Anyone tried running Non-ethanol gas?

[JohnnyO]

https://www.pure-gas.org/

 

[Bgunner]

I've run it many times in my 94 3.0 and noticed a few differences.

1. The tail pipe emissions smell like they used to back when my truck was new. Eww stinky, but triggers memory's.
2. Using 91 octane non-ethanol stopped my motor from pining where I need to use 93 octane ethanol fuel for the same effect. I want to scope my cylinders to see how much buildup there is in there to see if that is the cause.
3. This could be a placebo effect but I did notice it seemed to have a slight bit more power but again this could be in the realm of a placebo effect.
4. It costs more but doesn't give the issues like the Ethanol does in small or carbureted engines. Not a huge issue with the 3.0 Vulcan because it is fuel injected.
5. No more pink spark plugs coming out of machines that use only non-Ethanol fuel. They are brown if running proper or black if not.

I need to jump state lines to get my hands on it so it isn't always the best solution for me but if I could get it readily available close then I wouldn't run anything but Non-Ethanol in my 94. New cars are designed with the mind set to run on Ethanol added fuel but older ones will fight big time with it especially with a carburetor if they are not a daily driver.

 

[19Walt93]

My first experience with ethanol in gas was in the late 70's, they called it gasahol and I had to try it. It ran OK in my carbureted 76 Pinto until winter came. In subzero weather you couldn't start it with dynamite.

 

[Ramcharger90]

Thats why you put some isopropyl alcohol in the tank in the winter. The isopropyl stops the phase seperation of the ethanol/water and gasoline.

I need to see the science on this space man.

 

[Bgunner]

I always understood Isopropyl Alcohol suspends the water in the fuel so that it can be sent to the engine for removal. Also prevents the water from freezing during winter causing a line blockage prevent the engine from running.

I'm not to sure what you are talking about the "Phase Separation" of water and Ethanol though.

 

[Dirtman]

I always understood Isopropyl Alcohol suspends the water in the fuel so that it can be sent to the engine for removal. Also prevents the water from freezing during winter causing a line blockage prevent the engine from running.

I'm not to sure what you are talking about the "Phase Separation" of water and Ethanol though.

Ethanol bonds with water better than gasoline does, if it bonds with enough water the ethanol will seperate completely from the gasoline leaving you with a layer of pure gasoline on top, and a layer ethanol mixed with water on the bottom. This is called phase seperation.

Isopropyl alcohol bonds with water even better than ethanol does, so the isopropyl can grab the water before the ethanol does keeping it from seperating from the gasoline. Its not really needed as an antifreeze anymore since the ethanol can do that. The point now is to keep the gasoline and ethanol mixed together because once phase seperation occurs the whole tank of gas is bad. The upper layer of pure gasoline is no longer the proper octane even if you remove the lower layer of ethanol and water.

I base all of this off reading the back of a box of cheerios.

 

[Broo]

Only place you can buy it here is the airport and the marinas for about 3.75 a gallon.

Lucky you, this is the current price of our 87 E10 here in Qc.

As for the original question, my commuter car which is a small 4 cylinder Toyota sees slightly better mileage without ethanol, but the cost per mile or km favors the E10 since we can only get E0 at 91 octane (14 to 17 cents more per liter) at Shell stations. My 3.0 Ranger doesn't care one bit what fuel is in its tank, mileage is always the same so I feed it 87 E10.

 

[wildbill23c]

I ran 91 non-ethanol in my 5.7 tundra almost exclusively while living in Montana. Never noticed much, if any, difference between it and ethanol blended 91. Always ran premium, never tried it with 87. Like has been previously mentioned, the ethanol may help with removing moisture/water from the fuel system.

The 5.7L V8 is thirsty, doesn't matter what octane and ethanol/non-ethanol you run. I managed to get 22mpg a couple times on long trips, but usually it was about 18-19mpg highway and 12-14mpg city, 10mpg in 4WD in the winter LOL. Back to older stuff now, got tired of the recurring issues with my 08 Tundra and sold it with 104K on it about 3-1/2 years ago, don't miss it at all. Don't have use for a full size truck, my little Ranger does everything I need to do. If I get another truck it'll be a 3/4 ton most likely anyways. Probably a few years out from thinking about that anyhow HAHA!!

I tried regular, premium, non-ethanol, didn't matter it got the same fuel economy. Same goes for my other vehicles. I do go to brand name stations though (Shell, Chevron). My lawn equipment gets non-ethanol and our local Chevron just started selling non-ethanol 87 octane but same price as another station's premium 91 octane non-ethanol so I go get the premium non-ethanol and usually top-off the pickup when I do.

 

[Blmpkn]

Regarding the efficiency of corn gas..

Straight ethanol can only ever be about 70% as efficient as gasoline, so it would give you 30% drop in mpg were you to run it in anything.

Pump gas nowadays regardless of octane rating is mostly e-10 (10% ethanol). With only 10% ethanol you'd only see a 3% decrease in fuel economy. 3% is a pretty negligible figure, even on one of those fancy 100 mpg carbs.

 

[cbxer55]

I keep a five gallon container of E85 in my garage. For my Ranger, I put a half gallon in every tankful. Best injector cleaner there is, especially because there is so much of it compared to the little teeny 15 ounce cans injector cleaner usually comes in. Never had any starting issues. I use it in all my vehicles at about half a gallon per tank on the four wheelers and a quart in my two motorcycles. I use 93 octane in all of them but the Mustang, which for some ungodly reason, gets misfire codes whenever I use it. None of the others though. Weird.

Fortunately, in Oklahoma, almost every station offers you the choice of ethanol 87 or non ethanol 87. All other grades are non ethanol. There is no premium here with ethanol in it.

And a half gallon of E85 in my Ranger is 2.5%.

 

[sgtsandman]

Regarding the efficiency of corn gas..

Straight ethanol can only ever be about 70% as efficient as gasoline, so it would give you 30% drop in mpg were you to run it in anything.

Pump gas nowadays regardless of octane rating is mostly e-10 (10% ethanol). With only 10% ethanol you'd only see a 3% decrease in fuel economy. 3% is a pretty negligible figure, even on one of those fancy 100 mpg carbs.

It's only a sample size of 1 but I've seen about a 1 mpg benefit in the 2019 and I think it was the same with my 1999 Honda CR-V, maybe 2 mpg. I'm not sure that is even 1%. Now the benefits for those with air cooled engines in things like motorcycles, and old vehicles that were never designed to run with ethanol in their fuel system, straight gas is said to be priceless.

 

[GabrielBR]

Here at Brazil we have ethanol mixed at premium and commom gasoline. The premium gas (96 octane) have 25%of ethanol and the commum gas (87 octane) have 27,5% of ethanol.

We have pure ethanol (110 octane) too, from sugar cane, and have large use cause it's cheaper, but it does less mileage (about 30% less), but the price compensate.

The Brazilian ethanol makes thousand times less carbon residue on the pistons head, that u can see even at the oil change (the oil keep clear). But otherwise, it make some residue inside the fuel line and injectors, but if u reagulary put fuel adictive the line and injectors will keep clean.

It's used at performance cars (turbocharged), cause it have propreties that can hold more time before the explosion hapens (pre detonation), so gives more engine power.

At the winter isn't a good choice, the cold start is dificult, the injectors have to put lot of fuel (ethanol) inside the chamber,so it can burn at least a little bit, thats why flex fuel cars have a resevoir with premium gasoline, so it can inject a little of gasoline to help the cold start.

I pretend to use 100% only ethanol on my 4.0 95 ranger, but for this I will need programmable ecu, so it can put more fuel to burn, and do other stufs.

 

[MikeG]

Ethanol has a lower energy content and WILL lower your MPG.... how much, depends on how the engine computer can compensate (despite claims to the contrary by the ethanol supporters). The only way to get anywhere near the full power that pure ethanol would yield, is to run compression ratios of around 12-1 or better. Cam and spark can (potentially) be adjusted on the fly.... compression, not so much.

It does oxygenate the fuel (somewhat) which helps with certain emissions, particularly at higher altitudes.

Ethanol gas is terrible in small engines. I had a very good small engine mechanic tell me to run my lawn mower till the gas tank and carb were totally dry if I could. It does help. At the end of the season, dump all the mower gas into your vehicle and don't try to use it next spring. It WILL absorb enough extra moisture out of the air that nothing will run, at least in the climate I live in (which isn't particularly humid). Every spring I used to have to pull the carb bowl on the mower and dump out what was in it, to get it to run (before I figured all this out). Dump the carb bowl on a concrete driveway or sidewalk and you'll see the water bubble up on top of the gas. For the old mower left at the deer lease, I'd just run it till the tank was dry, and put a plastic bin over the top of the mower with a rock on it to keep the wind from blowing it off. Left it out in the weather like that under a tree and didn't hurt anything a bit, always started and ran on fresh gas (with ethanol or not).

My old Stihl chain saw (says "Made in West Germany" on the bar) ran great for years, till I ran some ethanol gas through it and left it in the tank. Next time I went to use it, the fuel filter had totally dissolved and much of it was in the carb..... @$%@#$%@#$.....

2 cycle / 2 stroke (whatever you want to call them) are VERY sensitive to the octane, and the jets in the carbs are WAY too small to tolerate any water in the fuel. Have resurrected a few old pieces of lawn equipment by getting the (correct!) pre-mix fuel. It DOES make a difference if it is 40-1 or 50-1 ratio, because oil raises the octane. Gotta get the right stuff for whatever the gas cap on it says. Yeah it is expensive to buy it in the cans, but hey it is nice when stuff actually starts and runs......

As noted in the thread, fuel injected vehicles tolerate all this much better. One of my friends borrowed my truck (97 OHV) and put E-85 in it, because he's cheap, and there didn't seem to be any ill effects. I put some better quality gas in the next tank after I found out.

The whole thing is beyond stupid when you look at the costs of making the ethanol out of corn, but doubt we'll get away from it any time soon. Not till we get early primaries / caucuses out of corn producing states. Burning petroleum products to distill ethanol, is just dumb, dumb, dumb...... What people don't realize (unless they brew their own beer) is that the yeast can't get the alcohol content anywhere near where it needs to be, and the distillation process takes HUGE amounts of fuel. Moonshiners could get caught if their distillation fire didn't burn out overnight, and was still producing smoke in the morning.