need to be able to go long distance.
E15 alone is enough reason to vote against Obammy, what has Romney said about this %@#&!, if anything?
Lots of people go 100LL and pump premium, mixed 50/50 with premix oil added; this will both give you plenty of octane, diluted ethanol to below harmful levels, and the pump additives which are needed for storage beyond a month or so. Plus it will start real easy at 20,000 feet!
Why do I suspect you are too young to talk about this authoritatively?
I “was there”, Ethyl was in FACT tetra ethyl lead!
The lead increased octane and lubricated the valve faces.
Fuel without lead was called “White Gas” and used in camp stoves.
The only motor fuel to have any sort of alcohol in it was used in model airplanes and dragsters.
Drag racers mixed their own fuel, and added Nitro to suit their engine.
When I was a freshman in high school we had a local station that allowed you to “Dial” you octane.
Wish I could remember the name of the chain.
As I recall you could go from a low of about 85 (For a model T or A?) to a high of 101 (105?) for serious drivers.
I always ran the good stuff in my modified bike.
To this day I am severely PO’d to be forced to buy “Supreme” of only 92 octane, particularly at these prices.
At these prices we should be getting at least 100 octane!
Sunoco.
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