89 Octane Gas, No Ethanol?
 

some of you have mentioned that you have the option of buying straight gas(no ethanol) in 89 octane. how do you tell?

is there a label stating it? have you tested it?

It depends on where you live. Some states, and many metro areas mandated to sell 10% Ethanol. If the station sells a blend it should be marked on the pump.

-Jay

Yeah, octane is irrelevant. If they are supposed to be selling a certain % of octane in a particular state or locality, it won't matter what the octane rating is. They use ethanol as an oxygenate to reduce emissions. Also labelling seems to vary state to state. A state that mandates for example 10% ethanol in all gasolines like Minnesota I believe, then it is moot point to label the pumps since they all should have it anyway.

I did read about a test using water to measure the ethanol content in gasoline and if you search about it you will find testers for aircraft. High ethanol content used in airplane engines can lead to problems and up in the sky is the last place you need it.

depends on the station, typically the grade with ethonal in it is cheaper (tax break)

like most pumps around here the ethonal is in the regular 87 octane, now a few have it in the midgrade 89 octane BUT their 87 regular is higher than midgrade...

thats a good way to tell.

In Virginia its in all grades - 10% ethanol. Some stations still do the pricing like you describe though... $3.939 (87), $4.099 (89), $4.199 (93). Its hard to get the Beast to get decent mileage on an "Ethanol Enriched" diet.

I'd like to know about those ethanol tests if anyone digs out the details.

I am coming from the opposite direction though, I wanna know the ethanol content of the gas here, but I'm looking for the most ethanol I can get at the moment, I have some things to test that promise higher mileage on ethanol blend than on regular, even a whopping 50% on E85 in a non flexfuel vehicle if it works out right.

If you look at the EPA ratings for E85 vehicles, the mileage is rated higher for gasoline. If it was somehow possible to get more mileage out of an E85 blend then the manufacturers would be doing this, and people would be clamoring for E85. Very few stations here have E85, and the few that do charge just as much, if not more for it than 87 octane unleaded. It costs more money to drive on E85. Plus ethanol is very corrosive. Running E85 in a non-E85 equipped vehicle would probably cause serious damage to the fuel system over time.

"if it was possible the manufacturers would do it" :rolleyes: :thumbdown:

It is possible but to make an E85 car get the same or better performance of a gasoline engine. The only problem is when you configure an engine to run at full potential on E85 you'll kill it by running gasoline because of the low octane level of gasoline.

The biggest problem with flex fuel vehicles is they need de-tuned to run 86-91 octane when E85 is up around 110 octane. Kinda like wasting money on premium fuel in a car that runs fine on regular but to a more extreme extent. Guys running top-fuel dragsters even run pump E85 in some of their race cars.

I'm not doubting that you can get the same, or better performance out of E85, I thought the topic of discussion was how many miles you can get out of it compared to straight gasoline.