Ethanol vs Non Ethanol fuel

[pronstar]

If storing/using ethanol-containing fuel, I suggest using StaBil. It will keep the fuel usable during storage, and it will prevent the ethanol from mucking-up your carb.

As far as engines go, read your owners manual to see what your engine will tolerate.

If you specifically do not have a Flex Fuel vehicle, E85 will eventually harm your fuel system.

Ethanol has high octane, and you can make a lot of power with it...you’ll just burn more of it compared to straight gasoline.


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[lonestardiver]

91 octane is what Harley calls for with my bike. If I recall the non-ethanol fuel I saw north of Austin, it was 90 or 91 octane.

I know a station in Weatherford has it. I need to investigate it further.

 

[easy rider]

91 octane is what Harley calls for with my bike. If I recall the non-ethanol fuel I saw north of Austin, it was 90 or 91 octane.

I know a station in Weatherford has it. I need to investigate it further.

Well, that's better than I can find around here now. Only place I know of now is Murphy's, but as I said, it's only regular gas. I use the 91 octane and if I can find it 93 octane, of course with the usual 10% or less ethanol.

 

[lonestardiver]

Well, that's better than I can find around here now. Only place I know of now is Murphy's, but as I said, it's only regular gas. I use the 91 octane and if I can find it 93 octane, of course with the usual 10% or less ethanol.

It was Cedar Park where I saw it...paid the upcharge for it to try it in my truck. Saw a small increase in fuel mileage, about 2mpg.

According to the website posted earlier, the Murphy in Weatherford only has 87 octane. Fine for the mower and generators and ATV. Sounds like I need to invest in some 5gal metal fuel containers.

 

[rvrcty210]

Most modern engines in vehicles today are built to run on ethanol laced fuels. Older vehicles not so much. Ethanol fuel deteriorated the fuel line on our 2000 model boat. Caused problems with fuel pump and carbs.
Can't say what the cut-off date may be.
Same here on small engines. Non ethanol in mowers and chain saws.

Most boats specifically state to not use ethanol fuel. Ethanol is worse than gasoline without it and is really unnecessary to even make this fuel E10/E15 crap.

 

[rotor]

Ethanol is the biggest scam ever for gasoline blending. And we are stuck with it on a pure political basis. We don't need ethanol mixed fuel. If you want to drink it that's your choicer.

 

[Texasjack]

EPA claimed to put ethanol in gasoline to reduce pollution. After years of testing, that has proven to be totally false. It stays in gasoline so that corporate farms in the midwest can make money raising corn. (Regulations are all about politics, not science or facts, and politics are all about money.)

Ethanol tends to absorb water and can make the fuel corrosive to some metals. This is especially a problem with older cars, as newer ones are designed for it. Using ethanol in small engines is a problem largely because it makes those cheap fuel lines brittle and ruins them quickly.

Ethanol has less BTUs per gallon, so fuel mileage suffers. Burning non-ethanol gasoline will give you slightly better gas mileage, but not enough to cover the price. That price is artificial, as ethanol is relatively expensive to add to gasoline.

 

[Bozz10mm]

Now I'm wondering...if ethanol is mandated by law/regulation, how is it legal for gas stations to sell non-ethanol gas? At the QT station I found that sells the non-ethanol, they have about a dozen pumps, but only one that dispenses the Non E.

E10 was introduced mainly with the intention of reducing our dependence on foreign oil. At least that's what was claimed. It may reduce the refining of oil into gasoline by 10%, but at a cost of a 5% decrease in MPG. So, overall only a 5% reduction. That's not taking into account the additional fuel it takes to grow the corn and transport it to the distillery. Or the additional energy required by distillers to turn corn into ethanol.

Seems like a giant boondoggle to me. Of course, being a boomer, I thought it was a giant boondoggle when they removed lead from gasoline, then charged extra for unleaded. Leave out an ingredient and charge more for the fuel?

 

[Davetex]

Ethanol replaced MTBE as an oxigenator. MTBE replaced lead.

 

[pronstar]

Lots of info about ethanol, and why it’s used despite many states relaxing requirements, here:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...americas-ethanol-law-it-doesnt-matter-for-now




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[sidebite252]

I am lucky to have a station close by that sells 100% gas for .40 more per gallon. I use it in my Jeep as well as all small engines. I also use the Sta-bil marine product. This is no lie, my leaf vacuum has a 9 hp B&S motor and had sat for 2 years prior to me starting it this year with 100% gas treated with Sta-bil. When I got ready to use it it started on the 3rd pull. That’s real world results folks. sta-bil works.

 

[vmax]

Ethanol is the biggest scam ever for gasoline blending. And we are stuck with it on a pure political basis. We don't need ethanol mixed fuel. If you want to drink it that's your choicer.

Its big $$$ to the farmers who produce corn.

Corn producers produce a special corn for ethanol production

 

[easy rider]

One of the reasons I hated traveling through Minnesota on my bike, hard to find 10% ethanol, let alone ethanol free. Gas stations there didn't advertise what type of gas they had, most had E40, E60 and E80.

 

[FireInTheWire]

Ethanol is caca. But, run it in my daily driver.

Everything else gets treated with these.

 

[jordanmills]

Ethanol doesn’t store as well and has less energy density than gasoline which is why your fuel mileage improved.

.60/gallon is a heck of a price difference though.


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Exactly that.

But the difference in energy density of "gasoline" compared to that of ethanol is miniscule, so that is probably not much of a factor. The picture is significantly different for E85.

A far more significant concern is that ethanol is very hydrophilic (it attracts water), which is a big deal in our humid environment. And an even bigger deal when the same volume of ethanol blend is going to be sitting around for weeks at a time. Also, the water-saturated ethanol will eventually separate out (since water doesn't mix with the oil components of gas) and drop to the bottom (since water is heaver than gas), which is right where most engines have their fuel pickups. So starting an engine that has had an ethanol blend sitting in its vented tank for a few months will likely get you a good slurp of dirty water straight into the carb/injector. Oops.

Allthatcrapbyme on energy density:

The ethanol part of the gasoline blend has 2/3 the energy density by mass of octane (a large component of gasoline blends and fairly typical for energy content of the entire "real gasoline" blend), so "gasoline blend" that is 30% ethanol has 10% less energy by mass than the same amount "real gasoline". But pump blends sold as gasoline can only have 10% max ethanol (IIRC), so that's only 3.33% less energy by mass than "real gas", far less someone could notice outside of a lab. E85 (15% "real gas" and 85% ethanol) would have a difference in energy density noticeable to most people. That calculation does not account for other components of the engine, so it's possible that one part of the engine operation could be significantly negatively affected by a smaller change in energy density or other indirectly related factors.

 

[mroper]

The Bucees In Katy has ethanol free 91 Octane

 

[Hoji]

Ethanol free gas in all of our Toyota’s .
The Corollas will get 7-8 mpg better on the highway and run smoother.

The Tacoma 4x4 gets about 4 mpg more on the highway.

 

[SA_Steve]

Lots of info about ethanol, and why it’s used despite many states relaxing requirements, here:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...americas-ethanol-law-it-doesnt-matter-for-now




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Good article, but omits discussing the current trend of putting butane in gasoline.

 

[Brains]

I know my old '95 Sonoma manual said that ethanol up to E10 was okay. Wondering if most modern vehicles are actually designed to run on E10 or if they just can tolerate it.

They tolerate it. 10% Ethanol as the upper bound was chosen specifically because most vehicles were expected to run without any calibration changes and without needing to know the ethanol concentration. Anything with an oxygen sensor will simply adjust fuel delivery up as needed to run as expected, but not far enough to run outside of allowable calibration limits to throw a trouble code. Carbed motors will run a tiny bit on the lean side, but again not enough to typically notice. Get much over 10% and you can't run a pure gasoline calibration without either the car running like crap, a check engine light, or both.

E85 "Flex Fuel" cars are equipped with a fuel composition sensor that actively measures the ethanol content. Just because the pump says 85% basically never means it's going to be. You're actually lucky to get over 50%, and the mix is rarely consistent. There's a lot of people who convert and tune their performance cars to run on it, because as stated earlier it has a higher "octane rating" (detonation resistance) and you can tune the motor much more aggressively. For instance, a stock LT1 in a Camaro/Corvette will pick up over 40HP at the back tires by doing nothing more than adding a flex fuel sensor/tune, and running E85.

EPA claimed to put ethanol in gasoline to reduce pollution. After years of testing, that has proven to be totally false.

This actually is true, kinda. It looks cleaner out the tailpipe, and I've in the past used high concentrations of ethanol (and sometimes toluene) to get a car to pass emissions that otherwise failed miserably.

 

[pronstar]

View attachment 196448

You prolly know this but some folks don’t...

When an additive says “raises octane by 3 points” or whatever...note that a point is 1/10th of an octane number.

So if you start with 87, and raise it “3 points” - it’s now 87.3 octane.
It’s not 90 octane...unless you add a crapload of it.


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