Ethanol pluses and minuses
 

A new gas station just opened in town selling 87 octane no-ethanol gas. I have an 87 3.2 carrera with a po intstalled Weltmeister chip. Is this gas a good deal or are there problems with its use. I'm at 6500 feet so I'm not concerned with predetination but I wonder about performance issues and concerns with fuel lines, etc.

In Maryland, non ethanol 91 is available and runs fine in my Carrera. 87 may be a bit too low, good luck! There are several other threads on this subject. Steve

Are there any plusses?

The plus is for turboooooos!

Doubtful the E10 there is much over 5%. I’m just down the road and that’s what I’ve tested.

The weak link and of much more concern is your single crimp original 30 year old fuel lines. Get some new double crimp ones made up in the near future.

Jeff, I got new fuel lines 2 years ago but I assume single crimp.

Steve' I lived on Indian creek near East New Market back in the 40's. Is that anywhere near you?

Richard, yes, 20 minutes away on the Choptank river. Small station in East New Market used to be my main source on non ethanol. Now Royal Farms, large chain has it in several locations. Steve

Small world ain't it!

John Walker...Are there any pluses? If non-ethanol encourages gas leaks I guess I'll just avoid it if there isn't any benefit from using it.

I believe John is looking for any pluses for ethanol. :)
It is the ethanol that can lead to fuel leaks in the lines.

The fuel lines in these cars were never designed to be used with ethanol laced fuels. The lines deteriorate over time, and carbs have a lot of problems if the fuel is allowed to sit for any length of time. The same issues happen with powerboats and small engine devices like lawnmowers, chainsaws, and snowblowers.

I would never put ehtanol in my car if it could be avoided. In fact I’d rather fill up with low octane and use an octane booster.

They were never designed for that rubbish and it’s a travesty that people have to use it.

You should be good on the lines as I don’t think you can get the old style any longer. Just keep an eye on any lines that weren’t replaced for weeping.

Ethanol supports higher compression. The cooling effect of the alcohol content reduces the chance of detonation. I believe that it also has a higher effective octane rating than pump premium.

Of course this is E85, not the E5-10 that's normally at the pump.

The list of cons is too long to fit in this little box however....

What station is that? I haven’t seen any non-ethanol gas around here in a long time.

Right, ethanol's octane rating is something like 113. So the gas makers can take cheaper gas, say 85 octane, and add ethanol to raise the combined octane to something like 87 (assuming E10).

The only positives are costs to produce and there is probably some related economics from ethanol production (though that is probably a contrived argument). I believe ethanol gas is better from an emissions standpoint.

Lots of negatives already mentioned. The only other significant negative is that it absorbs water. There are a few additive products that you can use (Stabil comes to mind) that are designed to mitigate the negative effects in ethanol gas.

I remember a few years ago that here in the US the government toyed with the idea of mandating E85 for all cars and some car makers (BMW was the main one I recall) said they would pull out of the US market if that happened.

If you’re running a non-turbo car there are NO pluses to ethanol.

To the original question - you’d probably be okay at 6500’ with non ethanol 87. I’d use it but I would run 91 on hotter days and when driving at lower elevations.

Edit: The Weltmeister chip may require 91 always so not sure if that would affect things...

Quickstep,

All on the Eastern Shore, Royal Farms on 404 past Denton. Search for "non Ethanol gas" and a website pops up that lists where the non ethanol stations are per state. I guess that the stations are on the shore due to all the boating, etc. Ocean City marinas have been selling it for years, even 93 octane at one marina. Ruined an engine on a Grady White years ago. My Carrera runs better even with the 91 octane than the ethanol 93.

Steve

It seems that the choice is usually either 1) run a low octane non-ethanol or 2) run a high-octane ethanol. Either way you should probably use an additive -- non-ethanol + octane booster or ethanol + Sta-bil. I'd probably choose the ethanol + octane booster but maybe it's six on one hand, half a dozen on the other and comes down to which additive is cheaper per gallon of fuel.

There is a new Shell station down the street from me that carries 91 non-ethanol (edit: corrected) so I've been using that lately. A while back it seemed like you could find non-ethanol if you knew where to look. I've noticed that some stations are now actively advertising the fact that they carry non-ethanol. At this new station they have a special sign for the non-ethanol gas pump.

Tim,
The regular red Stabil just stops stored gas from going bad, it has no effect on the ethanol, the one you need to prevent ethanol damage is the blue Marine Stabil, just to clarify. Also fixed your "ethanol" to "non ethanol" LOL

What?!?! So you'd rather put 87 octane in, put in an octane booster so your total octane is around 87.3, over E10 91 to 93 octane that is proven ok?!?!

I'll tell you which one will blow your motor up faster! :eek:

E85 would be great for high-CR NA motors.

Wouldn't you like colder running cylinders too?! I mean, heat is our enemy not having water-cooling.

I'm pretty sure the exhaust valves would be very happy running E85.

There is a new Stabil product. I have it in the garage. Name escapes me but it's basically the Marine Stabil but it has some other stuff (if you believe the marketing that is). Stabil 360 or something like that.

Oh, thanks for the typo catch. I fixed the original post.

Thanks everybody for all the input. Richard

Ethanol is nasty stuff. Had a car catch fire due to it rotting the fuel lines (2 years old & braided) Car was completely destroyed :mad: Will only use Shell V Power 98 RON in mine :)

An experienced engine builder in IN (George Farmer) highly recommended the use of Star Tron. He had several reasons why ethanol in fuel is fundamentally bad for our engines and apparently is a fan of the product. I have no skin in this game just passing on some info I received.

Star Tron Enzyme Fuel Treatment

As mentioned, Ethnol can raise the octane of the gas, and it can help reduce pollution because it adds oxygen to the fuel. It can replace the MTBE fuel additive and is not as toxic as MTBE.

Ethanol is wonderful if you are corn farmer. Ethanol along with billions in tax subsidies are making many huge corporate farms lots of money. The tax subsidies added to the production of ethanol makes it cheaper at the pump than 100% gasoline. Of course if you are a taxpayer (like most of us) the government takes the taxes out of one pocket to pay for the ethanol so you can put money back in your other pocket. Of course there is a heavy surcharge for moving that money from one pocket to the other.

The overall cost of ethanol for the consumer is huge if you add up all the costs of small engine repairs, and automobile problems.

I am lucky. There is a gas station just a few blocks from my house that sells 100% gasoline. I use the higher cost gas in all my cars and lawn equipment. On road trips in many states there is no option except ethanol laced gas. I use it in my 91 but I have replaced all the rubber fuel lines from the injectors to the gas tank.

StaBil 360 Ethanol Treatment - 1oz/5-gallons of fuel.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1516989250.jpg

I recall reading somewhere that the production of ethanol uses up more BTU's per gallon than it gives when it burns.

Is ethanol proven ok? I don’t think it is.

I don’t have a high compression engine, so it just needs to meet the manufacturer recommended fuel.

Tax subsidy experimental ethanol was never invented when my fuel system was. So I’ll not be mixing the two if at all possible. Yes, I’d rather risk engine damage than having the car be set on fire. The risk is not theoetical - at best it will ruin the fuel system, at worst the car will catch on fire due to failure of the fuel system.

Also known as EROEI. Only petroleum based products have a high EROEI. That is why resources have to be diverted from other production to make so-called ‘alternative’ energy sources. The great thing about EROEI is that it transcends politics, tax, fashion, currencies and marginal efficiency changes. A person/community/country/planet that ignores EROEI makes itself gradually poorer.

Edit: also nuclear has a high eroei

I've considered this for a track car I have. I would run some kind of upper cylinder lubricant as well due to lack of lubricity in E85. Other issue would be storage without first running some regular gas through system. E85 is pretty corrosive.

The same is true with celery. That's why I always eat my celery with a side of wings and beer. Otherwise, what's the point? :D

That new Stabil 360 is fine, but the Marine Stabil 360 is still the best at
abating water condensation. People in the marine industry will use nothing else! It is a tad bit more expensive than the 360 you show,
but I'll gladly pay the difference.

From their website:
Marine Stabil 360
Ultimate treatment and protection against ethanol and condensation
"enhanced water removal"
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1516995643.jpg

EROEI:

Environmental

Return

On

?

Investment

??????

Energy returned on energy invested

It measures the net gain in energy through production. Imagine it this way - if you spend a day working in the field to grow something, and you burn 500 calories doing so - if your Eroei is 1 you will have created 500 calories of energy. If your eroei is 2 you have created 1000 calories of energy. If our eroei is 0.5 you have created 250 calories. That is the difference between surviving, getting richer and starving.

The same goes for large scale energy production - if you grow ethanol you need to plough fields, fertilise, grow, harvest and refine. All this requires energy to do. For petroleum you have to find, drill, extract, refine to get gasoline. However the energy density of crude and gas is so high that even sky-high costs of production like deep water drilling are still offset by the high eroei, which is why it is still done. The eroei of ethanol is so low (or probably negative) that it requires subsidies to divert production into ethanol.

Understanding how prosperity is made depends on understanding energy production. The romans were rich for their time because they utilised slave labour as well as hydro - this improved their base eroei relative. But our modern energy economy provides a lifestyle that even a Caesar would envy- why? Because of eroei.

TLDR; ethanol is bad because it ruins classic cars and makes society poorer

What octane was the chip designed for? A stock '87 has 9.5 cr and called for 95RoN is US AKI 91 Unless the chip called for reduced octane then you don't want to use 87

Anecdotally, back when leaded 87 was phased I ou my 8.5cr C3 was forced to run at least 91 unleaded, previously it ran fine on 87 leaded.

just a FYI Australia got the same engine/DME as the US but it was rated 10hp less, and used 91MON(87US) the difference was in the DME coding which is controlled by

2 things
a plug at T10 and a bridge at T28
in the US T10 is disconnected and the bridge is no installed at T28, in Aus bothe are installed.

additionally the printed circuit board in the DME have an 'octane' switch, when this switch is in position 4 it imposes a 2.8° c/s retard on ign timing

My track motor is spec'ed for 98Ron , but runs fine on 91 US non ethanol, I used to run 93AKI(US, 98RON equivalent)) but it seems to run better w/ the 91 non ethanol, it certainly needs less fuel. Part of the problem w/ ethanol is that you have to use more fuel for the same result, so the injectors are running closer to their max and this probably contributes to the better non ethanol performance.

Besides the incompatibility of older fuel systems w/ ethanol, it's the insidious way it collects water in the system, until I learned better I was having to rebuild my snowblower and lawn mower yearly because of this, since I switched to only using non ethanol not a single problem.

A little off topic....

I performed EPA RFG attestations in the 90's for BP. All the EPA required was that the auditor was a Certified Internal Auditor. I was a bean counter but I could still measure volumes of ethanol into trucks at the terminals per regulations. Lots of it was splash blended.

I did have a measurement auditor (engineer) help me on the more tech stuff at the refineries as they could blend the ethanol before entering the pipeline.

That said, he was furious (early 90's) that Marathon used MTBE, a superior oxygenate, and even blended that for there el-cheapo gas station chain, Speedway. Furious that Marathon's cut rate stations offered superior oxygenated gasoline than a flagship BP company station.

$$$$ drives a lot. (MTBE was more expensive)

Just a factoid.

Bill, I've got no idea what octane the chip is designed for. It's 20 years old and I've got the receipt showing the install but no details. What are the ramifications if it is programmed for 91 and I'm running 87? Just took a drive out on the prairie and its running strong. No pings, even when intentionally lugging.

Minus:

when I lived on Oahu the ethanol allowed all kinds of moisture to collect in the Webers I was running then. The carbs never wanted to run right and always needed cleaning or something.

A guy that worked for me had a small aircraft that had an air cooled engine. He had to replace an entire cylinder from the same problem. He found a Union 76 that sold marine gas and carried jerry cans to his plane to fill up. I would stop by the same station every two or three fill ups for a tank full.

Ethanol costs more to make than gasoline but has a heavy subsidy plus it is mandated by the states. It is good from an emissions standpoint because it brings some extra oxygen in to the mix for more complete burning.

I posted this earlier (with a few updates):
Not only that, since the existing fleet is not compatible with E85, you have a massive distribution problem. If you think E85 is the answer (it is not see above), answer this: How many FlexFuel cars use E85? I suspect the answer is that outside of the cornbelt, not many. I do not see any E85 stations where I live.