Adjusting carburetors for oxygenated gasoline

I would say that the manual tells you only a default adjustment. You have to make a optimal final adjustment for this engine. No more rpm's in idle that necessary to go in power, don't let it smothered, let it smart run in idle.

Regards,

Ralf

I wouldn't worry about it. Idle is not a critical operating regime. If the car idles satisfactorily, and doesn't stall, that is really all you are basically worried about.

If you have the bad gas mix in there when you adjust it it should come out ok. You might have to up the idle a bit more than stock to keep it smooth though.

When my 'non computerized' carb engine gets that mixed crap in it, it 'really' runs poorly. It refuses to idle at the 650 rpm 'real' gas will let it run at. If I up it to 750 rpm it will keep on running without stalling.

I haven't been able to find any settings that help get the top end back though. It just plain refuses to run with power over 2700 rpm or so. It is like it runs into a wall at 65 mph. This means I have to keep it floored to drive on the highway which just drinks gas.... I get 100 miles per tank difference between real gasoline and that alcohol mixed crap.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail > If a factory manual says to adjust the idle mixture of a carb through

No, you use the same the procedure, otherwise, you are defeating the purpose of the re-formulated fuels.

Profits for Archer-Daniels-Midland?

ADM stands to profit, for sure.. There are better ways to produce alcohol than by fermentation of corn. Far better. The Bush administration is full of shit as have been most of the administrations in the past few decades. We are the victims.

A local major crop (in this part of the UK) is sugar beet. A big beet refinery has recently been modified, so that waste beet bits which contain useful sugar can be fermented and distilled on-site into ethanol for fuel. Uniting the sugar extraction with ethanol production means the factory can also reduce heat wastage. Dried leftover vegetation can then be burned in the furnaces, IIRC.

Be aware that you can fix the idle but the fuel mixture will be lean under acceleration unless you change jets.

Don

Thanks, Don. My idle problem cropped up suddenly, and I foolishly tried to fix it by turning the mixture screw, but I forgot the initial setting. I then found a chunk of rubber stuck in the "clog resistant" float valve, and after I removed it the idle became really smooth again, regardless of the mixture, even down to 550 RPM (tiny 1.6L engine).

Sugar cane, potatoes, mandioca and others can also be used. In South American the bagasse is burned to make the process more efficient.

Corn is not a really efficient crop, IMO. Normally you get two ears of corn per stalk, and each ear produces relatively few grains of corn. Corn kernels are not just sugar or carbohydrate either. Corn requires a lot of nitrogen based fertilizer, whereas some root crops require none.

That is complete misinformation (aka shit). It is hard to know where to begin a response it is so off base. Since NAFTA was implemented Mexico has been flooded with cheap corn. That's right "cheap" corn. It is so cheap that Mexican farmers that used to make a living growing corn can no longer make enough to survive growing corn. That is largely what is fueling the current wave of immigration from Mexico. There is no organized plot by the US government, but there is no real interest in doing anything to change the situation either. Rural Mexican immigrants are perceived to be harder working and more exploitable than urban immigrants from Mexico. As for the use of corn for alcohol - what makes that economically attractive is that after alcohol is made from corn the corn still has

80% of the food value left. This means that if you grew something else that was used 100% for alcohol production it would have to be 5 times more efficient than corn to be economically viable alternative. Of course corn will never replace petroleum or even come close because once your production of alcohol reaches a level where there is no market for the 80% feed that is left over then the economics start to look pretty bad, but that level of production has not been reached yet. Brazil may be growing sugarcane and turning it into fuel but they are also importing live stock feed from the US. Some of that feed is the by-product of alcohol production in the US.

-jim

Something is happening in Mexico, causing the low income citizens to riot because the cost of tortillas has tripled. They blame the high cost of corn. If you know something different, please share it.

As I said before, I see little economics in corn for alcohol production. Too much waste, too expensive to grow, etc. Alcohol becomes economical as a fuel or as a fuel extender when the price of petroleum increases greatly. It was one of Brasil's only domestic ways of filling the energy void. They are not a petroleum rich country. You can now buy fuel in Brasil almost as cheaply as in the USA, and MUCH cheaper than in most parts of Europe.

We will, I am afraid, see those petroleum prices eventually. There is plenty of foreign oil still, but we have few international friends, those countries have no desire to sell their product cheaply so that we can burn it in our gluttonous fervor.

Eventually, we are coming to a showdown. Maybe not today, but in the foreseeable future.

Well what crops are you growing that makes you such an expert? The people who are growing crops (they're called farmers) do see the economics of growing corn and as a result have invested heavily in that direction. I know you're hurt they didn't ask your opinion but then they consider your opinion is worth less than the stuff on the soles of their boots.

Not really. Petroleum products are one of the farmers biggest costs in producing corn. The real attraction of alcohol production is the stability it brings to the market. If Brazil, China, Mexico, Russia etc stop buying US corn the price tanks and drops to levels it was at 50 years ago. This happens all the time and then eventually with low prices international markets open up again. But farmers are tired of the roller coaster ride and are looking for ways to soak up extra production to keep prices stable. Alcohol is just one of many products that are made from corn.

-jim

Well a quick search with Google came up with 58,500 hits:

There are three....

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's Canadian Off Road Trips Photos: Non members can still view! Jan/06 (More Off Road album links at bottom of the view page)

Well I'm not going to read 58,000 articles. Especially when it is unlikely that any of them are going to say anything about your assertion that the high price of corn on the world market is due to alcohol production in the US. Your point was a non-sequitar a complete misreading of the facts. The price of corn is high because places like China are buying lots of corn. The price will plummet when they stop buying. The reason Mexicans are hit hard is that no one grows corn in Mexico because for the last 15 years cheap corn from the US has put the Mexican corn growers out of business.

-jim

Did you eat a snake for breakfast, Jim?? ;>)

Dont try to impress him with facts, Mike... He's really mad ;>)

>

> >

You simply don't have any facts. Your assertions are completely invalid and you have resorted to name calling because there are no facts to support your position. If anything the American alcohol production has kept the price of corn down. If it weren't for alcohol production the current farm production of corn would be much less than it is now and the current price spike due to international demand would be even higher due to increased shortages. That is the whole point in investing in alcohol. Most alcohol plants are owned by farm cooperatives. That is, they are owned by farmers and for them it represents a hedge against price fluctuations. Besides that, the price of corn is not really that high. Forty years ago corn was 3 dollars a bushel so 5 dollar a bushel corn today is really not all that extravagant.

-jim

The moral to that story is to make sure everything is in good repair before fiddling around with mixtures to correct a problem.

I've gotten good deals on several vehicles (including a Porsche) that previous owners could never tweak to run correctly. They all turned out to be various broken vacuum hoses.