Premium Fuel Question

[wildbill23c]

Ok, I started using premium fuel in my lawn/garden equipment and my full size pickup a while back as I can get it without ethanol. My question is though, for some reason it has a completely different odor to it than regular unleaded, but the odor seems to remind me of diesel fuel. Anyone else notice this or have any knowledge of what it is?

 

[wr250rdr]

In my expierence, using 87octane in my ranger, diesel in my 350, 100 octane in my off road bike and 105 octane in my race bike.

the smells and colors of each gas change, diesel has a more oil smell to to and as it goes up in octane it gets more pungant and kinda stings.

what color is your gas? sounds like a stupid question but where i am in CA diesel is green 87-91 oct is clear with a little yellow tint the 100oct is red and the 105 is purple because its av-gas.

 

[RonD]

Octane levels make gas smell different, along with any additives.
The higher the octane the more aromatic hydrocarbons there are, the things you smell.

Lower octane gas has more broken carbon chains so will ignite easier, which is why it can cause pinging on higher compression engines, it can pre-ignite when compressed enough.
On lower compression engines this is not a problem, or shouldn't be.

Octane level is not a "power" level, it is a compression level measurement.

A gallon of gasoline provides the same power regardless of octane rating, higher octane and better MPG or power is a myth.
Premium gas can burn "cleaner" but that is because of the additives not the octane.

Diesel fuel has more power per gallon, which is why diesels will get better mpg
Diesel has 147,000 BTUs per gallon, gasoline has 125,000 BTUs per gallon(regardless of octane level)

 

[wildbill23c]

Thanks guys, the last fuel I got was as close as I could tell almost clear, a bit of color but not enough to really say its a certain color.

I run the high octane in my truck because if I don't it is really sluggish, but in my Bronco 2 I just run regular. I've found that the ethanol fuel where I live is kind of a yellowish-green color, and the non-ethanol fuel I get is usually almost clear.

 

[RustedRanger]

RonD...thanks for a good explanation of what octane is...it's surprising how many people think higher octane burns hotter. Since it's just resistance to detonation,water would be the highest octane you could get lol

 

[RonD]

Thanks guys, the last fuel I got was as close as I could tell almost clear, a bit of color but not enough to really say its a certain color.

I run the high octane in my truck because if I don't it is really sluggish, but in my Bronco 2 I just run regular. I've found that the ethanol fuel where I live is kind of a yellowish-green color, and the non-ethanol fuel I get is usually almost clear.

In your case/area if all regular gas has ethanol then premium with no ethanol would make a difference.
Ethanol has 80,000 BTUs per gallon so about 20% less "power" than gasoline at 125,000 BTUs.
If its a 10% ethanol mix it wouldn't be much of a difference but it wouldn't be 0 either, lol.

 

[JackDW]

RonD, I hope you don't mind me adding my 2cents here.
"A gallon of gasoline provides the same power regardless of octane rating, higher octane and better MPG or power is a myth."

What RonD stated is correct but if we can take this a step further. Since the higher octane is more resistance to pinging (pre-ignition) you can take advantage of that in your tuning. You can run a little more timing and/or more compression. That is where you can get a benefit from the higher octane. One of my vehicles is a 08 Bullitt Mustang. One of the unique features of that car is it has octane sensors and adjusts the factory tune based upon what fuel you are using. According to Ford, you can get up to 10 additional HP by running higher Octane. As far a I know, this is the only vehicle Ford makes with this feature. For anything else (including Rangers), you have to manually change the tune (or manually adjust your ignition timing) if you wish to take advantage of premium fuel. You can gain benefits from a higher octane but it is not automatic and if you go back to a lower octane, you will have to manually put the changes back or risk damage to your engine.

 

[wildbill23c]

In your case/area if all regular gas has ethanol then premium with no ethanol would make a difference.
Ethanol has 80,000 BTUs per gallon so about 20% less "power" than gasoline at 125,000 BTUs.
If its a 10% ethanol mix it wouldn't be much of a difference but it wouldn't be 0 either, lol.

One station about a mile from my house just has premium non-ethanol fuel, but in town there's a station that has all grades of fuel without ethanol. I ran a couple of premium tanks of fuel then just went to regular 87 non-ethanol fuel and my Toyota Tundra doesn't have the hesitation anymore and my fuel economy is back in the low to mid 20's for highway economy, where on ethanol fuel I was lucky to get 20mpg on the highway.

My 84 Bronco 2 I run regular non-ethanol fuel in it all the time, and it does just fine, I put in the ethanol fuel and you can tell a power loss.

As far as higher octane I don't think it makes a difference, even in my Tundra, I just ran premium because for a while that's all I could get without ethanol, and after working on many small engines that had ethanol ran through them, I wanted to run non-ethanol fuel regardless of octane in my equipment and vehicles. At least now at this other gas station I can get 87, 89, or 91 octane without ethanol, but 87 works just fine as I don't have any high performance vehicles, I do still run 91 octane in my small engine equipment occasionally, especially when I grab the wrong nozzle LOL.

 

[MastuhWaffles]

I wish they would stop putting ethanol in gas in general.

 

[RonD]

I wish they would stop putting ethanol in gas in general.

What!!!???

Don't you think your truck deserves a "beer" now and then

 

[wildbill23c]

I wish they would stop putting ethanol in gas in general.

I agree, it sure hasn't provided any sort of fuel economy gains, even the engines that are supposedly made for it don't run that well on it either, that should tell them something. Stop trying to put corn and wheat in our fuel.

At least if they are going to do the whole ethanol crap, at least get some moonshiners to make it pure instead of the junk they are trying to add to the fuel. Give the moonshiners a great job because the fuel companies are doing a terrible job at trying to get 100 proof alcohol out of corn and wheat.

 

[JackDW]

Congress is fighting the ethanol requirements and a bill has been introduced to end the ethanol mandates. Both parties have siged up to support the bill.

Unfortunally, even if the bill passes it will most likey be vetoed since someone is in the pockets of certain "Green" groups.

It you truly want to get rid of ethanol, contact your congressperson to support the elimination of the ethanol mandates. Only if there is a veto proof majority can we get of corn in our fuel and put it back on the table.

 

[cammeddrz]

i used to work for westech fuel, who was this state's local authority/service provider on testing, maintaining, and purifying gasoline, and diesel. I know gasoline, i also have spent my life at the racetrack giving me a real-life knowledge of the tendancies of gasoline

Octane level is not a "power" level, it is a compression level measurement.

close, it is a measurement of heat needed to ignite/speed it burns
which can be directly tied to compression, but not expressly

on a combustion chamber where less ambient heat (usually from heat via compression) is available to aide in ignition, a lower octane fuel is needed which burns faster, and at a lower heat.

on a combustion chamber with more ambient heat (heat from higher compression for example) a higher octane rating is needed to slow the burn down/control it from igniting from combustion chamber instead of a spark plug, i.e. pre-ignition/detonation/"pinging"

which is a result of the combustion pushing harder against the face if the piston faster(harder) than the piston can be pushed downward, or even in cases of severe pre-ignition when the piston is still coming up.

its all about the speed it burns

this is also why timing on lower compression engines needs to fire so far before TDC, so that the slower burning fuel can get ignited, and started uniformly combusting by the time the piston reaches TDC. And why timimg on higher compression engines doesn't need to be so far advanced, and will even pre-ignite if set at timing suited for lower compression.

also to support this if you talk to racers who know,(or even com-cams tech-line) they run more advance timing with shorter rear end gears, and less advance with taller rear end gears because a shorter rear end gear allows the piston to be pushed out of the way by the combustion easier, thus counter-acting the pre-ignition that would be present at that same level of timing, and taller rear end gears.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_rating

Octane ratings are not indicators of the energy content of fuels. (See section 4 of this page and heating value). It is only a measure of the fuel's tendency to burn in a controlled manner, rather than exploding in an uncontrolled manner.

 

[JackDW]

As you can tell by my earlier post, I am totally against Alcohol in out fuel.

Now the other side of the story. While alcohol is bad for a daily driver, you can make massive amount of power with alcohol. By nature alcohol is a very high octane fuel. You can run large amounts of compression and timing using alcohol. Look at those alcohol buring drag cars. Anyone who claims that alcohol cannot produce HP is wrong. But, you have to have a engine designed to take advantage of it and you will have to burn a lot of it. Once it is setup to be effecient on alcohol, it will not work very well with gasoline because gasoline has much lower octane and it engine would self-destruct. There are also some big problems with alcohol. It absorbs moisture from the air and causes corrosions issues. It's shelf life is very short. It requires special gaskets and fuel lines. Not good for a DD but great for a drag car.

 

[cammeddrz]

As you can tell by my earlier post, I am totally against Alcohol in out fuel.

Now the other side of the story. While alcohol is bad for a daily driver, you can make massive amount of power with alcohol. By nature alcohol is a very high octane fuel. You can run large amounts of compression and timing using alcohol. Look at those alcohol buring drag cars. Anyone who claims that alcohol cannot produce HP is wrong. But, you have to have a engine designed to take advantage of it and you will have to burn a lot of it. Once it is setup to be effecient on alcohol, it will not work very well with gasoline because gasoline has much lower octane and it engine would self-destruct. There are also some big problems with alcohol. It absorbs moisture from the air and causes corrosions issues. It's shelf life is very short. It requires special gaskets and fuel lines. Not good for a DD but great for a drag car.

^^ agreed 100%

alcohol does have an equivalent octane much higher than most gasolines. but due to this, it burns so much slower than a low compression (either organic compression, or compression from boost) engine can use. it actually makes less power than gas will

this is why the gasoline components that are added to the alcohol need to be of such a low octane rating, that when "Phase Seperation" occurs you are left with a super high octane water based alcohol mix at the bottom, and a super low-octane (like 30 octane) gasoline mix on the top of the tank. phase seperation happens the second any moisture at all is introduced and starts binding with the water based alcohol in the fuel

here is a little writeup on phase seperation
http://www.enertechlabs.com/fuel_phase_separation_in_ethanol.php

which says that 10% ethanol blends only need .07oz of moisture per gallon to gurantee phase separation. with condensation in your fuel tank its pretty easy to get 7-hundredths of an ounce of water in your tank