unit91

Take a look at this video.

http://www.historicvehicle.org/Lates...ol-classic-car

69FB

I saw this earlier and it really made me sick to think of what it's doing to both my classic car and truck. There is a website that lists gas stations that do not put ethanol in their gas, my mechanic was telling me. When I get some free time I'll look it up or call him. Sadly I have heard since there is ethanol in the gas it burns faster so you do not get the same mileage as with non-ethanol gases.

rmodel65

http://buyrealgas.com/

since live on the coast a lot of places still sell gas that is ethanol free(not most of the places they sell it are on the coast and its about 20 cent more expensive and they normally only carry 89octane).they normally call it "marine gas" but its just pure gasoline instead of a gas/ethanol blend....the boats are really hit hard by it because they are definitely a seasonal vehicle and the ethanol will corrode everything in them classic cars are hit hard just liek the boats because people store them over the winter etc but also like the video state the different components in the vid arent made for akly in them. when i bought the fuel line stuff for the 65 i bought a stainless line front to rear so it would handle it better. ive thought about putting a blower on it and moving to e85

ozarks06

Here's a thread on the other forum that beat this to death and I think GypsyR's response is on the money.

http://forums.vintage-mustang.com/vi...erience-4.html

By the way, I watched the video and some of the info is just wrong. Ethanol doesn't turn rubber to 'mush'; it dries it out and makes it brittle (stale fuel probably turns it to mush). Ethanol (in high concentrations, like E85) does dry out rubber lines, which is why it still has 15% gas (and it is hard on aluminum, tin, and lead), but any rubber components made since the mid-1980s are ethanol resistant (or should be). If you haven't upgraded your rubber fuel lines or fuel pump in almost 30 years, it's probably about time, since they are probably dried out by now anyway.

cprstreetmachines

Kind of. It's has less BTU's at the same measurement of gas so it requires more fuel to make the same HP.

I haven't really seen anything that corrodes it anymore than normal, even in E85. It's very popular in the high HP world. It can cause lots of clogging but that is because of the residue gas leaves behind. The ethanol cleans it out of the tank, lines, etc and it cause problems up front. On a stored vehicle I could see potential problems though because ethanol is very hygroscopic. The water could cause deterioration or even flaking in some carbs. But IDK that it's really any more of a problem than storing normal gas and trying to keep moisture out of the fuel though.

67 evil eleanor

To me its the break down time with E-10. The older fuels would take much longer (race fuel is 2 years) to break down (E-10 is about 2 months) and become "stale". I'm not too crazy about ethanol in the current fuels so I simply try to avoid buying them. Also, E-10 "boils" at a much lower temperature causing vapor loc's in the older Muscle Car's. I see it at almost every show I attend. In closing, "Stabil" works wonders.

urban_cowboy

I have read a bunch on Ethanol due to having a 28 Bertram on the coast. I am also a drag racer, so I have some exposure to alcohol engines. I had to rip out the fiber glass fuel tanks this winter in my boat because almost every pump in Texas has at least some Ethanol, even on the water.

Ethanol is a type of alcohol. Because of that, it will eat up some materials. Most older fiberglass resin is not ethanol resistant. You put E10 in a fiberglass gas tank, it will melt the tank, start leaking, and ruin your cylinders when the engine tries to burn the dissolved resin. Nasty!

Ethanol absorbs water. I actually have a test kit that measures ethanol content in gasoline and you do it with water, coloring, and a measuring glass. The longer ethanol sits, the more water it will attract from the air. This is obviously a bad thing. Also, if water gets into a storage tank, you will pump it out easier into your vehicle if there is ethanol in the mix because it suspends the water as opposed to gasoline which float on top of the water and will not mix with it.

As mentioned above, Ethanol requires more air to burn correctly. A true alcohol engine, either methanol or ethanol, will require 1.5-3 times more fuel than a gas engine per volume of air/fuel mixture. Gas = 14.7 Methanol = 6.4 Ethanol = 9.8 E=10 drops the gas mixture down a little to near 14:1. If you run 15:1 with E10, you will be lean...my 69 proves that to me every time I get a tank of gas with Ethanol in it. I had to richen up my tune a little to compensate.

Alcohol, Methanol or Ethanol, have less BTU per volume than gasoline. It basically makes less energy when burned per volume.

All of this aside, you may ask why run it at all. Well, you can put more compression in an alcohol motor than pure gasoline. You can also put more fuel in an alcohol motor than a gasoline motor because it requires less air than gas. Even though the alcohol has less energy, by being able to put more fuel in the cylinder, you make more power per firing in each cylinder than gas. Notice I did not say you make more power using E10. You do not, unless your computer and compression are targeted to utilize that 10% of ethanol.

That being said, it is not as economical. Ethanol costs around $3/gallon and Methanol cost $6. A methanol engine can make around 15% more power than gasoline, but the economy is about 22% worse. That math does not lie. It is more expensive to run either Ethanol or Methanol. Actually the most economical fuel right now is Diesel by about 8% over gas.

So why are they putting it in our gasoline when our engines are not designed to run any better to utilize the added power making ability? I don't know! All it is doing right now is giving us less fuel economy and making corn prices for other things like wildlife, food, livestock, etc more expensive. The price of deer corn 10 year ago was less than $2/50lbs. Today is is over $10/50lbs. WOW! Politicians are not scientists or engineers. Totally stupid.

Stevoray81

Considering the high humidity we had all summer in DC, I imagine that I must have some water in my gas tank though I dont know how much. I frequently use fuel system cleaners so that the gunk build up is kept to a minimum - and so huge chunks dont accumulate and eventually break off and clog something.

But I've heard that the only way to get the water out of the tank would be to drain it, or add ethanol since it will mix with water and gas wont.

Is that safe or what is the best way to remove water from the tank? Last winter our temperature even in daytime never got above freezing for 2 months straight so I dont want frozen gas lines either...