Removing Ethanol from Gasoline

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Ha Ha, pull the ethanol out of the fuel then dump it back in! Love it!

Pull it out add 75% water then add it back in.

The funny part is this method usually improves power and occasionally FE on non-computerized cars.

Better mixed with water than burnt in the gas controlled by the computer I guess.

That was my main interest in "washing gas" back in the day but I figured it too much work to get a cheap alcohol/water mix to spray in my diesel.

Cheers
Ryan

[Nerys]

surprise surprise i guess it was not doing worse my fuel gauge (probably the sending unit) is just hinky :-)

FE is still great and rising This time I filled it with 100% washed 92 octane which should mean 88 octane after washing. right up to the neck like last time so its a very accurate fill with car parked in the same spot.

I kept adding fuel till it sat at the top of the neck visibly and did not go down.

55mpg !! grrrr that makes me happy. I should in theory now have under 1% ethanol in the tank I hope I do not think I am letting the fuel decant long enough so I am getting water into the fuel to some extent but it seems to be ok with that so far. though I bet its hurting my FE. at this point the next logical step is the trip to allentown to get some real E0 and "see what happens"

and we are still on winter blend!! I am rather confident I can kill 60mpg in this car on summer E0 zero mods.

Folks do the math here.

take 10 gallons of E10 and I can go 480 miles

If I REMOVE 1 gallon from that ie the gallon of ethanol so I have 9 gallons left and drive on JUST THAT

I can go 495 miles. . . . . . . . . 25 MORE MILES on a gallon LESS gas. 10 gallons of each and the difference is 70 miles MORE on the E0 washed. I cant wait to see what I get on real E0

Does anyone else not see the problem here? and this is with WASHED gas so who knows what else I am doing to ruin the gas in doing this.

Even using a gallon LESS fuel by getting rid of the ethanol I can still go MORE MILES total !! not just per gallon.

Something is seriously wrong with this situation.

[Nerys]

I needed to use the JEEP for a few days. Have some towing moving and tugging to do and I broke a caliper bolt on the mouse. SO oppurtunity was knocking. I keept washing gas till I filled the Cherokee's tank. almost 14 freaking gallons Grrrrr :-) took even longer since I discovered the ethanol is VISCIOUS with the plastic that the blue water jugs are made of. Thousands of micro fractions and they chose that day to start leaking. SO I had to pour off the gas as I made it in 3/4 gallon batches.

anyway I put nearly 14 gallons in the jeep till it was full full full - Here are the results!

Keep in mind this was VERY MUCH not ideal. Part of this was 10 minutes at high throttle yanking a stuck van out of some ruts took 4wd and a few yanks :-) Plus 30 minutes idling.

Back at work another hour idling around and using a tow dolly to move some concrete bumpers around and going to fetch a new snow blower (well 46 year old SB) off CL wherein I mounted it TO THE ROOF and this things a beast.

and I STILL managed to beat 21mpg by removing the ethanol from less than 14 gallons of gas and WINTER blend no less.

I don't have time to make another 15+ gallons of eth free gas so I just refilled it with normal wawa regular. I think I burned off enough of the washed gas to not have a phase separation issue with the little bit of water in the 4 gallons left in the tank (I hope :-)

If I drive it enough for another fill we shall see if it goes back down to 17mpg although it does have some eth free gas in the tank so probably not all the way back down :-)

Tomorrow and the next day I need to use the jeep still so I might racked up a few hundred more miles then its back to the mouse. I LOVE my jeep but its just too expensive for a daily driver if I don't need to use it.

FYI this jeep is an 88 Cherokee with 493,000 miles on the clock. No thats not a joke.

[NiHaoMike]

The older ignition systems might not be powerful enough to properly ignite ethanol.

It is possible to build an engine that gets better efficiency with ethanol since ethanol has a high octane rating, which allows for higher compression ratios.

[Nerys]

exactly which is why they need to stop selling the crap - this effects cars upto 1998 (newest car i have to test)

[jkp1187]

Nerys - do you know when they stop using winter blend in PA?

[Nerys]

i have no idea these are the first 2 years i have noticed a difference in fe between them - previously (ie pre ethanol) i saw almost no change summer/winter so i never tracked

[Daox]

No offense Nerys, but is this meant to be taken as solid testing? There is so much variability at this point that I wouldn't trust any info you provide. Just for starters, its still spring. There are still huge temperature variations going on. That alone could give you the 10% increase you've seen with the metro. I know my mileage is up at least 10% since its been getting warmer.

[Nerys]

no offense taken. ALWAYS question data and results its the sign of a working brain :-) its also the sign of a working open mind not to automatically DISMISS data either without testing.

The data is pretty solid though not PROOF as of yet. this part of the experiment is meant to determine if the next step is worth the expense of time and money IE drive hours away to get some real genuine ethanol free gas

even as it stands though the data is pretty damned conclusive if you look at the numbers.

The metro has NEVER EVER seen mpg's this high since the day I bought it last october.

ZERO mods ZERO significant repairs since I bought it and got it on the road. ZERO changes or repairs to engine exhaust or fuel system

On top of that during the time that I tested this in the metro check the weather for my area. below 55' rain and heavy winds the whole time. about the worst conditions you could ask for for FE testing and it still scored insanely high just by removing the ethanol.
Now that the weather is WARM and STAYING warm I expect even greater results fro the metro.

the jeep is even greater a change. Look at the conditions under which I tested it! worst possible conditions and it STILL scored 23% HIGHER MPG than it has in the last 2 years! ie I am VERY hard pressed to get better than 17-18mpg with the cherokee since going to ethanol with it usually closer to 17mpg

I got 19mpg a few times but that was PURE highway turnpike driving at 55mph.

I am sorry but a 4mpg jump over 20% higher than its 2 year average on ethanol is nothing but conclusive that "something" it going on.

NO amount of driving style short of extreme hypermiling and aeromodding is going to raise a 493,000 mile 88 cherokee's FE 4mpg.

the metro has gone from getting 10mpg lower than its factory rating to getting NEARLY EXACTLY what the factory rating says it should be getting. Again pretty damned conclusive.

I had to drive 42-44mph with EOC etc.. etc.. just to wring 49-50mpg out of it.

I put 7 gallons of Eth free gas in the metro and do ZERO EOC and its cold and raining and suddenly I am getting 54-55mpg? 7mpg HIGHER than my best pre winter mpg of 48mpg.

and ZERO hypermiling!

ALSO look at my "dates" I get gas every 3-5 days usually. almost twice a week at times. So changing weather patterns on a seasonal scale do NOT effect my tank to tank data. Just look at my fuel log.

There is not much of a log for the jeep because I stopped driving it (got too expensive to drive) and usually never drove it long enough to record a "tank"

but the metro I have EVERY SINGLE drop of gas I put in that car except the very first tank on my log. The data speaks loud and clear.

"SOMETHING" is going on here :-)

Current data says its the ethanol. When I make the trip to get 40+ gallons of E0 that will confirm the data. I plan to put a few thousand miles on the car in a couple weeks. this will eliminate weather as a major factor. I plan to go a few tanks on E0 then a few on E10 then a few on E0 then a few on E10. THAT graph should prove very interesting.

I wish I had the money and will power to make up 30 gallons for my Club Wagon. man would that be interesting. It was hit the hardest going from a solid 4 year average of 19mpg to 13-14mpg on E10 15mpg if I baby it on Wawa E10

[Nerys]

BTW going from summer to winter blend only cost me less than 3mpg. check my logs. so I expect no more than a 3mpg gain when we go back to summer blend and warmer weather.

oh and lets not forget the LOAD I carry when I drive either car. In the metro I am almost 100% of the time a couple hundred pounds over its rated weight limit of 688 pounds. HELL I myself an 380 pounds. (yeah yeah I am working on it down from 420 in the fall!!) Just me and my gear at right at the weight limit without adding any more people :-)

I always carry 3 people (including me) and many times a full load of 4 people

the metro always has a few hundred pounds in it in gear and tools and the jeep wow at least 400-500 pounds of crap in it at anyone time :-)


IF YOU WANT any specific data just ask. I will try to provide whatever I can for you if I am able to get it for you.