Removing Ethanol from Gasoline

[mcmancuso]

I just made a 700 mile trip, I noticed my mpg go up from 45 to about 52 when I was filling up at E0 as opposed to E10 stations that ethanol gas really sucks. my car runs farther on 9 gallons of E0 than it does on 10 gallons of E10 (9gallons of E0+1gallon EtOH) This is seriously the worst idea anyone has ever had as a method of reducing oil consumption. It actually increases it

[Nerys]

Grrr wawa burned me for the first time today. I decided to go back to E10 and "see what happens" and something odd happened.

they filled my car with 10.749 gallons of gasoline.

anyone see something wrong with that number? I sure do. such as EVEN BONE DRY it can not hold that much gasoline and it sure was not empty since I drove it their (though it was pretty damned close 540 miles) I have to double check but I am pretty sure BONE try fill it till its spillin it only holds 10.6 gallons.

Grrr ruins any data from that tank since I can not trust how much gas it actually used. at 10.75 gallons that means I only got 50.14 mpg or something like that. way low. I should have had at least half a gallon of gas in the tank or more.

[Christ]

Ah, that sucks. Sunuva...

[Nerys]

ehh no big deal. I don't have enough cash for both more cans and the gas but I am still going to pick up as much gas as I can since I am driving through allentown.

Then I will try some ABA testing with E0 and Local E10 and see what happens.

[ShadeTreeMech]

Not being familiar with the cherokee and Metro, I'm curious to know if both are multiport fuel injected, IE not throttle body injected.

The reason I ask is that I'm confident your Voyager is multiport fuel injected and would likely run E85 without a problem. In my 97 Villager (which incidentally likely has a less sophisticated engine than the one in your Voyager) I could run E85 with no modification, with the expected hit in MPGs. But before I bought E85, I would do the math to figure what MPG on the E85 I had to get to profit from its use. I recall when E85 was ~$2 a gallon and the gas was higher, by using a bit of algebra assuming my average MPGs from straight gas (which is the rule not the exception in Arkansas) I could go further on a dollar using E85 than using straight gasoline. The only downside was a bit of a hard start on near freezing temps from stone cold.

Instead of your miles per gallon, try figuring your miles per dollar if you used E85 in the Voyager. If the Cherokee or Metro are throttle body injected, they won't do well on any ethanol blend, but the Voyager is likely to self adjust for E85 without a hitch and likely to get you more miles per dollar.

[comptiger5000]

The Cherokee (XJ) is MPI if it has the 4.0 I6 (available 87-01). The fuel injection system and engine power output are different from 87-90 vs later years, however.

[ShadeTreeMech]

So it has MPI. In theory, if his sensors are operating correctly, he should be able to run E85 without harm. Question is whether he'd profit from it....

[comptiger5000]

The 87-90 4.0 with the Renix fuel injection system has a knock sensor (91+ engines do not), so it might benefit some from the additional octane.

[JohnNeiferd]

And Geo Metros are TBFI. The only "Metro" that wasn't TBFI was the Chevrolet Sprint Turbo, which was MPFI.

[ShadeTreeMech]

The Metro would absolutely hate E85 then. My dad has a carbed motorcycle that hardly ran on ethanol, I'm sure for much the same reasons it wouldn't run in the metro. The MFI would have finer fuel control and would sense something was up at the O2 sensor and compensate. I think for a carbed engine (or a TBFI) it would require drastic mods to run well on ethanol, or a heavy on the liquor blend.