A good way to find ethanol free fuel.

I notice better gas mileage with it. The older the car, the larger the increase in MPG. The 2004 Acura doesn't really care that much. The 91 BMW, it is rather significant (I think about 10-15%, but it has been about 10 years since I did the analysis).

I've had 2 engines in my life that really didn't like ethanol in the fuel - and it should be noted that around here, it is E15. One is/was Grandpa's old snowblower. Not that old. I fight with it every year. But that could just be because it is a POS, and the fuel may have nothing to do with it. The other was an old weed eater. It got thrown in the trash where it belonged. Smelly, hateful thing that it was. 

If you have a local boating forum, ask there. They will know. Boats and ethanol don't mix due to the way the fuel tank is vented. 

The local small engine guy may know where to find it as well. 

I have 2 two-stroke engines left. One in a demo saw, the other in a small generator. I run engineered fuels in both of those exclusively since they don't burn enough to worry about the expense. Everything else gets whatever the pump puts out. SanFord doesn't seem to care and neither do my boats. 

californiamilleghia said:

My friend takes care of a collection of 25  1950s-60s cars , a few get pulled out for a car show , but it can be a year or two before all of them will get used.

What would you do ?

run the fuel out of the carbs ?

empty the gas tank ?  

add something to the fuel ?

E-free fuel ?

Thanks for your advise

On stuff that's sets all the time that's carbed I drain the float bowl(s), and ethanol free fuel and that treats me well. Small stuff like weed eaters and chain saws and leaf blowers I drain the fuel and run what's left in carb out. 

Toyman! said:

If you have a local boating forum, ask there. They will know. Boats and ethanol don't mix due to the way the fuel tank is vented.

Funny you mention that.  I've got no qualms about running E10 in the boat, as I know all of the fuel system parts in it are compatible.  And any fuel going in there gets stabilized right away anyway, regardless of E0 or E10.  The thing lived 15 years in an area where E0 was non-existent anyway. 

I do buy E0 for the lawnmower and snowblower.  The snowblower doesn't seem to care, but the lawnmower is jetted so lean that it runs better on E0 than E10.  The dinghy outboard for the boat gets E0 when possible as well due to the aforementioned issues many small carbs have with E10.  None of this stuff goes through very much gas (not even 20 gallons / year total), so I don't mind paying extra for E0 for it. 

The cars all get E10 normally.  The Jeep has no choice, as it needs a bare minimum of 91 octane and the E0 around here is all 90. 

Toyman! said:

If you have a local boating forum, ask there. They will know. Boats and ethanol don't mix due to the way the fuel tank is vented. 

When I worked at MerCruiser, we had to go back and put warnings in every single manual about using fuel with Ethanol and it wasn't because of how the fuel tank was vented. 

It was that many older boats had fiberglass tanks and the ethanol would dissolve the resin and end up inside the engine screwing it up. 

TJL (Forum Supporter) said:

Thst pure gas website is great. 

im still wondering why ethanol is called "gas" and  real pure gasoline is called "non-ethanol". 

 

In florida at least, Wawa has made non-ethanol available and much cheaper. Previously i had 1 independent old cracky corner store that sold it at about twice the cost of ethanol.  Now that a few wawa's are around, REAL gasoline has gotten cheaper all around. 
 

 

I noticed in south Florida at least that there was an abundance of pure gasoline.  I even filled my rented van with it at one point since it was the only pump without a line of cars at Walmart on Friday afternoon and the price differential wasn't THAT  BAD.  I guess it only makes sense in an area with so many boats.

alfadriver said:

In reply to Professor_Brap (Forum Supporter) :

Post the pics.  Ethanol is a solvent to both water and fuel, and it's an incredibly small HC- so it doesn't leave deposits anywhere near like the longer chain HC's in fuel do.  

And deposits are not what is happening in small engines- those are chemical reactions that leave precipitates, clogging the passages.

When I worked at Chevron in the summer of '89, I was involved with deposit research- and the nominal fuel we were using was E0, since that's what was used then.  E0 deposits quite a bit- but it's very dependent on the engine.

 

I'm gonna be honest.  I'm tired of the "ethanol is evil" stuff.  It was Nicolaus Otto's choice in 1876 and has been regulated in vehicle fuels and as far back as 1970.

We buy ethanol-free gasoline for our lawnmowers, and then put stabilizer in it... some of which includes ethanol.  We put ethanol-free fuel in our tanks and the cold weather causes condensation.... so we put alcohol in our tanks to solve the problem.

Of course, alcohols can play funny with some rubber compounds, but it's not evil.  It seems we have one faction talking about where we can buy non-ethanol fuel, and the other faction asking where they can score E85.

I have a chemistry background, and I'd like to see a real tech thread on ethanol.

californiamilleghia said:

My friend takes care of a collection of 25  1950s-60s cars , a few get pulled out for a car show , but it can be a year or two before all of them will get used.

What would you do ?

run the fuel out of the carbs ?

empty the gas tank ?  

add something to the fuel ?

E-free fuel ?

Thanks for your advise

Some reading over at Classic Motorsports might help:

Fuels for storage: Good, better, best

Ideal fuels for wintertime storage

Should you fill up your classic before parking for the winter?

Are high-octane fuels more stable?

Cars that sit need clean fuel, too

The right fuel in the Fall might help your engine start in the Spring

What's in aftermarket additives anyway?

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

I mean literally shared what we had to do as a part of multi-million dollar company because of ethanol dissolving phthalates from fiberglass resin.

https://www.boatus.com/expert-advice/expert-advice-archive/2020/january/results-of-fuel-and-fiberglass-gas-tank-tests

But that also doesn't mean it's terrible for everything else.

In reply to z31maniac :

The fiberglass tank issues fit right in with my usual attitude about ethanol: You need to know your fuel system is compatible (and clean), but as long as it is and you keep the fuel dry, the stuff works fine. 

A Cajun from South Louisiana who runs small boats said that a lot of people "made" ethanol free gasoline by putting the E10 into a container with water. 

The water absorbs the ethanol and it all sinks to the bottom.  Then  they decant the pure gasoline floating on top.   They did this because of all the problems mentioned above.

   * I never tried this but its an experiment that could be done in a 1 gallon glass pitcher and then put the decanted gasoline into a lawnmower to make sure you are happed with the outcome.  You do need to keep the suction end of the decanting hose away from the boundary layer between the gasoline and the H2O/Et-OH mixture.

z31maniac said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

I mean literally shared what we had to do as a part of multi-million dollar company because of ethanol dissolving phthalates from fiberglass resin.

https://www.boatus.com/expert-advice/expert-advice-archive/2020/january/results-of-fuel-and-fiberglass-gas-tank-tests

But that also doesn't mean it's terrible for everything else.

Agreed.  I'm reading up on that thread right now.

I recall the major warnings this year when they upped the cheap stuff to up-to-15% and the marine world went bonkers.  I ran E15 all summer in three boats; an I/O, an outboard 2-stroke, and an outboard 4-stroke.  All of them have ethanol-compatible rubber (except the I/O) and they all have poly tanks, so I wasn't worried a bit.

rslifkin said:

In reply to z31maniac :

The fiberglass tank issues fit right in with my usual attitude about ethanol: You need to know your fuel system is compatible (and clean), but as long as it is and you keep the fuel dry, the stuff works fine. 

Indeed.  It just seems like so many people blame their failed wheel bearings or their radio not working on ethanol in the gasoline.

jharry3 said:

A Cajun from South Louisiana who runs small boats said that a lot of people "made" ethanol free gasoline by putting the E10 into a container with water. 

The water absorbs the ethanol and it all sinks to the bottom.  Then  they decant the pure gasoline floating on top.   They did this because of all the problems mentioned above.

   * I never tried this but its an experiment that could be done in a 1 gallon glass pitcher and then put the decanted gasoline into a lawnmower to make sure you are happed with the outcome.  You do need to keep the suction end of the decanting hose away from the boundary layer between the gasoline and the H2O/Et-OH mixture.

We talked to an actual fuel engineer about making home-brewed, non-ethanol gas here:

Homebrewed, non-ethanol fuel: A potentially deadly DIY | Fuel Facts

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Agreed.  I'm reading up on that thread right now.

I recall the major warnings this year when they upped the cheap stuff to up-to-15% and the marine world went bonkers.  I ran E15 all summer in three boats; an I/O, an outboard 2-stroke, and an outboard 4-stroke.  All of them have ethanol-compatible rubber (except the I/O) and they all have poly tanks, so I wasn't worried a bit.

I think I've only seen 1 station even offer E15 around here.  Fuel tanks in my boat are aluminum, so as long as the fuel is dry, ethanol shouldn't bother them (or the fuel lines, quadrajets, 454s, or the generator). 

rslifkin said:

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Agreed.  I'm reading up on that thread right now.

I recall the major warnings this year when they upped the cheap stuff to up-to-15% and the marine world went bonkers.  I ran E15 all summer in three boats; an I/O, an outboard 2-stroke, and an outboard 4-stroke.  All of them have ethanol-compatible rubber (except the I/O) and they all have poly tanks, so I wasn't worried a bit.

I think I've only seen 1 station even offer E15 around here.  Fuel tanks in my boat are aluminum, so as long as the fuel is dry, ethanol shouldn't bother them (or the fuel lines, quadrajets, 454s, or the generator). 

I would rather have "wet" E15 than wet E-zero.  That's one of the best parts about ethanol for marine applications.  Quick math... if you have a 40 gallon fuel tank full of E15, it can suspend about a half cup of water.  Straight gas holds next to zero.

TJL (Forum Supporter) said:

Thst pure gas website is great. 

im still wondering why ethanol is called "gas" and  real pure gasoline is called "non-ethanol". 

 

In florida at least, Wawa has made non-ethanol available and much cheaper. Previously i had 1 independent old cracky corner store that sold it at about twice the cost of ethanol.  Now that a few wawa's are around, REAL gasoline has gotten cheaper all around. 
 

 

Ethanol is called E85 

"Gasoline" is such a variable and eclectic mix of chemicals that it seems a little silly to worry about ethanol.  I'm not worried about the benzene content of the fuel, right?

(Benzene is limited to about 5% or less by regulation, which is amusing because the word for gasoline in many languages IS benzene)

Professor_Brap (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to alfadriver :

Cars that set all winter or arnt driven often definitely have this issue. I will clean 20 sets or more of injectors every spring for people from the goop that ethanol produces. That's just in cars/trucks. 

NE Ohio has been exclusively E10 for at least 35 years and this never happens.  I have serviced a lot of vehicles that sit all winter with no problems, because nobody allows their toys out between about October and May.  I bought an FC RX-7 that sat for seven years and it fired right up on the old fuel in it.

I have two cars that sit all winter, and my spring procedure is "make sure battery is charged, drive away"

I buy gas in my '62 F-100 about once a year.  It gets driven every 3 months or so.  0 problems with E10 and the carb.  I did rebuild the carb about 8 years ago because it was sputtering at high speed, but there was no sign of crud in the float bowl, and it's been fine since.  Unlike the snow blower I inherited because it "didn't run", which had a disgustingly caked carb, despite having run within the previous year. So I use E0 in that after cleaning the carb, even though I run the float bowl dry every time I shut it down.  Haven't had a problem in the 6 years since, but I may be being overly cautious with it.

I think that there's probably more to it than how long you let E10 sit?  Some carbs handle it just fine, others not so much?  Maybe related to how quickly the fuel evaporates?

How about we add a few more variables to the conversation: seasonal and regional blends.

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Driving from Ohio to Oklahoma, noted that after refueling in Illinois, the car stumbled and ran horribly at light throttle, which cleared up after refueling in Missouri.  Car was tuned on 87 octane E10.

The interesting thing is a friend coming from Indiana noted the same thing: stumbling, missing, lots of knock being reported, etc.  His car ran on E85, so it wasn't purely a gasoline issue.

I figured it was just a bad station.  It happened again the next year.  The year after that, I refilled at the edge of Ohio and hopscotched over Indiana and Illinois before having to refuel 

Most of the corrosion I have seem in regards to ethanol fuels is due to the water content.

Professor_Brap (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to alfadriver :

Cars that set all winter or arnt driven often definitely have this issue. I will clean 20 sets or more of injectors every spring for people from the goop that ethanol produces. That's just in cars/trucks. 

Last week I charged my wife's E30 battery up and turned the key.  It had sat for more than a year.  The gas in it must be two years old or more.  A couple extra cranks and it started up into a perfectly stable idle.  My FFR Cobra also often sits for many months and sees barely 100 miles/year.

Maybe I have good luck because they're garaged and don't see wild temp swings?  For the last couple years, I've been making a point to not let the temp go below 40 in my attached garage.

From what I have learned from Sunoco, garaging a car can help keep the fuel fresher. 

I'm with Curtis on this one; ethanol has been proven time and time again to not be the cause behind rusting or damage outside of old rubbers and seals. 

californiamilleghia said:

My friend takes care of a collection of 25  1950s-60s cars , a few get pulled out for a car show , but it can be a year or two before all of them will get used.

What would you do ?

I would run them once a week, minimum 15 minutes, and at least up to highway speeds. Old engines have no PCV systems so to get water vapor to boil off in the crankcase, you gotta get that oil up to temp- if you don't it'll just condense back into the oil and you'll eventually get a slurry. Plus if they have old cork gaskets those require periodic lubrication anyway or they dry out.