Posted on 05/16/2012 10:42:20 AM PDT by thackney
The problem is that the alcohol has a high octane. It is mixed into the fuel and falls out of suspension when it absorbs 5%(?) water by volume. Then your octane drops significantly and detonation occurs.
And to think.. Tpaw mandated E-20 for those of us in Minnesota..
we can get E0 but it’s only sold as premium for collector cars and small engines.
BTW, my 01 Venture van and 02 Express are “collector cars” in my book.
So far, only one station questioned me. I said “do you want to sell fuel or not?” they turned the pump on.
I keep records of all my fuel purchaces in my 2 vehicles.
Doing so tells me when I need to change spark plugs, etc. I change oil, filters, on a very regular basis.
The 10% Ethanol used to be just a part of the year additive. I could tell exactly when it was in the tank based on my mileage. My mileage drops between 10% and 13% with that fuel added to regular gasoline.
I have had one vehicle since 1991 and one since 1986. I have all those records.
The fuel cap on my Prius C reads “E15-E85” with a circle around it and a bar through it. That’s fairly explicit to me what should NOT be going in the tank.
E10 is bad enough.
Engine skips, sputters, acts like it’s vapor locked when it gets hot.
and gas without the octane boosting ethanol doesn’t?
I made the mistake of putting some E10 in my motorcycle and it took several tanks of pure premium gasoline and some fuel system cleaner to getting it running right again. Ethanol is crap no matter what percentage of it is mixed with gasoline.
Newer motorcycles are built to supposedly tolerate ethanolated fuels. That might not be the case for ones built before the ethanol craze.
It sounds like the onboard computer wasn’t programmed for fuel with that much ethanol. It couldn’t tell it from bad gas and pessimistic parameters were used. You’d sacrifice something in energy content with an extra 5% ethanol, but that much makes no engineering sense.
I hopte that is true. Mine is a 1999 model Honda.
The Silverado has a badge on the tailgate that advertises “flex fuel vehicle”. That is supposed to indicate a seamless transition between fuel types does it not?
There definately is an impact on the food chain costs.
More and more farmers are plowing under their crops, including alfalfa, which has MULTIPLE cuttings every year in favor of corn for Ethanol.
Such alfalfa is fed to dairy cows, hence it impacts all dairy products. Some alfalfa is fed to beef cows & sheep also.
It is just nuts to burn our food scources and use land for other than food production, IMO.
Union built vehicles are an ever-shrinking fraction of the total sold in the US - unless you include Korean based unions in the count.
Only confirming my suspicion of several years!
My bike is a two-stroke, E15 = seizure, and I just had it rebuilt.
None of my cars will run on it, and it will destroy the carbs, including my expensive Weber units.
This is the Eco-Nut plan, force ALL the older cars and bikes off the road by eliminating the availability of suitable fuel.
I wonder how the guys paying BIG bucks for classics will feel about that?
Oh, and running Av-Gas is actually illegal as it avoids the road tax.
It’s also a “Dry” fuel, so may have it’s own issues with some engines.
Yes flex fuel can run from E0 to E85.
My SIL has a flex fuel Chevy, his calculations indicate E10 is the lowest cost alternative per mile.
E85 is too expensive relative to the energy content.
That's interesting. I have a 97 Polaris that's run fine on E10 since the day I bought it new.
I’m not convinced ethanol has anything to do with those fuel lines, I think it’s cheap Chinese sourced polymers. Have had enough of them fail myself I bought a bulk coil of replacement line.
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