Removing Ethanol from Gasoline

[Nerys]

I know this is PURELY temporary. Here is how I plan to run things. I know there are OTHER things I am removing unintentionally from the gas. Every washing so far has had these wispy white "solids" form at the boundary layer between the alcohol/water and gasoline. I make sure this stuff leaves with the water (don't want it clogging my fuel filters) but I am guessing this was something that was mixed in with the gas. Who knows what else I am removing :-)

I plan to run 3-4 tanks of washed gas. Confirm or Deny a difference. If no difference I go back to regular gas and try to figure out what is wrong with all my cars to lose 20+% of their fuel economy.

If confirmed my next step is to use proper regular E0 ie I drive up to allentown with 8 gas jugs and buy a bunch of E0

at the same time I wash some gas for my jeep my van and my pop's van and lincoln and my managers saturn and my mom's van and we see if they also see an improvement in FE.

Do some ABA testing few tanks of E0 then a few tanks of E10 few tanks of E0 few tanks of E10 get the data.

If this still confirms that ethanol is the source of the problem the next step is to get you guys to perform these tests and confirm with hard data the same results I get.

Once I get enough people to confirm with hard data and it matches my data then I goto Harrisburg and Washington and open up a can of whoop a$$ :-)

I have a feeling its "age" of car issue. ie newer cars post 2000 are not going to see these kinds of losses but older cars will.

the reason I think this is someone on here had a hybrid and saw the same HUGE loses I did but once they got their car "reprogrammed" at the dealership they saw the "expected" 3-4% loses.

Older cars can not be "reprogrammed"

I think Ethanol itself causes a 3-4% loss mathematically. but I think it has side effects OTHER effects that "cause" the older cars to lose even more efficiency.

At the minimum I want an E0 pump at gas stations so people with boats lawnmowers generators weed whackers and "older cars" can buy E0 and stop ruining their vehicles or ruining their FE.

[rmay635703]

Actually some of the chemicals in gasoline for emissions once removed also improve fuel economy.

You may well find your "washed" gasoline gets you better fuel economy than true e0.

And to be honest if you are doing a good job separating you should be able to "get away with" your own washed gas during WARM weather, you would have to double check there isn't any aluminum,magnesium or other exotics in your injectors or fuel path. And you also definitely must get an old fashioned high quality aux. gas filter (toilet paper bypass type). You can still buy them (complete kit) for a couple hundred an I believe you could have almost a completely normal engine life using washed gas with a toilet paper filter (which cost $0.99 and can remove water), again so long as you limit it to warm weather. I believe you can get away with a fair amount of water in the gas, seems like its about 1% but again, no chlorine, no salts, no cold weather and I wouldn't worry so much about the octane, 84 octane was a standard rating for many many years, especially out west.

I did actually consider what you are doing (but for other reasons) but figured too much work.

Also don't dump the residue down the drain, there are uses for whats left AKA weak alcohol and obviously if someone has a tank for it bring it there.

Cheers
Ryan

[Nerys]

I wish I could split the water and alcohol easily. I have a sail boat and having a ready supply of stove fuel would rock!

What is the toilet paper filter for? (got any links?) does it remove the water? should I maybe run it through this first? while I do not plan to wash my fuel long term for my car (too much) I do plan to do this for my bikes boat and power tools. My goldwing REALLY hates E10. really hates it bad!

I am afraid to start my boat. I left the tank FULL to reduce water issues but I think I will drain it anyway and start fresh. What will the 2cycle oil do to my metro? will it eat it ok or will that cause problem if say I put 1 gallon in per fill up or something? (1 gallon of gas mixed with 2 cycle oil and 9 gallons of clean gas)

[womprat]

This is the worst recipe for cheap moonshine I've ever read about.

Regarding removing trace water content from gasoline, anyone considered freezing? Cold gasoline would unfortunately pick up moisture out of the air, so one would need to take steps to avoid that. But putting your gas can in a freezer (-18 C) then transfering it to another container would possibly leave behind any moisture as ice inside the original container. Might work?

Doesn't gasoline pretty much always have some trace of water content anyway and it generally isn't a problem in most fuel systems?

[gone-ot]

...water weighs 8.3 lbs/gallon

...gasoline weighs 6.1 lbs/gallon

...thus, water sinks to the bottom of a tank and the gasoline floats on top of it. This is why water accumulates at the bottom of a gas tank...and why military aircraft always had "drains" for gas/water from the lowest points in fuel tanks.

...however, water and ethanol are mutually miscable (dissolve in each other).

[Nerys]

I know. I have found ways to remove alcohol from water but not ways to remove water from alcohol (no there not the same thing since the methods I have found render the alcohol unusable :-) hehe

ie I want to keep the alcohol. but I am betting it will prove too much work to be worth the effort.

[bgd73]

I am finding the old cars versus newer are in fact bothered by the ethanols.. I could go as far as to say it even helped decay a gas tank in a very strange place (not rust prone- more like a chemical reaction)...and the gas tank was designed for low pressure, so it is not good in the first place.
In the summer, all is normal, or I could be more precise and call it spring equinox. I have had the same engine with high pressure fuel injection, and low pressure carb... of course the carb needs real fuel.

I would like to know how to get real fuel..simply. the carbs economics is the winner until the end of the world.

[Nerys]

I refilled today. I put in 8 gallons of washed fuel and topped up at wawa for .4 gallons at wawa so 8.4 gallons for 455.7 miles driven. 54.25 mpg thats nearly a 5mpg boost from the last tank or a 4+mpg boost from my last 5 tanks average.

ie over 8% improvement !! looking good so far! that was with a tank filled with roughly 70% washed gas and 30% E10

this tank is closer to 80% washed gas and under 20% E10

in a tank or two I should be under 1% ethanol overall.

it these results hold I will make the trip to allentown for the proper E0 gasoline 40 gallons of it (plus I will try to arrange it so the mouse is nearly empty when I get there so I can fill my tank as well.

So far no issues with the car Fingers Crossed :-)

bgd73 I agree on the old car versus new. I think newer cars (post 2001-2002) will see the projected 4% drop in FE its the older cars where you can not "adjust" the system to compensate for the ethanol that are going to be the ones hurting and also the people LEAST likely besides us strange ones to be CHECKING their FE at all)

any percieved loss they would simply put up to the age of the car not realizing its the damned fuel.

at this range my gut tells me if I put 10 gallons of E10 in my car I am going to go X distance.

I contend that not only is ethanol nasty but it HURTS ME. I think if I took that 10 gallons of E10 and removed the 1 gallon of ethanol from it and put the remaining 9 gallons of gasoline in my car I would actually go FURTHER than on the full 10 gallons of E10

ie ethanol is not just like erasing 10% of your fuel its erasing 10% of your fuel and RETARDING the rest of your fuel. so you end up actually using MORE gasoline than before not just offsetting the 10%

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Nerys

I am afraid to start my boat. I left the tank FULL to reduce water issues but I think I will drain it anyway and start fresh. What will the 2cycle oil do to my metro? will it eat it ok or will that cause problem if say I put 1 gallon in per fill up or something? (1 gallon of gas mixed with 2 cycle oil and 9 gallons of clean gas)

If gas has been left to sit drain it, likely your car can tolerate it because of its larger fuel system (if it isn't too old) New gas seems to crud up every small gas engine I own in short order if it sits, I always drain.

As to 2 cycle oil, Top oil as it used to be called was a common and considered to be beneficial practice in olden days, top oil won't hurt anything in a modern car (I still use mystery oil which is a top oil). It may even provide a small MPG/wear benefit, just make sure you don't add more than 8oz oil per 10 gallon or you just make dirty exhaust.

Cheers
Ryan

[Nerys]

so it won't frell with the cat ?

At least I can use it. I won't trust it to the boat. The boat gets ethanol free or nothing from now on. its not a small tank its almost 20 gallons and there is likely 15 gallons left in it.