Removing Ethanol from Gasoline

[Nerys]

"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."

I am already at max advance without risk of damaging pinging or knocking whatever its called. :-)

"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."

69 2 door and 83 Dodge

90 miles on 10 gallon of E10
117 miles on 9 gallons of E0 (ie E10 with the 1 gallon ethanol removed)

so he can do 27 miles FURTHER on a gallon less.

85 Yugo

290 miles on 10 gallons of E10
315 miles on 9 gallons of E0

so he can go 25 miles FURTHER on a gallon less

Here is one more person with results matching my own.


"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)"

It was the ethanol in all likely hood. the manufacturers know this which is why for a warranty claim they TEST the fuel and if its over 10% ethanol they DENY the warranty claim to replace the fuel pump.

The plastic and rubber in these older pumps are very INTOLERANT to ethanol they can barely handle E10 if at all and even slight more than 10% and they fail.

What people do not realize is HOW MUCH it costs to replace a fuel pump if you do not do it yourself. I have goten quotes as high as $800 !!! $1200 to do my van with the 35 gallon tank. Needless to say I bought the $140 pump assembly and did it myself. Damn you ford 2 bolts hold the fuel tank in place one I got off in 15 seconds the other took 30 minutes because instead of MOVING this bolt 3/4 of an inch forward or backwards they place it DIRECTLY inline with a hunk of the frame so I had to painfully slowly work that nut off :-) grrrrr

"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."

One thing that seems to come to mind is spark. if we could make them "spark hotter" our guess is they would handle the ethanol better. Problem is DOING this is very very expensive. I can not afford to try it.


"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."

This is common on "switching" to E10 because it does do a good job of cleaning but once you clean the tank and install the new filter this problem should go away from then on.

"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. "

Interesting ideas and I MAY try them (but they COST money to try so it might not be cost effective will have to do some math on that)

Veggie oil I am leary of as I have heard it can really frak fuel injectors. I will have to do a bit more research before I take that leap.

Once I have a second metro I will may be more brave but right now if I kill this metro I am in DEEP KAKA as my fuel costs will jump $200-$250 a month instantly. Thats money I simply do not have.

"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."

I won't have to worry about the fuel sitting. I fill up every 4 days or 5 days roughly depending on if I drive any of the other cars for any reason.

I drive a LOT of miles (minimum 110 miles every work day) so I can gather a lot of results in short order.

[Nerys]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

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.

https://www.q-i-s.net/q-i-s/product-...ty-tester/1887

ok you got me what is QX500 and QX700 ??

MMO I can get locally. its safe to put this stuff in the fuel? IE won't harm the engine?

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by Nerys

The plastic and rubber in these older pumps are very INTOLERANT to ethanol they can barely handle E10 if at all and even slight more than 10% and they fail.

I've owned my '59 Bel Air for 10 years now; MN has had E10 the entire time. I've not replaced, removed, or even serviced any of the fuel lines or pump. It runs perfectly.

The End.

[Chuck.]

I definitely have opinions on ethanol, but the disagreements are excessive on this thread.

Nothing here that increases the understanding of ethanol, or if it's does it's well obscured.

This is a thread done for the joy of arguing for it's own sake.

I have better things to do - don't you?

[Nerys]

I would love to. but then frank makes a post like that one and things because his ONE SINGLE CAR that has had no problem INVALIDATES the thousands of other cars that did have problems.

I came for help I get called a liar or told I am nuts its my car even as more people come in with results that HEY just happen to match up with my results.

they think I am "making this all up" for some sick twisted reason even I can not fathom.

Course it never dawned on him that anyone JUST MIGHT have replaced or rebuilt that fuel pump in the 41 years PRIOR to him owning it or that maybe the plastic and rubber were DIFFERENT 60 years ago compared to whatever they were using in the late 80's to 90's

No I must be Stupid crazy because his 59 whatever has not had a new pump replaced in the last 10 years.

this is what I get in this thread over and over again and people wonder why I get frustrated or get nasty.

[Nerys]

Originally Posted by basjoos

You can also strain the gasoline/water mix through a chamois leather "cloth" to separate the gasoline. Presoak the chamois in clean gasoline and it will pass gasoline, but not water. Pour off the water as it accumulates on top of the chamois.

hey basjoos got a question for you I know its an old post but I am rereading the entire thread in case I missed something as suggested

with the cahmois leather. LOOSE water is not a problem I have gotten very good at getting rid of that. What about water in SOLUTION. from what I understand gas can hold upto 13% water in solution.

will this method you describe remove THAT water? ie the water you can not see?

I have no idea exactly how much ethanol is in each batch of gas so I can not "weigh" the waste to know how much "water" is left in the fuel.

so I have no idea how much water I am putting in the engine. I WOULD wash long term if I could reliably remove the water so its safe for my engine.

[mwebb]

from a current thread on IATn
basically
NERYS is correct

those that claim there is no difference in FE using E10 as opposed to using E0
are wrong .

now we can get all juvenile and start with name calling and nastiness or
accept what is real , facts is facts .

if you add oxygen to the fuel , there is less room for fuel , so more fuel will be needed to provide the same amount of GO .
KISS
E10 has oxygen added to the fuel .... nuff said

"At 08:07:02 PST on 10-19-10, Karl Damal wrote:

> I was reading HP and torque specs for a newer GM truck. It
>had appr 10% more power if using E-85 vs standard E-5 to
>E-10 gas. This goes against all arguments I've read on iATN.
>Do they take advantage of a more agressive spark advance
>curve,or what?

Hi Karl,

>IF this is true, I am also assuming more fuel
>is spent to achieve this extra power?

Yes.

You are correct that a few here on iATN probably have it
wrong; but you may be misinterpreting some of the statements
about ethanol fuel economy too.

Here you are talking about horsepower/torque, which is a
totally separate issue. To be sure, some of it does revolve
around engine design such as compression ratio and a couple
of responders mentioned spark timing.

But beyond that is the fact that alcohol fuels carry a
portion of the oxidizer (oxygen) into the chamber with them.
One of the biggest factors that limit peak horsepower is the
fact that there is a maximum amount of gas-phase oxidizer
(air) that can occupy the combustion chamber at whatever the
chamber pressure happens to be (e.g., at WOT close to
atmospheric pressure).

Gases occupy a lot of space, so on a mass basis
there's only so much oxygen in there. Therefore, there is a
limit to the amount of fuel you can meter and still get the
mix to burn.

But an alcohol fuel carries a portion of the oxidizer with
it in liquid phase, which means I can pack a lot more in.
More oxidizer means I can put more fuel in too, which means
more peak horsepower as compared to fuels that get all their
oxidizer (air) in a gas phase.

However, because alcohols generally have lower energy
content as compared to straight gasoline per comparative
unit volume, the fuel economy is
lower.

That why racers and hot rodders, as Randy noted, like
alcohol fuels -- you get more power from them.

However in order to take advantage of that property you have
to have a fuel system with the ability to meter the required
fuel. Additionally, you can get even more power by taking
advantage of the octane rating and changing engine design
parameters such as compression ratio and spark timing.
Jim Kemper
Educator/Instructor/Government Representative
Colorado Department of Health
Denver, Colorado, USA"

[Nerys]

ahh is that why FE suffers in the winter? they oxygenate more?

[Coyote X]

why not leave the water in there? Way back when I first got my metro one of the first experiments was water injection. with 10% water to gas ratio I got 10% better mileage. Water really wont hurt the internal engine parts but I have no idea about the long term problems in the fuel system.

My setup was some fish tank hose and a bottle under the hood putting water into a vacuum line on the throttle body. I never could keep it dialed in at 10% less water more or less proportionally got less increase in mileage but more than 10% didn't really do anything at all. Even going to something like 20% didn't change anything.

I looked before for ways of adding water to gas and keeping it in suspension. If this works and can keep the water in suspension long term, then it could be even better than straight E0 gas. It would have lower than 87 octane so you get more power out of the fuel but the water keeps the engine from knocking and helping the pumping losses.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...sion-7658.html

.

[autoteach]

Machine the head to boost compression. If you are getting pinging when advancing timing, its not preignition its too much timing. If you machine the head you can likely run pretty close to the same timing. You can also run hotter spark for little money. All you need is a better coil (coil=transformer, bigger ratio is hotter). You may be able to just get a coil from the junkyard that is a higher output. If it is a dist. ign, a hotter coil will jump the puny cap and rotor that you vehicle likely has.

As for filtering water:

NEW - Racor 500FG30 Diesel Fuel Filter Water Separator: eBay Motors (item 260679206018 end time Oct-22-10 01:26:46 PDT)

And, if you wash your fuel, do not machine the head on the vehicle.


On the other side of the fence:

My dad has had 3 cars given to him in the last year, two get better than 30mpg without a problem. I know, not everyone gets christmas all the time blah blah blah.

the fuel doesnt usually mess the pump up, it usually gets to the contacts on the fuel sending unit. this does not necessitate a change of the pump.