Ethanol and your ride - are you using it?

Over here in germany most owners of cars and motorcycles are polarized about the usage of gasoline with up to 10% ethanol.

I am using the so called »E10« for my Audi A4 (17 years old) and my XJ 600 S (also 17 years old). Without any problems.

The last 9 years I had a VW T4 Eurovan with lpg conversion. Therefore I read a lot about FFV and ethanol even before it was on the screen for the majority of car owners.

Back to the motorcycle and my question: Ethanol and your ride - are you using it?

Is somebody here using a higher concentration of ethanol (E50 or sth. like that) as fuel for his ride?

Greetings, Martin

 

Here in the states they can put up to 10% ethanol in and don't have to label it (some states do require labeling though). E15 is approved for newer cars, but must be labeled. E85 is available for flex fuel vehicles.

The Federal government is mandating that the refiners use a certain quota of ethanol. I believe this is making ethanol free gasoline rare at automobile gasoline stations.

 

No! And for the record Ethanol based fuels have only 4% of market sales over here!

 

I only fill at Shell stations, add they use nitrogen instead of ethanol. This wad learned from a post of an email direct from shell.

 

I will use the up to 10% blends in my car and truck but I try real hard to avoid it in my bikes.

 

As I can see in your signatures most of you own older models.

Yamaha (Europe) declared all machines built/sold after 1990 can handle E10 without any problems.

Greetings, Martin

 

Haven't had any problems in my car or truck. I've been using it in my XJ and lawn equipment with seafoam because of all the complaints I've heard from owners and mechanics about carbs gumming up quickly and often.

 

verry little choice in the matter up here in the north east there are only a few places left that sell straight gas and they aren't anywhere near me.

 

So in almost every (?) state in the US there are no gas stations with gasoline without ethanol left?
_____

But you have a larger market for propane/butane if I remember correctly?

Greetings, Martin

 

Around where I live it's pretty much 10% everywhere. There's a few stations who claim to not have ethanol in their premium and I run that through from time to time when I'm feeling frivolous. Otherwise I run 2oz of seafood through every once in a while. Not sure if it helps either but meh, what the hell, lol

 

*seafoam.

Damn phone making me sound like an idiot.

 

I was going to ask if you get it at Long John Silvers.

 

Hey now

 

I know Seafoam as 100% petroleum. It does not hurt, but similar products from other brands -> they never killed an engine. But engines without those are also running very fine.

Germans calculate the other way. Not mpg but liter per 100 kilometer. Here is the data of my XJ 600 S. Running with »E10« or »95« (similar to »premium 92 octan« in the US).

http://www.spritmonitor.de/de/detailans ... ?cdetail=1

3.467 km with 147 l »E10« - and no problems so far.

Greetings, Martin

 

I dont trust it, but like biggs I try to avoid it on carbs and 2-strokes. Not only does it gum things up, it deteriorates rubber. Makes me wonder what it does to injector o-rings....
Its very difficult to find gas without 10% "Alcohol" here in Corning.

For those that might not have known...Ethanol = Moonshine Alcohol. yep. same stuff!


Interesting tidbits pulled from the Ethanol wiki:

"Original Ford Model T automobiles ran on ethanol until 1908. With the advent of Prohibition in 1920, ethanol fuel sellers were accused of being allied with moonshiners, and ethanol fuel fell into disuse until late in the 20th century"

Brazil relies on ethanol more than other countries. Hydrous ethanol (about 95% ethanol and 5% water) can be used as fuel in more than 90% of new cars sold in the country. Brazil get their alcohol from sugarcane instead of corn as we do here in the states and their flexfuel vehicles are able to work with all ethanol, all gasoline or any mixture of both

Some mechanics also claim to have seen increased cases of damage to small engines, in particular, the carburetor, attributable to the increased water retention by ethanol in fuel. Edited. Source: "opinion" "Mechanics see ethanol damaging small engines" Link to opinion article


I cant say whos right about Ethanols effects on carbs and rubber rings and lines, but I have talked to boaters in the past that state that they have had problems using gas with the alcohol filler. Also, I had the chance to speak with a boat mechanic yesterday on the matter and he too stated that it causes problems especially in the older marine motors.

 

Running ethanol alone in an engine designed for it is totally fine. It's even cleaner than gas in that situation.

The problem arises when you mix the two together and burn it in a low-compression engine. Ethanol will combine chemically with the long-chain hydrocarbons in gas to create Triglyceride like molecules, which will clog and varnish your fuel system. This is especially true when they are allowed to just sit together for a long time-2 weeks or more.

Most modern engines will run fine with E10 because they are fuel injected and ignition variable to compensate. This crap is really bad for Carb based engines, this isn't something some people like to make up-It's real. If you don't believe me just go to any shop and ask any mechanic. They will tell you that it is a major source of issues and even in the modern engines it wears things out.

So to answer your question-NO I will not put ethanol in my bike or my boat or my lawnmower or weed-eater or generator. There are several gas stations in NW Arkansas that sell E10 free gas, it's more expensive but time is money and hours of unnecessary time spent cleaning all those carbs is unappealing and costly. Plus if I must put it into any FI engines I always put a bit of ethanol remedy in with it, my mechanics are forever grateful.

A side note: the use of ethanol in fuels has driven up grain prices worldwide and has caused more hunger and starvation in developing countries. Gotta love greed and capitalism.

 

I had E10 in the fuel tank of my XJ 600 S for the whole wintertime... After 4 months I took her out of the garage on the first of april, started her, and rode away. No problems at all.

[offtopic]

Not really. But speculation with not even existing (!) grains caused a huge increase of the prices in 2008 to 2011. It is more like betting that selling what they do...

German insurance company »Allianz*« causes hunger and starvation

*Allianz will be translated to alliance by the google translator

[/offtopic]

Greetings, Martin

 

There are Stickers on most of the Gas Pumps saying that the Fuel could be up to 12% Ethanol in Massachusetts.

I'm running High-test.

The Bike seems to run better for an extra 11-Cents a Gallon.

::: ( Probably all comes from the same underground tank! ) :::

 

»High-test« means >=100 octane?

Greetings, Martin

 

Where I live in Canada they just started putting 10% ethanol in the gasoline a little over a year ago. I bought regular grade for the first little while, but with the E10, my mileage dropped off significantly over a tank. Premium fuel is the only one on the pumps that does not carry ethanol now. Even though I pay a bit more for it, it works out the same as I get better mileage out of the premium. So now the only E10 I'm getting is what is leftover in the line from previous fuel purchased. So like others I put a bit of Seafoam in the tank every so often to help with any breakdowns that may occur.

 

Look up your nearest Alcohol-Free gas here - - http://pure-gas.org/

Mine is about 25 miles away, and if it's a Marina, you need to tote gas cans down to the dock.

Ethanol is not approved for Aviation use, and you can easily get 100 Octane to bring home for your "ultralight". :wink:

 

ethanol works fine on a modern car with fuel injection because the fuel is under high pressure. alcohol does not like vacuum. carburetors work on vacuum.

my dad has an antique car. 1931 plymouth. it used to run great until this year. he put an electric fuel pump next to the tank and that helped but it still is way down on power and on a hot day it will not pull a hill. its this $hit they are trying to sell as gasoline. plus all the rubber gasgets in the carb have already rotted and he rebuilt the carb recently. same with both the original fuel pump and the electric one he put on. fuel lines are swelling up also

@ timetoride: thank you for that link. i will definately try that gas

 

X_Fish you must be blessed or perhaps oblivious. So you just left your bike sitting ALL winter with nothing but gas (with magic E10) in the carbs and tank and didn't bother to winterize or anything eh? And 'no prob' you say. Well you have a guardian angel my friend.

And to your "Not really" comment about ethanol in gas having nothing to do with commodity prices I submit this from Heartlander magazine:

"The primary driver of the rise in corn prices is the Bush administration’s strategy to replace 20 percent of petroleum usage with alternative fuels, such as corn-based ethanol, within the next decade."

and

“Ethanol subsidies are directly draining the wallets of American taxpayers,” Taylor said in an interview after the conference. “Not only that,” Taylor noted, “ethanol subsidies are raising prices for fuel consumers, raising prices for corn consumers, and causing a related rise in the price of numerous other food crops.”

need more

"Particularly hurt by rising corn prices are low-income Mexicans who rely on corn as an inexpensive dietary staple. Roughly half of Mexico’s 107 million citizens live in poverty, earning roughly $18 per day on average. Tortilla prices have risen 14 percent during the past year due to increasing corn prices"

In fairness ethanol can be made from many other crops besides corn, but that's not how the industry designed it-they set out to specifically use corn here in the US and speculation doesn't drive up foods like it does other commodities (like oil), what your referring to is anticipation of supply. So I don't know where you're getting your info from, but not likely the land of facts.

Schönen Tag noch. Mein Freund.

 

my favorite argument against corn based ethanol as used here in the US

According to Cornell University professor of agriculture David Pimentel, producing ethanol actually creates a net energy loss. According to his calculations, producing corn and processing it into 1 gallon (3.7 liters) of ethanol requires 131,000 BTUs of energy; but 1 gallon of ethanol contains only 77,000 BTUs [source: Health and Energy]. And since farmers are using fossil-fuel-powered equipment to plant, maintain and harvest the corn and are using fossil-fuel-powered machinery to process that corn into ethanol and then, in almost all cases, to ship the product to collection points via fuel-powered transport, the ethanol industry is actually burning large amounts of gasoline to produce this alternative fuel. That ethanol could end up containing less energy than the gasoline consumed to produce it.

 

I just tried flipping over to high octane (94) up here in Canada. After doing so my plugs are super rich to the point of fouling, perhaps as a side effect? Currently tweaking down my mixtures, hoping for some brown bag plug color action before the PD13 run this Friday. Good times, good times... Anyone else notice this phenomenon?

 

Haven't really had mine running long enough to notice any difference. I do have a couple of local stations that sell fuel with no ethanol in-case it make a dramatic difference in tuning efforts.

 

Right. Besides the part of the winterizing: Lubing the chain, putting some silicone spray on the frame and not covering the XJ with some kind of 100% PVC cover to give the dew the chance to get away instead of creating some kind of rainforrest climate.

30 years ago: Everybody was putting spiritus into the tank (and probably carb) to avoid gum and rust. Spiritus == alcohol or exactly (!) ethanol. That tipp was also in some of the owner manuals of some brands. At least in the german versions...

The difference between US and other countries: The european countries use primary fast growing plants that are not useable as food and wastes from forestry (scandinavia). Brazil uses their sugar cane.

Background: Corn (maize) is one of the worst materials to be used to get ethanol. But it was cheap. The relationship between the produced ethanol from the recovered energy in proportion to the energy that is needed to produce them: maize with 1.3. So there is 30 percent more energy produced than expended.

Sugar cane in Brazil: 8.3, trees that are high in cellulose: 16, at least in theory - if nearly everything of the plant can be used in the production or otherwise. For example nearly the whole plant of sugar cane can be used in brazil without simply burning the rests without any use of the heat.

The other quotations: I know the drill. The »funny« part of it: The same time that the so called »agrofuel« was blamed to be guilty, tons and tons of wheat and barley have been burned or left out on the fields to rott due to overproduction and too few storage. Because it was cheaper to burn or rott instead of transporting it to other countries, etc.

Right now it's kind of hip to blame »agrofuels« for a lot of problems in the world:

* rising prices for food
* rising amount of subsidies that the tax-payer has to pay in the end
* ...

If you just reduce it to money, then why are insurence companies, banks and even the automobile and oil industry spending so much time and their money in speculations on the stock market with food?

Remember: There are always two sides to every story - or three: Facts, other facts and the truth.

I was following the news about FFV since 2004. Read a lot about Brazil and their way. Read even more about what was in 2006: Food will become the new gold.

Source: google translated article (8.30.2010).

It is not that easy to blame agrofuel. There are more things that come together. Like the rainforrest problem in Brazil. It's all about cattle and soj. And that soj is for the cattle -> both need new places in the north of Brazil. So it is not sugar cane (that only grows in the south), it's the greed for flesh of cattle that kills the rainforrest.

BTW: Half of the worldwide corn harvest is being fed to cattle... But if you would not feed it to cattle, lots of human beings would be fed... But: The industrial countries want meat, not soj, wheat or maize on their dishes.

Greetings, Martin (not a vegetarian if probably assumed)

 

For those of us in Canada - EVERY fuel station uses 10-15% ethanol in their "regular" 87 octane fuels. The real problem then comes because that's just the 'target' percentage -- several stations have been found with up to 20% ethanol in their tanks as 'regular'.
To the one poster earlier - yes, even Shell 'bronze 87' and 'silver 89' have it -- 10% and 5% respectively. The 'nitrogen enriched' line is marketing schtick - don't buy it.
HOWEVER, they do have a saving grace -- Shell 'gold 91' has NO ETHANOL in it. Shell is the last station I know of to still offer ethanol-free fuel in Canada. Oh - and Shell uses mixer pumps - so the silver is just a mix of bronze and gold.
In a reasonably modern car or truck, and even some motorcycles, ethanol is not normally an issue -- primarily because it gets used frequently - ie it doesn't sit around. That's when problems start to happen.
Do a search for 'phase separation gasoline' to see what happens. Here's a link to the wikipedia article that mentions it: Ethanol Fuels
Oh - and just for even more fun, ethanol eats rubber -- what are your intake manifolds made of again?

Even the Ministry of Natural Resources in Ontario refuses to use ethanol fuels in any small engine. Some years ago their SOP changed that all motorcycles, atv's, generators, lawn mowers, trimmers, boat motors, etc are all to be run on Shell Gold 91 exclusively. Primarily because any small engine that may sit unused for some months -- especially if there are large weather changes and/or humidity -- WILL accumulate water in the fuel.

So sadly, because I don't ride everyday -- No, I do not use fuel containing ethanol in my bike if I can at all avoid it.