10% Ethanol in Gas

Oh I thought you were trying to get good gas mileage...... never mind.

-jim

Reply to
jim
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That may be true with current American porkbarrel politics, but is not necessarily universally true. "Can't" never did anything.

Reply to
HLS

I ran stock 31's and used fifth fine when I first bought it. The mileage was the same if not slightly higher(better) when the odometer differences are taken into account.

Which 'way' should I bump the timing? I might be forced to do this because no more 'real' gas is being sold here in Canada.

Now if I could just keep my float needle tips from dissolving.... I get two years 'max' out of them because I can't always find real gas, I need a solid needle.

My engine will pull fine in 5th at 65-70 mph, I just get better mileage running 4th. In 4th a twitch of the gas pedal compensates for wind, in

5th, I have to use the whole pedal range.

Mike

Reply to
Mike Romain

In order to get good gas mileage, you first must have good performance. If it is tuned to run like a pig, it will just drink gas. If it is tuned to the max, the mileage matches.

The common saying is 'you need a tune up' when your gas mileage goes to crap right?

Reply to
Mike Romain

Right. So what's up with the thumpin your chest about 4400 rpm? It sounds like you have bad performance and bad gas mileage at 1700 rpm.

-jim

Reply to
jim

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Reply to
clifto

I do so I just 'don't' run at 1700 rpm at highway speed in overdrive because my engine lugs there due to my tires and gearing. I keep in the top normal gear of 4th.

By tuning my engine up manually so it has it's real 'red line' of 4500 rpm back rather than an artificial red line caused by the governor 'effect' built into the Ford Emissions computer AMC used, I get a 25% seat of the pants boost in power 'and' the same increase in gas mileage while still passing emissions with low numbers.

The stock machines used a Ford computer running a feedback carb that 'could benefit from high octane if run hard and hot or fully loaded' because they would ping despite a knock sensor according to the owners manual. If running high test didn't help, the owners manual says to 'lighten the load' also.

I am 'already' at the top of the timing and power curve and 'need' high test to get the good mileage and performance I have so all the ethanol does for me is give me 'poor' performance and gas mileage in comparison to running 'real' gas like the owners manual states to use.

If I use regular gas or an ethanol mix, I lose about 100 miles per tank range. The last tank of ethanol mix ran empty at 225 miles. The last tank of regular lasted just over 265 miles. Thankfully I carry a full gas can with me. I go 350 miles between fills on high test.

We will have to see what this mandated 10% food additive BS is going to do to the mileage, let alone the carb parts, gas pump diaphragm and fuel lines that go gooey...

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:
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Reply to
Mike Romain

Yes, but the porkbarrel politicking isn't going to change, nor will the laws of physics. We are stuck with both.

In the meantime I am drinking a fine 10% ethanol beverage.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Mike Romain wrote:

Here's the problem:

What your engine does or does not do above 3000 RPM has nothing to do with getting good gas mileage. Particularly with the type of engine you have. Only a moron would make a statement such as "it has it's real 'red line' of 4500 rpm back rather than an artificial red line caused by the governor" in the context of a discussion on how to get good gas mileage. You are not going to get good gas mileage going down the road at 4500 rpm so why even bring it up?

The fact that you get much better gas mileage using higher octane fuel sounds believable. At least it would if some other person said it - your obvious lack of impartiality makes any numbers you give suspect. However that doesn't have much at all to do with whether ethanol is good for your engine. It is more than likely that at least some of the octane boost in that premium fuel you like comes from ethanol. The fuel that you are disparaging as ethanol fuel is more than likely some very very low octane fuel that has some sort of promotion behind (either by the government or the oil companies). Where I live premium (high octane) gas has had ethanol in it for at least 25 years and they proudly display that information because in many respects ethanol is viewed as a much better additive than any of the other alternatives. At any rate you haven't made a case against ethanol at all only against low octane fuel. Who knows, where you live they may only identify the cheapest fuel as having ethanol because they know that some morons will be willing to pay for the more expensive stuff based on that revelation alone. The fact is it costs more to produce high octane fuel it always has. That is one of many things that the detractors of ethanol conveniently overlook. Anything you add to the fuel to boost octane is going to cost a lot more than the base 80-85 octane stuff that is the cheapest fraction of the petroleum crude to come out of the refineries.

Whether or not you could tune your 258 to get better efficiency on low octane is another open question. The fact is that particular engine's distributor and carb (don't overlook temp controls) are set up to be able to make that sort of adjustments very easily and thus it is quite possible to maximize fuel economy for any particular fuel and operating conditions. Inevitably, you are always going to get better mileage with higher octane (if you impartially compare peak efficiency for both grades) but that extra efficiency may or may not be good enough to offset the extra cost of the higher grade.

-jim

Reply to
jim

If the top end is 3500 RPM, which is 'full throttle or the pedal to the metal, then cruising at 2300 rpm needs about 3/4 of the throttle pedal.

When the top end is 4500 rpm on the same engine, again that is pedal to the metal, then cruising at 2300 rpm only needs about half throttle.

This 25% difference in the gas pedal position 'sure' appears to translate into a sweet 25% 'increase' in gas mileage.

It has for me and over a half dozen others I have tuned up with the emissions 'governor' gone.

Why is this hard to understand?

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:
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Reply to
Mike Romain

Better gas mileage comes from having the throttle opened more, not less. This is the main purpose for egr now. More throttle with more dead gas equals less pumping losses.

Reply to
Steve Austin

I believe that all gasoline containing ethanol must be labeled as such at the pump.

The fuel that you

Yes, that's it, they would promote some shit fuel as ethanol. Makes perfect sense, right?

Where I live premium (high octane) gas

I've got news for you, it's not "proudly dispalyed". It is labeled as containing ethanol because ethanol is really a shitty fuel additive. Ethanol is corrosive and detrimental to certain rubber compounds used as fuel lines and carb gaskets. A gasoline/ethanol blend is also harmful to small aircooled engines such as lawnmowers and garden tractors as it leans them out and causes them to run hot. It can be deadly to any 2 stroke engine as ethanol doesn't mix well with 2-stroke oils and can cause oil/fuel sepearation. These are the reasons it's so "proudly dispalyed" at the pump.

At any rate you haven't made

He said he loses "100 miles per tank" on an ethanol blend, does that sound normal to you ?

Who knows,

The fact is it costs more

Do you have any figures to back that up or did you just pull it out of your ass ??

That is one of many things that

Ethanol sucks as a fuel additive and as a replacement motor fuel. Ethanol has a higher octane rating than gasoline but it only contains half the BTU's. You need to burn twice as much ethanol to get the same power as gasoline. Some of this loss in mileage can be recovered by building an engine just for ethanol as ethanol has a higher octane than gasoline so you would be able to run a higher compression ratio on an ethanol engine. This would give a small increase in mileage as well as an increase in horsepower and torque. Such a high compression engine would be unable to run on gasoline.

Anything you add to the

The fact is that particular engine's

This may be true, BUT, it still may get better mileage on a higher octane fuel.

BULLSHITT !!! The gasoline manufacturers would like you to believe that nonsense but that doesn't make it true. If your engine was designed to run on

87 octane you won't likely see a difference in mileage with higher octane.

Correct. If you even see any difference at all with higher octane. It is also possible that running premium fuel may be detrimental to your engine.

Reply to
Mike

I have a carburetor engine...

Mike

Reply to
Mike Romain

So now we have one moronic theory to counter another. Having the throttle wider open will give you better mileage iff that is accomplished by putting in a smaller engine. Sure if you put in a smaller more efficient engine then you can run down the road at WOT and that will give you better fuel economy. But only an idiot would think that tuning your engine so that it requires wide open throttle to maintain the same speed rather than tuning it so that 1/2 throttle will give you that same power is going to increase your gas mileage. At least Mike has that part right. But that has nothing to do with ethanol or what he could be getting in fuel economy.

If anybody still remembers ethanol and good gas mileage was the topic of discussion. The 258 is a long stroke engine with excellent low end power. So tuning it so that it doesn't run well at the engine rpm where it is designed to run most efficiently is not going to give you the best mileage even if it does give you better mileage than somebody else's sick engine. It is no big surprise that a bunch of stuff that was stuck on to a good engine to supposedly control emissions resulted in poor performance and bad fuel economy at whatever RPM. Remember this was AMC and they went out of business and there was a good reason for that.

The initial intent of EGR was to reduce NOX emissions. It was discovered that it also acted like an octane boost which does allow you to tune an engine with more advanced timing and leaner mixture which can translate into better fuel efficiency (but to some extent defeating the original intent).

If you are going from point A to point B in a certain vehicle with a certain gear ratio and their are no losses due to things like the tires slipping then you will have exactly the same number of engine revolutions no matter how you plant your foot on the throttle. How is running more gas and air thru a fixed number of cycles going to improve the mileage?

-jim

Reply to
jim

In the mid seventies it was the farm co-op stations that started to sell gasohol. Do you think they were ashamed of the ethanol? They advertised it. As it turned out it became quite popular. Part of the reason was because people were getting better gas mileage on gasohol because at the same time they were phasing out lead. I don't know where Mike is or what the requirements are there for labeling.

Nope sounds a lot like he and you don't know shit that's what it sounds like. Most people get better mileage on gasohol. Especially people driving AMC 258's back 30 years ago when there were alot of them around. Maybe 10% ethanol is new in your area but there are places where it has been available for a long time.

Try buying some Avaition gas you moron. Do I have any figures? Have you ever looked at the prices on the pump? If there was a larger demand for high octane it would cost even more than it does now. Are you trying to say that the oil companies could be selling only high octane fuel and it wouldn't cost a penny more to produce it? Do you think that most of the fuel sold is low octane because that costs more to produce? You can't be that stupid.

Who cares? Today gasoline without ethanol is unheard of around here. And cars are already being designed to run better on it.

You just got thru saying it was true a couple paragraphs up. You said if you design it for higher octane it will get better mileage. Now you are saying your own statement is bullshit.

Right if you leave everything else the same, but that wasn't what the discussion was about. The question was can it be tuned to perform well on a given fuel. There is a lot more to designing an engine for high octane than just compression ratio.

If you don't see any difference you don't know what you are doing. There are a huge number of things you can do to modify an engine to perform well under certain operating conditions and type of fuel.

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Reply to
jim

Same gas, same air. More dead gas. More throttle for same amount of good air. The otto engine is most efficient at wide open throttle. Those old economy runs where they got insane gas mileage were all done at full throttle.

Reply to
Steve Austin

sure but they engineered it with a tad bit more knowledge than 'we need to drive this thing at wide open throttle'. Since that little tiny bit of the knowledge seems to be the only part of the total knowledge you possess it is unlikely that you would ever be able to even come close to getting the type of fuel economy the average driver does.

Reply to
jim

It's not that simple. First off, you won't get any more air in the cylinder unless it is forced in. If you add more fuel you get a bigger bang in the cylinder which delivers more power to the rear wheels, which carries the vehicle further down the road. Of coarse this only works to a point and then fuel economy suffers but power will still be increasing.

Reply to
Mike

Not quite. A larger throttle opening improves the volumetric efficiency of an engine. This does not mean that driving at full throttle will give you better mileage.

The main purpose of EGR is to reduce Oxides of Nitrogen.

Reply to
Mike

I believe the requirements for labeling are a federal mandate. I have lived in areas were gasohol was available and have even tried it in my vehicles, as did most people when it first became available. We all found out the same thing, it sucks!!! It was available for 6-12 months and then it was no longer offered. The biggest difference was fuel mileage, the second problem was driveability complaints. The mileage decrease was around 3-4 miles per gallon on any vehicle that used an oxygen sensor. If it was used in an older vehicle that used just a plain old carb without electronic mixture control the results varied. Some claaimed better mileage others claimed reduced fuel mileage and yet others had a mutitude of driveablity problems, such as spark knock, rough/poor idle, leakage of carb gaskets that weren't copatible with alcohol.

Right Einstein !!! He loses 100 mile per tank on gasohol vs straight gasoline and the only one who can't figure it out is you.

BULLSHIT!! MOST vehicles are computer controlled. The O2 sensor adjusts the air/fuel ratio to stoichometric ( 14.7 to 1 ). Ethanol leans out the air/fuel mixture, the O2 sees this and adds more fuel to richen it back up. This reduces your fuel milage by the percentage on ethanol added. 10% ethanol results in a 10% reduction in mileage.

Especially people driving

Ethanol may work in an older vehicle with a non feedback carb, but it doesn't work well in EVERY vehicle. If the vehicle was running rich to begin with then you may see an increase in mileage. If the vehicle was not running rich then the gasohol will still lean out the air/fuel mixture and this may hurt mileage AND driveability as well.

Gasohol was madated by the federal government for areas that had problems meeting the pollution standards,

Why would I do that, I don't have an airplane ?

Do I have any figures?

Yes, that was the question asked. Remember you stated " The fact is it costs more to produce high octane fuel it always has. " I asked if you had any proof to back up your claim. Well, do you ??????

Have you

Yes I have, but I have yet to find a pump that shows the cost to produce said gasoline. Are you assuming that it must cost more to produce because they charge more for it at the pump ???? If that's the case your a moron !

If there was a larger demand for

I think this is the paragrph you are reffering to but you need to read it again.

Ethanol sucks as a fuel additive and as a replacement motor fuel. Ethanol

Did you read it again ? Did you understand it this time ?

Do you drive a model A by chance ?? The vehicles made for the last 25 years have all been computer controlled for the most part and there is nothing you can adjust.

Really. So why don't you tell us how you would modify a modern day vehicle to obtain these goals. By modern day vehicle I am reffering to the computer controlled vehicles of the last 20 years that someone would likely be using for everyday transportation.

Reply to
Mike

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