ethanol/duramax

bang bang bang boom $5.00 says 20 seconds on straight ethanol

They told you that because he wanted to sell it too you. You want to use it VERY sparingly when needed maybe in winter (because alchol can bind to water and prevent it from freezing and also bind to fuel) and that is it as it has no lubrication qualities and would raise H with the pump and injection system if used in anything more than trace amounts.

----------------- The SnoMan

Greetings,

The Duramax (or any diesel for that matter) will not run on ethanol of any concentration that is sold for fuel, especially the new E85. Whoever told you that is either woefully misinformed or jerkin' yer gerkin. I think they got it confused with biodiesel, which the Duramax WILL run on. Biodiesel is NOT ethanol, but it will make your exhaust smell like french fries...

Cheers - Jonathan

It didn't make sense to me either, but I will go back to the dealer here and ask some queations.. mc

I would be surprised if a "stock" Duramax would run on ethanol... but some diesels can. Click here:

Click here: David

While E95 can be used in diesel engines, the motor needs modifications. The trucks used in the test (from the second link) had modified Detroit Diesel motors - you can't just pour E95 into your tank and go. And it doesn't appear that there was any significant benefit from using E95 over normal diesel fuel from the description in the summary. Plus, if you think E85 is hard to find in places, just try to find E95!

Cheers - Jonathan

You would have to modify injection system because of lack of lube in fuel and it has about 1/2 the energy content so it would use about twice as much fuel to produce the same output power. It is a loose/loose senerio.

----------------- The SnoMan

Why are people so hot on ethanol anyway? Ethanol is a farce. Even if we dedicate every acre of tillable land in this country to corn for ethanol, we can't hope to make a tiny dent in the amount of gasoline we use. Then what do we eat?

I thought ethanol was supposed to be the "great white hope." I thought ethanol was the solution to high gas proces. How come the Sunoco stations around here that advertise 10% ethanol charge just as much, or MORE, per gallon than those that sell 100% gasoline? On top of that,

10% ethanol reduces fuel economy by 5-10%. So, you're paying just as much, or more, to use more fuel. Makes sense to me.

While I agree with some of this, not all of it. For one E10 will not reduce MPG 10%. Some engines do the same some a litlle better and some a little worse but there is no normal 10% loss. Second we use the equivlant of 125,000 semi tanker trucks of oil every day and it is growing and we now import 60% of our oil as and this will only get worse. Ethanol is not a long term soluiton and can only extend gas supplies at best when mixed with it. (there is a new process that will hit main stream in a year or two that uses grass and tree scrap and is a lot cheaper too but it still will never replace oil as we simply use to much) Also if you run e85 or pure alchol MPG will suffer because the energy content is much lower so you will need even more of it which some people do not understand. The only real long term fix is more efficent vehicles that reduce demand but americas lov for SUV is digging the grave deeper.

----------------- The SnoMan

On Sunoco 10% Ethanol gasoline, my 2003 Silverado loses 2 MPG. I normally get 20 in the summer. If I fill up at ANY Sunoco station that advertises 10% ethanol, I'm lucky if I get 18. That's at least 10%.

last month's Scientific American...a company in Pennsylvania is producing diesel fuel from waste coal for $54.00 per barrel. See Ruhr coal oil Nazi Germany see Alberta tar sands project see Colorado shale see any of the coast lines of America we are awash in oil

Maybe you but I have not seen any real big differnce on a few vehicles here. It does have less energy though to it is possible to to loose some MPG. I just take exception to the flat 10% loss rule.

----------------- The SnoMan

The true cost in much higher. Besides, it does not fix the problem as while we need more energy sources, we alos need to be more thrifty in its usage which current trends do not support.

----------------- The SnoMan

That's nonsense. The problem we have right at the moment is the lack of domestic "refining" capacity (same problem with our oil supply)... not the supply of corn. Read this:

E85 is approximately 106 octane... so if we modify our vehicles (higher compression) to take advantage of that; our mileage will end up being equal to or better than what we get on unleaded gasoline. The biggest draw-back to "flex-fuel" vehicles is that they have to have low enough compression to be able to run unleaded gasoline... so they really can't take full advantage of the high octane that E85 provides. A true "E85" vehicle would do much better. When unleaded hit $3.00 per gallon here (in Wisconsin) the E85 was $1.99 per gallon. Based on my '00 Silverado's mileage I estimated that I would save only about $500 per year by switching to E85... but it's renewable, it's cleaner, and I could use the $500. Performance is slightly better on E85, too. Although it has less energy per pound, you can burn more of it... so it works out to about 101% as much power (more if we take advantage of the higher octane and raise our compression). In my opinion, E85 is the fuel of the near future. David

wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...

Fuel derived from coal is a old technology, been around for about as long as gas. But now it is a viable option and technology has made it more efficient. A few years back oil was so cheap that any alternate source was just financially foolish. Same with biodiesel, vegetable oil was more expensive than oil. Things have changed. As far as a previous post about using all the land, you haven't gotten out much. 2/3 of the US population lives on the east, the biggest part of the other 1/3 lives in Cali. There is a whole lot of unused land in between. Just get on one of the East/West Interstates and take a ride across country. Of course like SnoMan said. These fuels can't replace oil but can help alleviate the problem. The dummy who loads up in the Hummer and drives 5 miles to buy a bottle of water don't help either. As much as I like my Chevy trucks the 82 Porsche 924 has seen more miles in the last year.

I've been running my stock '00 Silverado on E85 for about 2 weeks now. E85 is about $1.20 per gallon cheaper than the 93-octane fuel I was running, and I'm getting about 85% as many miles per gallon... so I'm saving about $1.20 x 0.85 = $1.02 per gallon, adjusted for mileage. That amounts to about $20 - $25 every time I fill up! I'm not suggesting anyone else try this... just letting you know that I've been doing it. David

Working extremely well in Brazil!

you are right Jonathan, only biodiesel is allowed...I noticed in the manual it only allows 5% mix of bio...I wonder why? mc