Ethanol problems ?

[Intrigued]

Here's another one for you, Denis. I had forgotten about the issue with ethanol absorbing water, and releasing it, within a system. Maybe that was what GM was warning us techs about so long ago, and it may be temperature related, but our beloved Wiki explains it all right here: Ethanol fuel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That would be section 9.1 for the fuel issues with cars...and boats...and German cars!!!

[Intrigued]

Hmmm... okay, reading farther into Lazarus' wiki link, it is saying that post 1988 cars are generally okay with up to E-20, and post 1995 good with E-85. Now I'm wishing I'd read that in the first place.

Thanks, Lazarus! I wish I were more thorough in reading all of this stuff in the first place: it would have saved me a couple of posts...

[Lazarus]

Originally Posted by Intrigued

Hmmm... okay, reading farther into Lazarus' wiki link, it is saying that post 1988 cars are generally okay with up to E-20, and post 1995 good with E-85. Now I'm wishing I'd read that in the first place.

Thanks, Lazarus! I wish I were more thorough in reading all of this stuff in the first place: it would have saved me a couple of posts...

Keep in mind that it is wiki. You can google E85 in conventional engines and find all kinds of forums and info from folks that have been running it for quite some time.

I think Minnesota is going to E20 pretty soon so that should tell you that at the least E20 should be ok in most cars.

My break even point cost wise was at E50. That's were the decrease in FE (10%) caught up with the cheaper fuel here.

[minAirForce]

Long term affects of E85 are fuel injectors problems and rusting of gas tank. Pop Mechanics did a great article on it. E10 is bad enough.

[minAirForce]

Got an question. New to this. When people are doing their mileage performance checks, do they factor in E10 vs E0 fuels types. E10 gas has less energy per gallon.

[Allch Chcar]

Originally Posted by minAirForce

Long term affects of E85 are fuel injectors problems and rusting of gas tank. Pop Mechanics did a great article on it. E10 is bad enough.

It's the o-rings that are most susceptible to failure, unless the fuel injector clogs. And the fuel tank would need to be made out of steel to rust. Some fuel tanks are polymer(plastic) in which that would not be the case unless they were nylon which is susceptible to corrosion, I believe.

Another thing you missed is the fuel filters are prone to clogging after switching to a high % ethanol/gasoline blend. It might need to be changed within the next 500 miles afterward.

Good stuff here. I hear all the time about Ethanol being bad for old cars or even cars in general. It's good to see some proper conversions exist!

I'm still hoping to make my next car a custom flexfuel setup and I'm leaning more towards a post CAN bus ECU. Thanks for the encouragement about EFI engines . I kid I kid. The biggest difference is that the ECU fuel and spark maps would need to be adjusted and usually tuners(tool) are $$$ and then getting someone to tune it is $$$ for dyno time and labour. Not to mention that ECU map adjusting is exponentially more complicated than tuning a carbeurator . It's perfect for someone who loves to do that kind of thing, like me .

[some_other_dave]

Originally Posted by minAirForce

Got an question. New to this. When people are doing their mileage performance checks, do they factor in E10 vs E0 fuels types. E10 gas has less energy per gallon.

I shouldn't presume to speak for others on this, but I'm pretty sure the performance is:

Total miles / total gallons

If you start futzing with "equivalent amount" figures, then you open the door for lots of bad math and bad data. You can even get to the infamous 100 MPG Mustang that way. (Hint: Run E85 and only count the gasoline burned; it's not hard to get to 100 MPG that way.)

-soD