Ethanol Free Gas Found At Last!!!
 

on a trip to napa yesterday, i saw an advertisement for ethanol free gas. the station, as it turns out, is not far from my house.

so, i'll be conducting an experiment w/ this gas to see if non-E10 does in fact yield more mpgs. my thoughts are...

it must yield enough extra to cover the difference in price(if any) and my 5% cash back(if the station will not accept my cc). but, i will continue to use it in my gas mower and edger.

my gas mower doesn't get much action anyway due to the purchase of the reel mower. but, when time gets away and weeds grow, it is there when i need it.

mowers don't care if ethanol is in the fuel.

not much else does either.

If you are horribly concerned about your mileage, then you should care how much ethanol is in your fuel as it releases less energy when burned compared to pure gasoline. I dont think I have to get too damn scientific here, but less kinetic energy means less available power and more burned fuel. A friend of mine is converting his fuel injected turbocharged SBC 69 Nova outlaw 10.5 car to run on 100% Ethanol, and had to have 2 injector bungs welded into each intake runner with higher floe injectors. He says hes using twice the amount of fuel, but it burns cooler than gas and he can turn boost up much higher than on 110octane race gas.

You are invited to check my gaslog; tell me if you spot any fe trends when burning ethanol.

Basically I figure up to 50/50 blend E85/E10 gives same fe; over that and it starts to drop.

Im not calling you a liar per your gaslog, conversely Im not trying to be a prick but scientific facts are just that.. Scientific testing expressed in BTU's state the following:

100% Ethanol has energy potential of 77,000 BTU's per gallon when burned.
100% Gasoline has energy potential of 125,000BTU's per gallon when burned.

The more Ethanol blended into gas means sacrificing thermal effeciency/MPG. Maybe E10-E20 wouldnt be as noticeable, but I have had 1/2 tank of E85 in my 05 Explorer and my FE dropped more than 10mpg city and 13-15mpg highway@75mph over E10-E22-100% gasoline.

I'd posted a study that showed equal or even improved fe with up to 40% ethanol content. I put it up because my experience pretty much matches it.

Yes I know all about the BTU thing but there is more than that going on in the combustion chamber.

Going from ethanol free to E10 won't amount to a hill of beans, in my experience.

Marvin seems to have taken well to ethanol, I can only say seems, because it's real vague about when it goes in and in what quantities here.

The Tempo we had in the family really liked ethanol too, at least it really liked Sunoco, who is about the only place that actually boasts about having up to 10% Ethanol. Difference was as high as 10% over normal gas.

Wile-E, I can't tell, I broke him before mandated ethanol here, then I've had minor issue after minor issue since I re-capitated him. Just found a vac leak, hopefully THAT will get him running more consistant.

I agree that it is not as simple as counting BTUs. If for instance the presence of ethanol actually improves the burn efficiency of the gasoline component of the fuel, economy could be a wash. That's all I'm willing to suggest about that however.

What I can say with certainty is that the presence of ethanol really can matter in engines that are not tuned to run it. For example, one of my friends has a boat that started missing allot when E10 became the norm around here. It ran just fine on 87 octane before that. The manufacturer proclaimed that no higher octane was necessary and that E10 was useable. Contrary to that, straight non-ethanol fuel eliminates the miss as does running a mid-grade fuel.

What is worth noting about my example is that the motor qualifies under the classification of being a ULEV and is fully computer controlled MPFI and OBD-II. It simply was not tuned properly to deal with E10 and apparently lacks the ability to correct for it. I can't imaging the situation would be any better in many non-EFI motors that are tuned to run as cleanly as possible, but that's the rub: Most carbureted power equipment simply isn't tuned to run all that cleanly and the difference between E10 and non-E10 isn't likely to be noticed.

In a nutshell, if it misses on 87 E10, putting 89 E10 will likely take care of the problem, but if it's not missing, the differences many people think they are seeing are often imagined.

I'd love to see somebody do an experiment testing the number of feet per second a mower could handle in tall grass on one fuel vs. the other. I suspect the results would be inconclusive of any real difference.

well, let me say that i'll stake my rep on the test results. in other words, i'd rather keep my rep than report some manipulated gains.

problem is, it will be some time before i'll be able to report. i just fueled up recently(E10) and a tank lasts me ~2 weeks. so, it will be at least 3 weeks before my first non-E10 result is logged. i will try to report some scan gauge trips as they progress.

the positive thing is that, as mentioned before, i am a perfect test candidate over the course of tank to tank testing. my driving variables most days are minimal to none.

with the exception of vacations, dental appts, and such, my miles tank to tank are very similar.

Weather ethanol is in the presence of gasoline or not doesnt change the fact that it has a lower thermal efficiency than gasoline. Again, not trying to play the devils advocate or be a dick, but in my limited testing, I only got about 400 miles out of a tank with E85/87 octane gasoline where I normally got 500 miles out of a tank in consistant driving, so I never gave it a second chance. The vehicle I WAS driving IS a flex fuel vehicle and I could take no chances in getting that bad mileage, so I went back to E10/ pure gas (27 gallons a week just aint my cup o tea at less than $30,000/yr). Before I get put in front of the firing squad, let me state that I would love for nothing more than an alternative fuel that can match gasoline mile for mile, but 27 gallons only getting only 400 miles was conclusive enough for me to see that it wasnt worth the time. I have recently gotten my Civic out o storage, so that my DD again @30-40ish mpg (depending on wind and temperature), next step is LRR tires to replace the snow tires curently on it..lol

Burn it, don't burn it, I don't care, I know what works in my stuff.

I think it really boils down to this: Assume nothing.

Simple math suggests higher ethanol = reduced economy, but the real world tells us that is not always the case. Mostly because not all engines are running at peak efficiency on pure gasoline IMO, but those that are will likely lose economy in terms of strict miles/hours per gallon even if they do burn the ethanol based fuel at least as efficiently.


MY POINT is that you can't just look at the nearly 40% difference in BTUs between gasoline and ethanol and assume that's what the difference will be in fuel economy. There is plenty of data to suggest that will be the case, but it depends on tune!

I've compared E10 and straight gas over the last year. Picking out the tanks with the most similar weather (dropping the cold winter ones), I get the following results. 6 tanks each.

E10: 62.8 mpg
Gas: 66.9 mpg

Based on the roughly 4% drop in BTUs with E10, your economy sucks with a loss of over 6%. It's probably running a hair too lean on E10, causing misfires that may or may not be perceptible, and losing power.

I'll bet your economy comes back that extra 2% if you bump up one octane grade.

(assuming what you say is true)
Why should I pay more for mid-grade E-fuel to get only a 4% drop in mileage when my car runs so nicely on real gas? That would be a double loss in my miles-per-dollar efficiency.

I wish I could get real gas. Does anyone know of a website or database that tracks stations serving up the real stuff? That would be really helpful to use when traveling out of state.

That's the thing. In many areas, increasingly, straight gasoline simply is not available or the stations cannot legally put it into your tank unless it is an RV, boat, etc.

The only stations that supposedly sell it around here are on or near water or other recreational vehicle areas - but I'm suspicious that all of them are actually selling E-free fuel and not just charging extra for the same E10 they sell to everybody else. By our state law, the regulators wouldn't even be interested in checking the content of the fuel since it is not being sold for on-road use.

I believe they must have an MSDS sheet available inside if you ask. That would tell you exactly what's in the fuel. I haven't tried it myself, though.

MSDS sheets tell you nothing... Its probably like "proprietary additive 506" and "proprietary additive 209" and stuff like that... I've tried reading MSDS sheets to figure out what's in stuff before. Never worked.

What are they using to control octane in Ethanol free gas now? I thought Ethanol was the replacement for MTBE for that job?

nate(hi tech hill billy),

no worries. the guys here demand accurate testing, so...

put your car in the garage and start posting your results. best of luck!

Lol, "thats funny right thar, I dont care who you are". I wish as much as the next OPEC terrorism hating American Patriot to get off of Eastern oil dependance as the next guy, but getting 100miles less per tank while driving the same speeds and the exact same route is enough for me to thumb my nose at E85 until gas goes back over $5.00/gallon. Right now, I am plotting the takeover of the auto industry with my diesel/electric idea... As soon as a bundle of cash falls into my lap.

I have to wonder if the heat of the southwest is a factor here.

Dang well could be, lows for last/this week dont go below 79F, and hi's have ranged from 90-105F. I can tell you that its darn uncomfy driving to work at 5:30am with the a/c off and getting severe swamp *** before I step foot in my shop!

Turn on the A/C...no amount of gas is worth feeling like that.

Agreed!

That was a 1 time limited thing there, it wont happen again!! On a different note, I wonder if you put a small amount of nitromethane in E-85 if TE would go up enough to match gasoline.... Im willing to test it if someone ca supply the nitro! BOOM!!

I don't know if I want my car to go BOOM!

Nitromethane has a 1.7:1 air fuel ratio. Since it provides its own oxygen for the most part it might be a cool thing to add to the mix. Just remember that Nitro is more explosive than TNT.

If your engine starts knocking with nitro it won't last long.

Why not? Add a little bit of excitement in you life!! I will try it if I can borrow some armor plating off of a HMMWV at work to bolster my firewall..lol

My vehicles are old, and I'd like them to run for well, forever. I don't think I'm trying Nitro.

Sorry that youre mundane... Just Joshin with you, that was more of a funny post about nitro. I gotta get my jollies somehow here, I get a life and death "thrill" almost every time I drive off of this base!

update:

the good...finally started my experiment by filling w/ non-E10 gas yesterday.

the bad...a couple days before filling, my car started acting up again. feels like a back pressure hesitation. maybe the muffler is shot! FE is surely compromised.

I had a cat so plugged up that I could barely maintain highway speed and it had little effect on my FE.

To test for exhaust or cat plugging, stick a vacuum gauge on a convenient port, rev the motor to 2500 or so and let off the throttle sharply, if the vacuum drops realllllly sllloowwwly then there's definitely a problem.

thanks guys. the cat is fairly new and the problem is VERY intermitant.

Model airplanes with IC engines use nitro. You probably can pick up nitro at your local hobby shop. I was thinking about it a few years ago for my lawnmower.

hmmmm, you have a point there, but it contains castor oil and its for 2 strokes.. my parents used to have a 2 stroke push mower when i was a kid, cant remember who made it....

Not talking about glow fuel which has nitro in it.

Am talking about buying straight nitro at your local hobby shop. I can't recall if it was "pure" (so to speak), or some sort of nitro additive for glow fuel. I will stop by my shop in the next couple of days to check.

As far as 2-stroke lawnmowers, you are probably thinking of Lawnboy ... they seem to be popular here in Maryland (I never saw one growing up in upstate NY). I had one for a while after my nice 4-stroke (that I had for 9 years) was stolen. I was happy to be rid of the oily, smokey thing. Gach!! I will probably get lung cancer after having used it ... blue smoke disaster!!

oh, my bad i didnt know you could buy "pure" nitro, i was into gas r/c airplanes for a little bit but i just bought what super tiger recomended. Youre right about the mower too and i hated mowing with that smoky pile too, especially 1/2 acre..

Back on task though, i really wonder if methanol and nitro would blend and not seperate, how much does nitro cost?