Removing Ethanol from Gasoline

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by Nerys

I have 496,000 miles on my cherokee. 300,000 or so miles in its current configuration over 275,000+ miles on E0.

I consistently got 21.5 to 22.5 mpg and that was putting 50,000 miles a year on it.

When you spend $4000 a year in fuel fuel economy changes become important :-)

Sooo... what is this green thing that causes one to put on 50,000 miles/year in a Cherokee?

[user removed]

How much have you spent on fuel in that Cherokee since you started driving that vehicle?

regards
Mech

[tjts1]

Originally Posted by Niner

How is ethanol dirtier than fossil fuel?

It takes more energy (fossil fuels) to fertilize, plant, irrigate, apply pesticides, harvest and process corn into ethanol than can be extracted from ethanol. Corn ethanol produces more CO2 per mile driven than gasoline. The only reason we use corn ethanol is because of the idiotic subsidies or government provides.

[Frank Lee]

I thought the conversion efficiencies had improved. Are we still going off the widely quoted study from decades ago?

[Nerys]

Originally Posted by UFO

I see by your data you are convinced, and it is very compelling. But to me it's utterly non-comprehensible. Ethanol is a fuel with 75% of the chemical energy of gasoline. A gallon of ethanol added to your tank should equal more miles, not less. I am not aware of any mechanism that can account for such an effect.

UFO your mistake is simple but hard to see sometimes.

let me explain. Assuming you got a gas car hypothesize with me.

Lets fill it with diesel. How far you going to get?

but wait Diesel has MORE energy how could it get you less miles than gasoline?

Diesel is an extreme case of what is happening to my and many others cars.

you get crap (ie zero) miles for a very simple reason.

YOUR CAR IS NOT CAPABLE OF BURNING DIESEL regardless of its energy content.

well OUR cars are NOT DESIGNED to burn ETHANOL (but can sort of)

the ethanol INTERFERES with the proper functioning of the engine.

its not about the energy content of the ethanol versus the gasoline. its about my car CAN NOT PROPERLY FUNCTION AS DESIGNED with the presence of ethanol in the fuel. It works just NOT WELL.

Just like your gas car can not function (at all) with diesel present in your fuel.

THAT is why I am many others (MOST Others but they simply do not know it) are seeing such issues.

Does that make more sense? I understand the energy content difference.

E10 has 4-5% less energy per gallon than gasoline SO cars "DESIGNED TO OPERATE ON E10" see about a 4-5% drop in FE as expected.

now put that E10 in a car INCAPABLE of "properly or fully" combusting the E10 fuel.

it also explains by the HC emissions of older cars SKYROCKETS when you put them on E10. Lots of improperly burned fuel going out the tail pipe.

my car passed emissions last year by the skin of its teeth. 2 parts per million shy of failing.

I had it retested when I put E0 in the car for a couple of tanks. orders of magnitude drop in HC emissions.

which means its probably hosing my CAT as well.

[Nerys]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

How much have you spent on fuel in that Cherokee since you started driving that vehicle?

regards
Mech

actually not as much as you might think :-) remember I was getting 22+ mpg with it AND when I got the cherokee gas was 90cents a gallon :-)

in fact thats why I stopped driving it so much when gas starting to encroach on $2 and up a gallon it just got too expensive to drive (I was doing 50,000 to 60,000 miles a year back then)

thats when I got my voyager which netted me 28mpg - I wanted a metro back then but could not come even close to affording one. :-)

While I tallied my FE every single tank I did not KEEP those records. (no reason to never heard of ecomodder back then not even sure if it existed)

in fact what got me into ecomodder was Ethanol :-) ie trying to figure out what was TANKING my FE. when my 19mpg clubwagon suddenly started getting 13mpg and we could find NOTHING mechanically wrong with it and then next tank would be back to 19mpg (this was when they were starting to adopt E10 and before they started to mark the pumps)

I do wish I had those records still. its too bad we do not keep our business records back that far or I might be able to dig up my receipts for fuel (I would write my mileage and FE on the receipt)

for me at the time the reason to do mpg readings was to determine if something was wrong with the car so if the reading was "inline" with what I expected it mattered not if I kept it.

[Nerys]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Sooo... what is this green thing that causes one to put on 50,000 miles/year in a Cherokee?

Family Business. it pays for Mortgage electricity Food Clothing School :-)

I was pretty big into 4x4 driving and the cherokee was perfect. Good utility Good 4 wheeling (4" lift 31" meats full skids RS9000 all around) and yet still good on the highway.

Even after a day of 4 wheeling I could still pull in an 18-19mpg average :-)

I got a great picture somewhere around here of me drowning it in a mud pitt :-)

and then I would drive to work the next day. Best compromise of both.

and remember back then (pre 2000) gas was under $1 a gallon.

[Frank Lee]

We've known for decades about the finite nature of fuel, regardless of cost.

The Metro would have paid for itself in a reasonable amount of time, even then.

[Nerys]

irrelevant frank. Ever wonder why so many people who can not afford the gas drive bad mpg cars?

well its easy really. the 15mpg SUV is cheaper. Period. sure you can say in 2 years you will have spent more in extra fuel than a metro costs.

OK give me the next 2 years in fuel savings IN ADVANCE right now so I can go buy the metro and I will pay you back over the next 2 years with the gas savings?

No? now you know why people drive 15mpg SUV's :-)

a $1000 SUV is doable a $3000 efficient car is just not doable for a lot of people.

now back them I was not thinking about fuel so much. gas was cheap I was being paid well.

Now its more a passion for me. I want to give as little money to the auto/gas companies as I can :-)

[UFO]

That's a terrible example Nerys. Ethanol has been burned as a fuel in spark ignition engines for decades. As a matter of fact lots of drag racers use it for their cars, and Flexfuel vehicles have no trouble with E85 as far as I know. Diesel fuel cannot be ignited with a spark. Ethanol, on the other hand has superior octane and burns cooler, allowing it to work in high power high compression spark ignition engines.

You know as well as I do it's not analogous to diesel fuel.