Perhaps it's the difference between winter formulation and a summer one, which typically generates a little better mileage. At any rate, if this is indeed a 'data point', you should have 'data', not just anecdotal evidence.... ;-) And while it may indeed have a higher octane, it also has a bit less energy available per gallon, so in theory it should take MORE of it to generate the same sort of power that a gallon of gas does - hence the understanding that it generally provides fewer miles per gallons.
You do not understand. Drygas is alcohol - just like ethanol, and it has the same effect. Adding drygas to ethanol gasoline MAY get you over the hump - but it is the ethanol in the first place that is causing the problem by acting as a water sponge - absorbing water out of the air. Just turns E10 into E10.05
My original point was to rebut the alcohol/gasoline scare -- all that alcohol does NOT itself cause a separation of liquid phases. It is the contaminating water that might cause separation, and that would take a lot of water. If your fuel cap is on tight, you shouldn't be getting much moist air in your tank.
On YouTube there is a film that shows the inside of an engine, unmodified, that has burned E85 for more than 100,000 miles. There is no sign of damage. A possible explanation is that the very lean mixture burns cooler than gasoline.
The guy with the enlarged injector diameters gets by on pure gasoline as long as he uses a light foot on the accelerator. He does not open the throttle more than 60% of wide open.
I am running E41 in my unmodified 1999 OB, and the performance is fine. I will, however, out of fear, install a modification kit before attempting E85 straight.
My mistake about the ethanol. Chemistry's never been my strong suit, much to my father's chagrin.
But this water thing -- could thatr be what was behind the fact that my car stalled in traffic right around when I switched to an ethanol blend? (Took it to the mechanic, who spent all day looking at it and couldn't find anything wrong)
If your car is not an old classic, it should have been made to accept E10, and I have no idea why it stalled. I doubt that you filled up with E85, so I won't speculate about dissolving varnish and clogging your fuel filter. In short, I have no idea. It might be that something entirely different caused the problem.
If you are adventurous, you might try to repeat the experience in the interest of science. Good luck!
well, it is businessweek. If it were, say, Nature, New Scientist or even Scientific American it would probably say something quite different.
Ethanol as a fuel is great, except that it is more expensive to produce than straight gasoline. By "expensive" I mean compared to the 100:1 ratio of gasoline, in terms of energy you get for energy you put into making it. Pimental says it's less than 1:1, but his "studies" are weighted to say that. Even if it was 10:1, it's still way more expensive that gasoline. If society as a whole was able to reduce it's liquid energy consumption by 10 fold we might be okay - but current energy policies of the western world are not going to make that happen anytime soon.
If you Google that question, you'll find the Pimental is alone in that contention. Many studies after his refute it. The ratio is 1.67:1 even for corn. For sugar cane, it is 8:1. Brazil has been using it for thirty years, now without subsidies.
In fact, it is gasoline which costs more to produce than you get back from it, according to Robert Zubrin's book. Where do you get that
For decades now and all small, foreign, fuel efficient (relatively) cars, I have noticed a 10-15 per cent drop in mileage to the point that most of the time without knowing the exact dates, I could tell the gas station they had started the winter blend. I have had people wash this off with assertions it was just colder, and of course that should play a small part in the scenario, but warm periods in the winter never seemed to make a difference in this decrease in mileage. Only the end of winter gas improved things. The more fuel efficient in summer, the higher the percentage lower, generally.
That is curious. For a week recently I ran E29 (29% ethanol) in my
1999 OB 2.5L and got 15% less mpg. That's a mild disappointment, but I'm still saving money, because I pay about $3.00 per gallon of E85 I'm mixing in, and gasoline costs about $4.00 per gallon. Down 15% and up 25%
So I don't think the mpg penality is linear with the concentration. There is more to learn about this.
Now I'm running E60 (on my way to straight E85). This is after installing a flex-fuel converter. I'm eager to find out how it works out. More info in the thread "E85 - experience."
It was May 7th that I started this thread asking the question what would happen if I did as Dano58 said not to do: just fill up my unconverted 1999 OB with E85 and ran it. Since then I have learned a lot from reading and from experimenting.
The National Ethanol Vehcle Coalition has this
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webpage that Dano58 refers to, and it does warn against filling with E85 without conversion. Moreover it says that no conversit kit has been approved by the EPA.
That warning is obsolete. The EPA Memorandum 1A dates from 1997 and discusses the interpretation of a 1974 memorandum warning that alteration of a vehicle's emission control system with the intent to evade that control is punishable by law. In 2008, however, the EPA approved one conversion kit, Full Flex, that permits any fuel between pure gasoline and pure ethanol to burn in a car without lighting the MIL (CEL). That makes it pass New York's inspection.
The NEVC also states that conversion is very difficult. I have made this conversion on my car. If the fuel injector connectors are wthin easy reach, the conversion takes 5 minutes. It took me longer, because the Subaru boxer engine has its fuel injectors very hard to get at.
What the conversion does is to insert a control box in the electrical feed to the fuel injectors so as to lengthen the pulse from the ECU to the injectors and thus increase the richness of the fuel mixture. Ethanol has oxygen chemically included in it, with the result that there is too much oxygen in the normal car's mixture, causing the MIL to come on. The box does is to extend the range of mixtures that the ECU can create, solving that problem.
If one ignores this problem, what happens is that the mixture burns hotter than normal. If pure gasoline were to burn hotter than normal, NOx emissions would result with bad effects on the atmosphere. Ethanol, however, burns much cooler than gasoline. I would like to see test results on the emissions of an engine burning ethanol too lean.
If one's car is very old -- 1950's, say, -- the natural rubber in hoses might be affected by ethanol. But since the 1980's IIRC, the government requires cars to be compatible with E10, and the manufacturers replaced rubber with neoprene or the like. It happens that neoprene resists attack by ethanol and gasoline at any concentrarion.
If ethanol were a risk to the atmosphere then why has the March of Dimes endorsed its use? The facts are that ethanol produces much cleaner emissions than gasoline.
Ethanol is clean, cheap, and enhances the performance of a car. My old, all-wheel-drive, automatic shift Outback feels like it wants to run. Its 0-60 mph time is 12.35 seconds, which ain't bad. It's not for nothing that Indy cars this year will be running on pure ethanol.
Makes no sense. Means ethanol contributed nothing toward your mpg. You would get the same thing if you put 10% less fuel in the tank. Which would cost you 10% less.
Makes a lot of sense. Suppose I invent a fuel that gets you 200 mpg, but it costs $200 per gallon. Would you go for it? No. MPG isn't the object; it's MPD: miles per dollar.
On E60 (on my way to E85) I get 15% less mpg, but it costs 25% less. That means I am getting 13% more miles/dollar than on gasoline. The calculation is (1-0.15)/(1-0.25) =3D 0.85/0.75 =3D 1.13.
Not to mention that with ethanol I pollute less, I cause less money to flow to bad people, and I enjoy driving more, because I get higher torque and higher horsepower. My old 1999 OB goes 0 - 60 mph in under
You could find out. If you know how much gasoline is left in your tank -- just a few gallons -- add just enough E85 to make the concentration E30. It isn't enough to light your trouble light. Drive it a while to let your ECU adjust the mixture. Then see if your performance is worse or better and let us know. It won't hurt your car.
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