Quote:
Originally Posted by Jammer
I swear every pump I see around here claims 10% Alcohol, I honestly thought it all was tied to some Federal mandate to get Americans off of oil- by slowly increasing the amount of alcohol in our "gas".
I must concur that the small gas engines seem to be running the worse on this e10 stuff. Does raising the octave from 87 up higher really help any with small econo-box engines?
|
Minimum ethanol requirements are mostly mandated at the state level. Oregon and Washington mandate E10, and I noticed a sharp decrease in mpg once the changeover occurred.
Running a higher octane than what your engine was engineered for will not help anything. I always recommend running the minimum octane that your engine is rated for. For example, Acura recommends I run 92 PON, but the minimum required is 87 PON. I run 87 and surprisingly, do not notice a decrease in mileage. Since my timing is computer controlled, I do not have pinging or any other symptoms of running a low octane.
FYI- ethanol contains ~2/3 of the amount of energy as gasoline. This means an engine running 100% ethanol would get only 66% of the MPG that a gasoline engine would.