Rising Gas Prices/Ethanol Conversions? What options do we have for our P-Cars???

[Blk95993]

No one knows what the future will hold, but we have to consider today's topics and the issues we will eventually have to address for our beloved P-Cars...Someone needs to design/engineer a Ethonal conversion for our P-Cars so that we may all sleep at night.....the day I will no longer be able to drive my oil/air cooled 87' 911 will be one of the most feared days of my life...

Is this even possible or did I drink too much last night and am posting a really dumb topic.... Or will we have to resort to only driving our cars on very rare occations due to future gas prices?? Sorry for the deep thoughts for a Sat. AM post, but the media has been blasting the issue and I can't help to consider what we have available..

Probably a bit premature to worry, but I can't help to wonder if someone is already working on our future problems..I live in GA and spend $3.20/gallon, which is nothing compared to what people pay in Europe...

With that being said, anyone have any comments to add to my concerns??

[Joe Bob]

E85 is an answer for new cars and the future....not an old Porsche....

[klatinn]

Hi,

I'm pretty shure once the manuf. (incl. Porsche) get off their butt and release some data about Ethanol compatibility of the materials used in older cars, the aftermarket will come to the rescue.
I researched recently this very topic. An EFI car like the 87 3.2 is probably easiest to convert. It will mostly take remapping of the ECU and (possibly) replacement of some rubber gaskets and lines in the fuel system. Also expect some harder starting.
But E85 has some other exciting possibilities for the performance minded. For example compression ratios up to 15:1 without knock should be easily tolerable if you stick with E85 and don't ever run with gasoline anymore. The increased efficiency achievable at high compression compensates for the lower BTU content of E85 compared to gasoline.
CIS cars can possibly be modified by lowering the control pressure.
The hard ones are MFI cars. I don't know how easy they will be to convert.

Here's a link for an experiment the EPA did. They converted a VW TDI engine into a spark ignited engine running Ethanol/Methanol and gasoline in different mixes (19.5:1 CR in the engine!!!). With high EGR they achieved efficiencies higher than a diesel!!!.

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/presentations/epa-fev-isaf-no55.pdf

Regards,
Klaus

[hoff944]

I'm no expert, but I did take some economics in college, and I've read some various sources on both sides of the table, and here's my two cents. Right now the US is not at full refining capacity due to a lot of the refineries having to convert to produce the special blends for different markets due to environmental reasons. Demand is also high for oil and Iran and Nigeria are two big producers with unstable futures. Oil is over selling for over $73 a barrell right now. The cost of crude oil to make a gallon of gas was 35 cents per gallon in 1999. Now it is roughly $1.59 per gallon in 2006. Crude oil prices have gone up by 454% over seven years. The cost of gas has gone up 162%. Eventually the gas prices are going to rise to a point in which it causes Americans to alter their lifestyles enough that the economy starts to notice. There will be some relief once our refining capacities get back up to par. Once these things happen, the demand for gas will go down and the demand will be able to be met a little easier, thus, causing the prices to drop. How much? I don't know. Another point is that the infastructure of the Unite States is setup for gasoline. To convert to another source will take some time because gas stations will not want to install pumps for alternate sources when there aren't going to be enough cars for those pumps to generate revenue. I know that here in Nashville, there is only ONE ethanol pump. You can't drive to far, or you'd better carry your own fuel source. Thats my opinion.

[gestalt1]

i've thought about this as well. i found somewhere an artical about someone converting an old vw beetle to ethanol by adjusting the carb and replacing the fuel line etc.. i've also seen somewhere how to make your own ethanol, i think it was similar to a moonshine still. increasing the CR and checking the compatibility of fuel system components does not seem to be that difficult but there isn't much info out there yet. i also know that there is a problem with racing fuel cells not being able to take high etanol type fuels, there is no solution to that yet.

i do feel that this will happen in the near future. When i see things like cadillac introducing a new escalade i roll my eyes at how dissconnected the US automakers are with the times. but the best solution is to drive less, we can't live 30-40 miles from where we work anymore, i am guilty of this but not for long. i even looked into getting a motorcycle, but the economics don't work out when you factor the cost of the bike and i've seen to make terrible bike accidents.

[plain fan]

Time to buy land in and around the inner city...

[gamma]

I think the worry about ethanol compatibility is one of those things with no basis, but is widely quoted. I am pretty sure that all cars have been exposed to ethanol by this time. Many areas have had mandatory oxygenation of fuel for some time which means ethanol or MTBE up to now, but ethanol only in the future. In my opinion unless you are buying race gas, or avgas your car has seen ethanol. I have never seen anything bad tied to ethanol use by scientific evidence. Lots of speculation, and lots of something failed on my car the first time it was knowingly put in the tank, so the ethanol caused it. Kevin

[Grady Clay]

I have a nice virgin ’72 510 that I’m 2nd owner. Rumor has it that Nissan will be supplying hybrid packages to fit old cars (Datsun/Nissan). I have talked to Jeff Winter, our local Datsun guru of national repute about a conversion.

I see nothing wrong using one of those packages in a 914, 944, or even a 911. It certainly would make a nice daily driver. You could plug it in at night and the fuel could be almost anything – gas, diesel, propane, LNG, ethanol or other.

I also think we will see far more utilization of our public transport that we have been subsidizing. Our local RTD allows you to bring your bicycle with you.

I think the last gallon of ($100+) gasoline will be high octane and used on track. I won’t live to see it but I’m afraid my children will.

Best,
Grady

[kolies]

Why would the MFI be difficult to convert? One thing that the MFI system seems to have going for it would be the very high injection pressure that would help to atomize the mixture better. The only issue would be if the cam profile would need to be changed. Do you think that this would be the case for a conversion of an MFI system>

[stlrj]

Rather than redesign the fuel system around ethanol which is would lower your performance due to lower btu's compared to gasoline and result in much higher fuel consumption, why not simplify your life by optimizing the faily sophisticated DME in your car by improving it's ignition and fuel mixture to deliver improvements in performance and economy.

From years of tinkering with my 86 3.2 Carrera motor, I can tell you that much can be done to lower fuel consumption and improve throttle response with better ignition wires, larger plug gaps, improved deposit resistant injectors with better spray patterns, air flow meter mixture adjustments, taller gear ratios etc. that result in 23 mpg in town and 30 highway with enough torque to make you forget you have a first gear.

So why not make small incremental improvements to the wheel rather than redesigning it entirely?

Cheers,

Joe

74 911 w/ 86 3.2

[emcon5]

Ethanol is a great solution for people who can't do math......

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/classifieds/automotive/13776845.htm
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/2690341.html

The short version: It costs a little less but this is probably artificial due to government corn subsidies. It is also less efficent, so your mileage will drop ~20%, so you will end up spending more on fuel.

Tom

[1972_911T]

I wouldnt worry too much if ethanol/methanol fuels do become the future of powering cars, technology is already being developed that uses special "zeolite catalysts" which convert methanol into into long chain hydrocarbons such as petrol.

This technology is already being used in newzeland and currently provides one third of there petrol supplies.

I think petrol is here to stay at least for the forseable future what will change is the way we make it our dependance on the blackmailing countries that have the reserves of our current substrate "crude oil"

Steve

[dorschman]

Remember the Chinese and Indians count their populations in billions, not millions. As far as demand decreasing I am not so sure. A lot of those guys are going to start driving cars if those countries continue to industrialize and develop at their current rates. Just a thought.

[buster73]

What are you dreaming of at night guys ? First Ethanol has to be available in the required huge quantities, second you need a distribution network and even if available you should not expect that Ethanol will be cheaper than gas (at least for the foreseeable future). And don't panic - in Europe you already pay 6 to 9 $/gal for gas and I have not seen many people ditching their Porsches because of that. Guess we will (have to) get used to it.

[stlrj]

To make things worse, the air fuel ratio for ethanol is around 6:1 where as gasoline is 14:1, making ethanol consumption more than double that of gas.

Joe

[unclebilly]

It could be worse, we could be driving 3/4 ton pickups instead of Porsches... oh wait, I have one of those too as my daily driver...

When I was in university, Petro Canada used to sell ethanol (E85) for people with the specially equiped Taurus and the Chrysler (can't recall which one). My brother ran it in his Nissan nx2000 a few times before they put a padlock on the pump and refused to sell it to you unless you had a Taurus / Chrysler car.

It did not damage Dave's NX - he still has it and has put on at least 200,000 miles since then. The E85 was slightly cheaper than gasoline back then, there wasn't a big performance difference if I recall. They wouldn't sell me any E85 for my corvette or my Toyota 4X4 back then.

[klatinn]

Hi,

To make things worse, the air fuel ratio for ethanol is around 6:1 where as gasoline is 14:1, making ethanol consumption more than double that of gas.

That's not correct.
Stoichiometric ratios for different fuels:

Unadulterated Gasoline ~14.5 to 14.8
Methanol - 6.4
Ethanol - 9
Nitromethane - 1.7!!!

Also note, the stoichiometric ratios are by mass (weight). Fuel is sold by volume (gallons). Ethanol is a little heavier than gasoline by volume (density of .78 kg/l vs ~0.7 kg/l), acting to ethanols favour at the pump.

The advantage of ethanol is in its high knock resistance, high laminar flame front speed and superior lean burn capability compared to gasoline.

This makes it possible to increase the combustion efficiency of engines when designed for ethanol. Using all of ethanols properties effectively in an engine allows to raise engine efficiency enough to more than compensate for the lower energy content of ethanol on a mi/gal basis.

As regards to ethanol being cheaper than gas because of gvmt. subsidies, that is also not really true. The total amount of tax breaks and subsidies the oil industry has historically gotten far surpass the amount given to ethanol producers.

Regards,
Klaus

[wswilburn]

Umm, have you seen the price of synchro rings lately? Gas prices will have to go up a lot before they seriously affects my cost of ownership!