E10 vs Shell V-Power ( Benelux Europe )
 

I have been successfully comparing E10 which has become, the new Euro 95 in Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxemburg. My theory was, that because of V-Power not containing bio-ethanol. That I should be able to drive more fuel efficient.

Well it turns out it's true! So not a lie, which most car owners who can't control their right feet claim it to be. The V-Power is € 0,213 more expensive in Belgium, then the E10. Atleast at Shell Express Maaseik in Belgium.

So it turns out I'm able to do almost 32KM/L when almost exclusively driving on the highway and paying attention to the real-time fuel consumption metre. With E10 I'm able to do max 27KM/L, so per KM tanking the V-Power actually makes the car drive more fuel efficient.

Also see my Spritmonitor, I kept track of E10 for a longer period in the past and also tried cheaper Euro 98 from Gabriels. A discount fuel station, and the fuel consumption was worse than normal Super E5.

I'm driving a Suzuki Celerio: Dutch Suzuki Celerio, with K10C engine and Cruisecontrol.

Interesting, I'm usualy running 95 RON E5 from the cheapest local gasstation.
I figured that since my engine is NA and doesn't have a high compression ratio, anything more would be a waste.
But I might run a test tank with higher octane fuel.

My motivation to start trying it, was because of the normal Super E5 in Germany tends to fluctuate between € 1,50 and € 1,65 so getting the V-Power in Belgium, is almost the same price as regular Super E5.

The Suzuki Celerio is know as the most fuel efficient gasoline car, on Spritmonitor. Compression ratio of my car is 12:1 so higher than many gasoline cars. With the Super E5 I have been driving also very fuel efficient, but the only time I got 30km/L was when the Suzuki dealer added a injection cleaner to the fuel.

Not all Euro 98 gasoline is free of bio-ethanol, but She'll claims their V-Power is. And I think the fuel efficiency is from the lack of bio-ethanol.

My engine is a 10:1 compression ratio naturaly aspirated port injected engine, so I might not realy benefit significantly from the higher octane rating.
Also my ECU is pretty dumb since my car is pretty old.
Also 95 RON E5 is mostly 1,45-1,50€ here most of the time.

I usualy get about 6L/100 km with my 1,8L engine and short gears.

What I look for locally is called 'clear premium'. I have used it in my 1971 Superbeetle to protect the fuel system, but there is a member here (funkhoss) who uses it in his Geo Metro and gets 87 MPG; so now I'm using it (first tank) in my 1990 XFi.

The increased price versus increased mileage suggests total cost involved versus bragging rights.

Fuel prices in general are higher over here due to taxes, so the % difference isn't as high.
1,50€/L is about 6,75$/gallon after all.

Unless it's effectively required in order to avoid knocking, resorting to an octane rating higher than specified is overkill. It won't do any actual harm, but it's also not so likely to improve fuel-efficiency at all.


Lots of those in Uruguay. Besides a car being generally quite expensive there, fuel costs are also a PITA, leading many Uruguayans to fill up at the Brazilian side of the border, even though the ethanol content here is around 22 to 27%.

I think it's the lack of bio-ethanol in V-Power, that gets the difference in fuel economy. Yes the Suzuki Celerio sold in The Netherlands, has a very fuel efficient gasoline engine. More efficient than an hybrid.... in the end those have two motors... while mine only has a gasoline.

So I'm quite sure my car won't Profit from the higher octane level, that's why I don't even bother tanking V-Power Racing in Germany which is octane level 100. But the price of V-Power is higher in Germany, than Belgium.

Take in mind, in Europe we use a different octane rating system than the USA. Also fuel is way more expensive.

Sure. The lower energy density of ethanol charges its toll.


That's the very same engine in any other market where the Celerio is available. Too bad the local representant of Suzuki and Mitsubishi in my country is focusing only on the SUVs. I'm sure Suzuki could get a more comfortable sales volume here if other models available in neighboring countries were offered here too.


I don't even remember what octane rating system is more common in Brazil.


Even the CNG prices skyrocketted in Brazil recently.

They discontinued the Celerio in Europe though: you can't buy them new anymore. Anyway I noticed that with V-Power the car runs more fuel efficient. I have been trying to drive as fuel efficient as possible, by sometimes pushing the limits.

I see Suzuki is more focused to increase its hybrid range in Europe, even though it's been mostly achieved through a BAS-Hybrid setup, which is compact and eventually affordable enough to be suitable to a Celerio too.


Presumably it's more related to the absence of ethanol than to the octane rating.

I'm not sure how relevant this is, but I was recently at a rolling road session to map a 2 litre turbocharged competition engine for different set-ups:
- 102 Octane racing fuel with a 34mm diameter air restrictor
- E85 Pump fuel with a 34mm diameter air restrictor

(The air restrictor is mandated in some competitions to try to cap power outputs).

With the same air restrictor, the engine produced 2.0% more power and 2.5% more torque when running on E85 compared to when it ran on 102 octane racing fuel. In both cases of course the air restrictor is the main limit to maximum power. We did not measure fuel usage rate on this test but experience during competitions shows the engine uses about 30% more fuel when running E85.

We also ran a test using E85 Pump fuel with no air restrictor, but we didn't test the 102 octane with no restrictor. Removing the restrictor increased maximum power by 17.4% but barely changed the maximum torque (0.5% improvement).

Still interesting though: I also noticed some small difference in driving, while using E10 and yesterday I did some experiment on the Autobahn while having the V-Power.

The real-time fuel consumption stayed, at 30KM/L while going up a slight elevation: yes my speed went down :turtle:

But as soon as it went back down, the speed went up again and the fuel consumption stayed at 30KM/L. It didn't work with steep climbs though, although my car only has 68 horsepowers. I wouldn't do this kind of experiment on a weekday though, but on Sundays truck aren't allowed to drive on the Autobahn.

Does it feature port-injection or direct injection?


Usually a larger difference in power has been reported for the flexfuel cars running on regular gasoline and E96h in Brazil, to which the lower octane rating of the gasoline may explain. Torque on the other hand sometimes remains exactly the same or at a much narrower difference.


Once again, rule of thumb dictates a 30% higher fuel consumption on E96h than on Brazilian gasoline which nowadays has around 22 to 27% ethanol, even though actual results may vary according to each engine's specifications and features.

Port injection.

I still remember when converting from gasoline to dedicated-ethanol was usual in Brazil when a naturally-aspirated engine got an aftermarket turbocharging setup, as it was much easier to mitigate knock. Cold start could become quite a PITA. Now that direct injection is more widespread in engines turbocharged from the factory, it's not much of an issue as it used to be.

That is interesting. A few years ago cold start on E85 could be a problem here - although typically cold start here would be a lot colder that in Brazil. I hadn't thought about it until you mentioned it but I haven't seen anyone having that problem for quite a while, with any injection type. Perhaps the tuners have just got better at it.

Presumably the sequential injections becoming more common than continuous ones also improved the thermal management, leading to a shorter cold phase. In Brazil it has been increasingly common for flexfuel cars with port injection to feature electrically heated injectors as a starting aid with ethanol, while older ones resorted to an auxiliary gasoline tank which also used to be common back in the day of the dedicated-ethanol cars.

That makes sense, but I don't have any actual knowledge to back that up. I think you know more about this than I do.

Another interesting issue I know nothing about. Could you give more info about the auxiliary tanks? Did the driver have to manually select the auxiliary tank when starting from cold, then switch back when the engine was warm? Or was it automated somehow?

This reminds me that Jaguars used to have twin tanks with a dashboard switch to select which one to use. Is there any milage (pardon the pun) in adopting that approach as a mod? Perhaps use one grade of fuel for starting or faster driving and a cheaper grade fuel for easy cruising. Has anyone done anything like that?

The difference in energy content between pure gasoline and E10 is approximately 3%. I've been able to measure an approximately 3% difference in fuel trims in my vehicle - I made separate fuel maps for ethanol-free fuel and E10.

Here in the 'states, E0 is almost always high octane "Premium" fuel. If you need to run high octane fuel anyway it's an obvious choice, but it does not pay for itself vs regular grade.

@Zunigrijje, your 18.5% improvement doesn't line up with the energy content difference between the fuels, or what I've been able to measure in my own vehicle.

Perhaps the car also simple runs better on the V-Power? I'm not really a car expert, but one thing I noticed is that my car runs better on normal Super E5 ( available in Germany ) and on the V-Power, it runs even better.

Not sure if I'm finally able to post my Spritmonitor, I guess not? But with E10 the consumption is really worse, max 27km/l vs 31km/l that I was able to get max with the V-Power.

spritmonitor.de/en/detail/915384.html

I can only speculate, honestly. On the one hand, whatever works. On the other, maybe you can do some investigation? See if your economy is half better with half a tank of each?

Quite possible I think. To get the best power & torque out of a competition engine it has to be mapped to suit the fuel; if we change the fuel we change the mapping. I see no reason why the same would not be true when trying to improve economy rather than performance. I assume you do not change the tune of the car when you change fuels. If the set-up on your car happens to suit V-Power this might explain the results you are getting. So perhaps the conclusion is that it is the combination of fuel and car which is important and changing to V-Power could be a good move in some cars but not in others.

Yes clearly you need to try it: I also tried discount Euro 98 and had worse fuel economy, than with normal gasoline.

The auxiliary tanks were quite small, some didn't even hold an entire litre of gasoline, and were fitted under the hood. I have pictures of the engine bay of an early Dacia Logan showing clearly the auxiliary cold-start tank, gonna find them and try to upload here. Older dedicated-ethanol cars still fitted with a carburettor-fed engine had the gasoline tank selected manually enabling the gasoline to mix inside the carburettor bowl with whatever remaining alcohol from previous driving, but when EFI came around it was possible to start only with gasoline. Later on, I don't remember clearly when, it became common for the gasoline inside the auxiliary tank to get automatically injected at an ambient temperature which may vary according to each model, as long as there was gasoline on the auxiliary tank which many people didn't even bother to fill up. Around 2010 to 2011 the electric heating of the injectors to enable a quicker vaporizing of ethanol started to become mainstream on Brazilian flexfuel cars.


A similar setup was fitted to 4WD versions of the Ford Pampa coupé-utility.


AFAIK only some tractors and a handful of Swedish cars from the '80s (mostly a Saab model which I don't remember exactly) meant to operate with kerosene relied on a dual-tank setup for starting with gasoline until the engine temperature became safe to turn to kerosene.

Sure
People are even washing ethanol out of fuel ...

Less energy in ethanol than in fuel

It's always the most expensive in Belgium, selling @ max allowed price
Same goes for Total Excellium fuels

V-Power diesel and equivalents from other brands, never were a valuable option:
You could never get the price premium back through reduced fuel cost


The difference seems huge

But if correct, almost 1/5 increase in FE for 1/7 increase in price is a profit

It is the better fuel, with higher octane 98 and the higher energy content

(alcohol also raises octane, but yeah ... that doesn't say it all)

And the car might be set up for it - see instruction manual

Spritmonitor has BB code you could post in your signature, giving a pump icon with your FE, and if you want that, a link to it

I've used them before

This is where to find it:

https://ecomodder.com/forum/member-e...8-22-13-38.png

You can also control the units to be displayed - I use L/100km


For my van, it looks like this:

(URL=https://www.spritmonitor.de/en/detail/1124642.html] (IMG]http://images.spritmonitor.de/1124642_5.png[/IMG)[/URL)

Replace ( and ) with square brackets before and after URL and IMG

I couldn't post Spritmonitor because of not having enough posts: anyway I also filled up with V-Power in Luxemburg, it's about € 0,22 cheaper. The high record of 31,6KM/L I was not able to maintain, perhaps also because I got my airco condensor fixed and I can imagine it hurts fuel economy a bit when your car is being fixed.

The last two fillings where both 29KM/L but that's combined use, where when I set the record: it was only highway and not city roads at all. I must say though, the price in Belgium has been going up and it hasn't go down anymore.

https://www.spritmonitor.de/en/detail/915384.html

It's quite risky, considering ethanol is often used to keep the octane rating within the specification.

Hmm, in my station the V-Power shell has E5. And in Suzuki there is almost no difference in fuel consumption, but the manual says to use 98PB or higher if the temperature outside will be higher than 30 degrees. Only above 30 degrees outside, the use of 98Pb reduced fuel consumption by an average of 0.5 liters less.

It actually makes sense. When the temperature is higher, there is more latent vaporization heat in the air, so either a higher volume of lower-grade fuel or an improvement to the octane rating are desirable for knock mitigation during the compression stroke. Did you already notice any decrease to fuel consumption while driving somewhere with a higher amount of moisture in the air? It has a similar effect to switching from a lower octane rating to a higher one.

Yes, in a naturally aspirated one, it responded better to the addition of gas and burned less. And in Turbo, he also reacted better, but combustion was unchanged, worse when the rain falls, the fuel consumption increases ... even at a standstill, instead of 0.5 l / h, it shows 0.9l / h ...

Was it featured with port-injection or direct injection? My only experiences with turbocharged engines in a rainy day involved turbodiesels and direct injection.

direct injection

Even though direct injection is often pointed out to bring spark-ignited engines closer to a Diesel-like efficiency, it's surprising a higher amount of moisture has such an opposite effect.

Nearly 50mpg
 

G'day as we say here in New Zealand.
I have a Suzuki 1.4 liter Baleno Automatic and with my Eco driving a get 21.2kml that is 4.72liter per 100km or 49.9mpg US or 59.9mpg UK. so I think it is possible for me to get 50mpg US or 60mpg UK, I hope so.

What haven't you done? Air up the tires? Splitter/diverter?

Nearly 50mpg
 

I have the tires pumped to 38psi but what is a ''Splitter/diverter'' and where do they go ?

Thanks.

On the front and rear of the underbody, respectively. There is a Search field in the upper left, for what it's worth.

Nearly 50mpg
 

I did put an factory sourced undertray under the engine a couple years ago but nothing at the back underneath as there is not much to change under there with the airflow I think but please tell me that I am wrong.