Removing Ethanol from Gasoline

[Nerys]

I challenge the idea that most cars work fine with it. I think far far more cars "don't" work fine with it and people are just "paying" it not even realizing it. How many people besides us nut jobs check their FE every tank? not many would be my guess.

how many people replace fuel pumps never even guessing its the fuel that did it? how many people pay more and more in gas and just "assume" this is normal just "assume" its an old car that must be why (I have NEVER had age of a car determine fuel economy. Ever.) a properly maintained car will run as well at 300,000 miles as it will at 100,000 miles.

With enough work fixing the system is possible and it the CORRECT course of action. I am tired of paying more and more money to oil companies and foreign nations. Ethanol makes me spend even more money to them.

and buying a "new" car is not an option even a used new car. I get better FE than a prius.

besides a prius or other super expensive hybrid there is no other car that can touch a metro. so what are my options?

now IF I can "modify" my car (I can't call it fix unless you can show me something broken) to run better on E10. FINE I am 100% for that. Tell me how or at least get me started on how and don't say put a $800 ignition system in it.

[tjts1]

Originally Posted by Nerys

I am saying it should be OPTIONAL. a pump for E10 and a Pump for E0 so those of us (millions and millions and millions of us) with cars that run like CRAP on the stuff don't have to use it.

So far you're the only one complaining about your car running like crap. Maybe you should fix it.

Originally Posted by Nerys

I challenge the idea that most cars work fine with it.

Just drove my car on E10. It drives fine. Anybody else care to contribute?

[Nerys]

the car is running fine. the FE is crap. I never would have NOTICED the FE difference if I did not ever drive on E0. (hence why they don't want any E0 pumps)

And I most certainly am not the only one. Plenty of other people including in this very thread are having the SAME results I am 20-25% reduction in fuel economy. Heck I am 5 people in this scenario alone. Mom Pop Brother Coworker and Me. Plus the few who chimed in on this thread as well and another thread I am on with HUNDREDS of people complaining about the same thing.

To the average person there is not much difference between 46mpg and 55mpg most people would be completely ecstatic with 46 mpg.

I am not because I did the math and KNOW it means I am actually burning MORE GASOLINE (not counting the ethanol) than without ethanol.

and since I DESIRE to make a difference in the world this bothers me. Should bother you to.

[dcb]

Is this a diy forum or not?

[Nerys]

DIY requires knowledge and I believe THAT IS what this forum is for. to GET the knowledge to DIY.

I claim its not my car. You claim it is my car. Tell me how? if its my car I will try to fix it.

[dcb]

what have you tried?

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Daox

Ethanol is not going away, eliminating it is not a viable answer. I suggest you find a way to deal with it. Have you tried adjusting ignition timing or anything?

I agree he should do this but sometimes you need to tune the wrong way to get an fe improvement that matches your driving method.

Many older cars are rather low compression, they aren't going to deal with it much better, just a little. I and my father have experienced rather large FE drops (all historical now) on several vehicles,
A 69 2 Door Chrysler went from 13mpg (ooh) to 9mpg
an 85 Yugo 35mpg to 29mpg
a 1983 Dodge 1/2 ton oddly the same as the 69.

Thankfully all those vehicles are off the road and 2 are long gone and hopefully buried.

That said I have had other antiques that were not affected by ethanol or were minimally affected.

Some Carb'd vehicles must not be able to properly compensate for ethanol or overcompensate so to say or are simply poor designs.

Also I cannot state with a straight face that there may not have been mechanical issues with the cars I had FE drops on and I do know that after cheaper ethanol was at the pumps the 69 dropped a fuel pump (I would argue that it wasn't fuel related though)

Perhaps if someone with a bit more experience could look at an affected vehicle a fix might come up, perhaps he needs to open her up, rev the engine and slowly dump a gallon of distilled water down the intake. Then procede to power tune the thing, setting it a bit leaner than normal and setting the timing where it will end up. Not sure if this would make it worse or better, I have been told before that ethanol can be run very lean without noticable knocking which can be dangerous.

Also I have experienced more fuel filter replacements since ethanol struck, not sure if the detergent properties of ethanol might affect certain motors more than others but I do know sludge coming out of an old fuel tank can cause trouble.

NERY's since you were brave enough to water wash, have you ever tried doping the fuel? MMO, napathlene or very small amounts of Veggie oil? Around here Soybean oil (labled vegetable oil) goes on sale often for about $4 a gallon, if you are VERY confortable with potentially cleaning your engine out, get a small amount of e85, about a pint, Mix that pint with about 4oz of veggie oil for about 5 minutes vigorously. That batch should dope about 30-40gallons of e10 fuel. If you are a true tester and don't fear ridicule here try it out, my dodge jumped in fuel economy using approximately that amount. Veggie oil has a massive impact on vapor pressure among other issues (and it can plug leaks). Try it on one tank, be sure to dump the conction in and then fill rapidly to get it mixed, also don't do it if you don't run through a tank in under a month. Oh and veggie does not work in e0 as it won't mix and if it separates thats when the cleaning your engine comes in so don't let a tank sit with it in.
If that frightens you too much try Marvel Mystery Oil on a tank of e10. The one I would test last is napthlene or antique moth balls, these are a pain to get in the tank and a bigger pain to get out if you screw up and they clog something (oh and only use a couple balls per tank, too many and your motors timing will be off).

I have used the above and especially on malfunctioning cars they work well. Veggie oil was the biggest surprize. MMO has always worked well for me and my father for 30 years.

If you test one of the above post your results either no change or negative or positive. In your case your older cars may benefit from a bit of additive like MMO or Veggie or if you are brave napathlene which moves timing.

Good Luck
Ryan

[Coyote X]

I guess I should have mentioned it but I forgot on my last post. The 6.5L engine is diesel

Adding a bit more to this. I ended up going 300 miles today in the van. I found a killer deal on craigslist for a 94 G20 non turbo 6.5L 2wd Diesel van with really low miles and a blown tranny for $750 cash. So I had to fill up at some random gas station. But, that last tank of E0 even with probably 100 miles of doing 70+mph I still ended up overall at 25mpg. I had to go a bit faster since I had to get there before they closed and I got there 5 min to closing.

So my conclusion is that OBD1 systems really can't adjust any better than a carb for E10 and will probably drop 15-25% in mileage and a bit in power. Some new cars don't like it and some don't care, it is hit or miss and on newer cars I think it really varies depending on driving style a lot more.

Most OBD1 systems can only adjust the fuel about 10% one way or the other. With E10 I noticed mine pretty much always stayed pegged at adding more fuel and it was more or less close with the fuel mix that way. One interesting thing I saw was lower TPS and MAP readings across the board with E10 compared to E0. Not sure what that is from other than it is probably a bit from the Oxygen contained in the fuel somehow and more gas going into each combustion event so it is making more power with less air. The disadvantage I see from that is you are increasing pumping losses.

I guess one thing to try would be to increase EGR flow by about 25% or more to compensate for it. I can't change mine since the EGR valve is bad on the van and I just disabled the EGR from the computer. If I can reach back to it with a hammer I might beat on it and see if I can get it to move again.

I figure anyone running an obd1 system with E10 isn't going to hurt anything on the engine and there isn't much advantage to just retuning the spark and VE tables. So best thing would be to just leave it as is unless maybe adding EGR flow or forcing it to lean out on lighter loads would help. I don't really want to put the wideband O2 back on it or drill and mount an EGT sensor so I probably won't do much more experimenting on mine.

And one more point to confuse everyone... My bike is a DR650 650cc air cooled low compression carbed bike that gets less power and mileage on E10. The Hyosung GV650 650cc water cooled carbed high compression bike that went with me to Cali and back gets very slightly better mileage on E10 But then again it isn't stock and is tuned rich since it is more for power than mileage.

I hope the trolling goes away in this thread. I really would like to get my mileage back to the old numbers. Either by washing gas or retuning. But the noise in this thread makes it hard to get anywhere.

[Nerys]

Originally Posted by dcb

what have you tried?

... damn I tried hard on this post and STILL found 3 errors before the 3 section. Grrr I am a sloppy typer :-) fast but sloppy :-)...

Well the simple stuff was obviously not it so I won't bore the group with everything I tried :-)

It was suggested that maybe I had carbon build up which was increasing compression (though I thought that was GOOD for ethanol??)

SO I seafoamed the engine again and also cleared out the EGR again just to be sure. there was a tiny bit in the EGR as expected (I clean that thing twice a year) and there was minimal smoke from the seafoam (I am aggressive with it) I scoped the cylinders and they were quite spotless inside including the tops of the heads (borrowed a video scope Very cool gadget I want one :-)

It was suggested my compression might be low. SO I checked that again 185 on all 3 170 dry 185 wet (very very good compression numbers for the xfi) anything over 155 and within 10% of each other is considered do not do anything to repair.

It was suggested a vac leak might cause the problem. I was not sure how a vac leak could "tell" what kind of gas was in the car but anyway I bought a nice vac tester and used it. as mwebb stated I should have 19-20inches and no flutter. I confirmed this is what I have so vac is good.

I did a full tune up. new pcv all new filters good quality wires NGK (only plugs suggested for the 3cyl) original quality plugs all carefully gapped. cap rotor etc.. etc...

I seafoamed the oil twice and used only good quality 5w30.

I changed the trans oil and installed the recommended Syncromesh.

All motor mounts are good. Coil is good. I have 4 so just for the heck of it I tried all 4 in case more than 1 was somehow bad. No change)

There is a sensor on the firewall I want to say IAC ?? I forget will have to check but I swapped that out too just in case since someone suggested try that.

I cleaned up the throttle body (did not need much is was pretty squeaky clean) and the injector and ALSO installed my backup injector just in case maybe it was out of adjustment or fouled to where cleaning would not help. No change.

Someone suggested maybe I had crude in the gas tank. logically this can NOT effect fuel economy with an "under pressure" EFI system that these cars use (its run or don't run) so I dropped the tank anyway and inspected (spotless) no residue or crude. I changed the sock filter on the fuel pump since I was in their anyway even though it was clean.

Alignment was suggested and ignored since it would effect both fuels equally (I am waiting till I do my front end to get it aligned since alignments around here are VERY expensive $90) I am upgrading the brakes to the newer 95+ brakes with better cooled rotors and calipers and will also change the tie rods inner and outer at the same time and replace a control arm while the one on their is new I don't like the look of the boot so I am proactively replacing it since I got one really cheap. All of that will require an alignment so I am waiting till I do that work to get the alignment and again the alignment will effect both fuels equally.

Someone suggested maybe it was stuck in cold loop. This was not logical since I was getting 50mpg (in cold loop I would be getting closer to 30-35mpg) but either way I flushed the entire system when I replaced the radiator and installed new thermostat and hoses. Never overheated still never overheats. In fact it runs cool enough that I think I have more toes and fingers than the number of times that aux fan has turned on this summer even in the heat we had.

The way the car is geared and the size tires I have on it probably result in me being pretty close to the 3.52 final gearing.

The car has plenty of power that I almost never tap into. In fact except when passing (which I almost never do and can not even remember the last time I needed to) I try to never take it above 2500 rpm and cruise at 2200-2400 rpm (no more than 48-50 mph.)

the max speed limit on any part of my commute is 50mph.

I don't know how to test the computer if thats even possible for a regular person. I do get the rated fuel economy when I use E0 which indicates to me its functioning properly. I was getting 55mpg which is the cars rated "combined" fuel economy and my commute would qualify as combined or slightly more toward highway.

I tried acetone. zero impact on fuel economy either way.

I replaced the entire exhaust when I bought the car (that is one of the things it needed to be road worthy) so its brand new front to back except the CAT. I do not think its clogged because I have no codes no bogging and great fuel economy. also this should effect both fuels so would be irrelevant in the equation. Short of some evidence to the contrary I can not justify the expense of replacing it "just to see" as it is nearly $100.

The Timing is advanced as far as possible without risk of damaging the engine. even at the current setting I get teeny tiny wee pinging here and there so I should probable retard it a little bit but for now will leave it alone.

I probable did a little more but can not recall at the moment.

Besides the fuel economy the car runs "perfectly" and I mean perfectly.

I DO notice some small differences with E0 over E10. the car seems to idle a tiny bit smoother and sounds just slightly different. Not enough to hear in a recording but enough that I notice.

the 3cyl is already a pretty "shaky" engine by its very nature this smooths out JUST a tiny bit on E0 (but I admit this could be totally imaginary)

I tried a few higher power accelerations and my gut says it feels like it has a bit more power on E0 (and on the washed gas) but people said this might be the residual water from the washing but I noticed this extra power was also present on pumped E0 (no water washing) it also "feels" like I can shift sooner which would jive with the increased power.

This could still be imaginary though. I have no means to actually test this or measure it with any reliability or consistency.

During my normal barely their accelerations I notice no physical or audible difference between E0 and E10 and if there is a "gas pedal" difference its to small for me to notice. I take about 30 seconds to "get to speed" the car can do it in less than half that but I drive for FE not speed.

What else should I try?

you name it. if it makes sense won't blow up my car and does not cost a fortune I will try it :-)

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Nerys

What else should I try?

you name it. if it makes sense won't blow up my car and does not cost a fortune I will try it :-)

Try MMO per the instructions and if you can find some old QX-700 or QX-500 give it a try, they always worked great on my old cars but seem to have little effect on my new stuff. MMO has been known to reverse the winter gas problem, maybe it might help your ethanol gas issue, it does on the 93 suburban.

My Subaru felt turbo charged on QX-500 (well not quite) but It revved higher than average before it petered out.