Changing our habits of a lifetime can be irritating. Unfortunately gasoline is a very dirty fuel to use, and needs something to clean it up. Ethanol is the latest in a long procession of additives to attempt to do so. It was developed as a fuel additive to clean up the combustion, not as a mileage enhancer.
The good news is that with a little tweaking, it is proving it can replace gasoline to a substantial degree. This can save America a billion dollars a day in petroleum imports.
It also is providing good paying jobs for hundreds of thousands of Americans and is producing millions of dollars in tax revenue for America, and those numbers are growing every year.
Take any of these mileage loss figures with a grain of salt. A lot of them are not based on very good data.
E-85 does not make for 85 percent reduction in mileage. Engines designed and tuned for it will get nearly normal mileages. Some will even get better mileage than straight gasoline numbers, tho no one yet understands why.
For reason not yet understood, E-30 to E-40 often gets as good of mileage as straight gasoline, even in older vehicles.
Have it your way. I sure would like to see valid data re: dirty gasoline and attempts to clean it up. Keep in mind I am neither a petroleum engineer nor an environmental whacko, so I have a high level of distrust.
I’m gonna take a lot of convincing!
Just spent two + hours resurrecting my Yamaha EFI 2800 generator, which refused to run — drained old gasahol, refilled tank with premium, added Sta-Bil blue and a carb cleaner. Got it running on spray carb cleaner until FResh gas got to carb.
Last time I had it running, I had to leave choke on all the time, and it ran crappy. I had no idea that the gasahol was the problem. Runs now with the choke open.
BTW, if the stuff is so damn good, why is there a $.47 per gallon subsidy? I hate it that tax payers take it on the chin so corporations like Archer Daniels Midland can run up their balance sheet.
Get rid of the subsidies and the import duty ($.51/gallon) on ethanol, and then maybe we can have a debate.
BTW, where does one purchase E30 or E40? And why would one want to do so, particularly with an older engine?
Oh, my ‘65 GTO also experienced the same symptoms until I added Sta-Bil blue and FResh gasahol, which, except for race gas or aviation fuel, is all I can buy in Jacksonville.
AND, mixing ethanol gas and non-ethanol gas is a NO! NO! Creates a sludge that is a bitch to clean out.
I hate ethanol!
PS When I was in high school, we burned unleaded Amoco Premium (white gas) in our ‘57 Pontiac.
Was it dirty?
When we felt really racy, we put a tank of Sunoco 260 in the tank.
Was it dirty?