I never implied that it was a CAUSE of famine and given that a lot of US farmland is idle, shifting (at least temporarily) to fuel crop might make sense. But it is annoying on some level to know that the US has enough farm capacity to feed the whole world, yet people go without food because the distribution system is broken, whether it be by politics, war, or pig-headed backwardness.
I'd be more apt to blame "winter fuel" mixtures with low vapor pressure and possibly oxygenation long before I'd blame the ethanol in this case.
10% ethanol won't eat anything. 50% ethanol sure will.I make a bet that they have changed a whole lot more than just the ethanol addition.
--scott
Well, now you do. The AMC Jeep's all have an ethanol and alcohol warning in their owners manual with the CJ7 carbureted engines outright forbidding it.
Mike
86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 'New' frame in the works for '08. Some Canadian Bush Trip and Build Photos:
err... high vapor pressures. Brain fart.
--scott
Off topic, but some of the people around here feed commercial chicken house litter to cattle. And, there doesnt seem to be a law against it. I would far prefer to feed them sour mash solids that chicken feces.
What is going to happen to the corn farmer when he can no longer get cheap ammonia based fertilizers? And that could happen easily enough.
The only issue with that is I did the tests in the middle of the summer and they have been consistent over the ten years I have owned this Jeep.
Mike
86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 'New' frame in the works for '08. Some Canadian Bush Trip and Build Photos:
When they forced 10% on us here, stations were closing down to clean out their tanks as it is a better solvent and might have brought junk from the tanks into our tanks ;( Frank
Economics! Even if farmers in the US grew the food for free, transporting it to distant lands, and distributing it would still price it out of the range of many "starving people." You can ship food into an area for an emergency, but the only long term cure for starving people is to help them create a stable society with a substanible agriculture system and workable population controls.
Ed
Chickens have horribly inefficient digestive systems comapred to cows. Having raised cattle all my life, I don't think chicken s*&t is the worst thing cows eat. I only have a cow / calf operation, so I don't feed my cows a lot of grain or prepared feed. Mine mosty graze grass and eat hay. But all the grass they eat is basically the same grass they used for a bathroom last week.
However, I think the best use for chicken litter is as fertilizer. It is good stuff! Years ago my Father applied a quanity to one of our poorer fields and you can still tell the difference.
Obviously you have not priced fertilizer recently.....cheap is not something I would use to descibe fertilizer. Personally I plan to switch significant acerage from corn to soybeans that don't require a lot of expensive fertilizer plus at current prices the gross income in my area is almost as good and the net is a lot better.
Ed
You know Kevin, one thing you seem to miss is the nature of what I drive. It has the aerodynamics of a brick so needs 'full' power to be able to cruise at highway speeds. Any slight loss, means the gas pedal has to be mashed to the floor to hold 65 on a hill or in a head wind instead of floating along at half throttle. This makes a radical difference in gas mileage.
The owners manual for both of my AMC Jeeps also warns of drivability and poor performance issues with the mix, let alone forbidding it's use in the CJ7 so it is even 'expected'.
Mike
86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 'New' frame in the works for '08. Some Canadian Bush Trip and Build Photos:
"Cheap" was used in a relative sense, Ed ;>) It can get worse, and probably will.
The Brasilians were looking at mandioca for a source of fermentable carbohydrates. It takes almost nothing from the soil, needs water and carbon dioxide. Plus, it is quite edible.
The fuel situation can be alleviated, if not solved, but it may take a group of technologies to do it.
Try growing without fertilizer and you'll see how cheap it really is.
Personally I plan to switch significant
Yes, and you can take one field for corn and the rest for soybeans and rotate, still, just like folks did before there was fertilizer.
Down here is still tobacco country and there is no way you can grow that stuff any other way. It takes all the nitrogen it can get, and more. Worst crop I can imagine, and it doesn't sell too well any more either.
--scott
Mike Romain wrote in news:476be28a$0$20826 $ snipped-for-privacy@unlimited.newshosting.com:
If it still has a carb the company has changed its offical position since the manual was written. most all manufactures in the late 90s oked 99% of there line up to be 10% ethanol compatiable. Check it out. KB PS if it has been quite a while since you tried it. They had some very out of spec stuff go through the punps in the early stages of branching out of the midwest. It caused some trouble in the eastern states that I remember for sure, don`t remember how wide spread it was.
Mike Romain wrote in news:476c0a93$0$30680 $ snipped-for-privacy@unlimited.newshosting.com:
just for curiosity sake, what is your gearing, rear end ratio and tire size? compression ratio of the eng. too. also the dist advance curve if you know it. KB
I am running tall skinny BFG mud tires in a 33x9.5" size with 3.31 gears. This gives me 2300 rpm at 65 mph in 4th gear of my T5 tranny. I do not use overdrive or 5th gear because of lugging issues which again drops me by 5 mpg when I use it vs 4th. 5th at 65 mph is only 1725 or so RPM which is to low.
In other words I am right at the edge of good drivability and gear ratios....
My 258 or 4.2L straight six engine has a 2bbl Weber-Carter BBD feedback carb on it with no computer running any emissions or the feedback circuit so it's totally manually set up. It has an Accel SuperCoil, slightly overgapped plugs, oversized straight pipe leading to a Dynomax SuperTurbo muffler, no cat needed on a CJ7 here in Canada and pretty much stock everything else.
Base timing is at 9 deg BTDC with a ported vacuum source and a mechanical plate advance. My mechanical advance comes in full at approximately 1600 rpm. Ported advances with throttle. My light isn't fancy enough for the full advance degree reading.
I have had two physical engines and several different distributors in, all giving me the same basic performance curve so figure it's 'right'.
I can pass Canadian tailpipe emissions on the ASM 2525 test with 589 NOx , 16 ppm HC and 0.11% CO.
I get a stable 23 mpg or 11L/100km highway (checked recently using Esso
91 octane) and it goes like a scalded cat with it's light all fiberglass body. 1st lights up the tires way too easy, 2nd tops out at 52 mph turning 4400 rpm, 3rd pulls hard up to 75 mph, 4th buries the speedo and I have 'no' urge to find out how fast 5th will go.It will purr along on our 400 series highways at a nice 120-140 kph so I can keep up to the big trucks easy. (120 kph in the slow lane usually around here holds up traffic, 100 kph or 65 mph is almost suicidal)
We have taken it on three 3000 to 4500 'mile' vacation trips to the east coast even.
All in all I/we love the old thing and have a new frame sitting in the back yard getting beefed up before installing in the spring. It needs it's TLC still. It is not forgiving about when needing a tune up either, LOL!...
Mike
86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 'New' frame in the works for '08. Some Canadian Bush Trip and Build Photos:Oh, compression ratio is either 8:1 or 8.5:1 as far as I can find out, not sure which.
Mike
true, but it costs more fuel to make the ethanol than it saves in the cars.
snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com
Where I live they have been selling 10% gasohol at the farm co-op stations since the mid seventies. There aren't many of those around today (because the engine was the only thing AMC built to last)) but back then every AMC
258 engine I ever saw gets better mileage on 10% ethanol than straight gas. There were one of the best engines to tune for good mileage on gasohol. And cruising at 1700 RPM shouldn't be a problem either.-jim
Mike Roma>
Well the owners manual says that the computer feedback carb engines can benefit from using high octane gas if run hard and hot so maybe the ethanol mix upped the octane enough to notice?
I know I have two different engines with high test and regular because of my manual tuning, so I am already at the top of the performance peak which shows a decrease with the ethanol mix 'or' regular gas.
I 'am' tuned with a 'real' 4400 rpm top end. Stock it hits a wall at
3500 rpm max, most hit the wall at 3300 under load.Mike
jim wrote:
Mike Romain wrote in news:476d6952$0$5189$ snipped-for-privacy@unlimited.newshosting.com:
I will ponder this awhile and see what I think. If I were you I would really want to slap some stock wheels on for a full tank trip and use 5th and see what the milage and power differences are. It could prove a over geared or not situtation. If its as light as I think it should be. probly 2600 lbs or so, it should pull those tall gears ok sans a strong headwind if the dist. mech advance is truly all in by 1700 rpm. If you want to play, when you try a tank of ethanol bump your timeing about 3 degrees. KB
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