Ethanol in fuel

There is much discussion about the use of ethanol in fuels and the consequent problems.
I have received mails on the topic from a Ducati webring where owners have experienced significant problems with fibreglass fuel tanks, other fuel system components and instances of unusual engine responses.
The Federation of British Historic Vehicles Club's web site has an extensive report on bio fuels that can be accessed from their home page, www.fbhvc.co.uk where you will find a section on the left of the screen with various tabs. In the right hand column you will see Information and beneath that Bio Fuels.
The UK Department for Transport commissioned the research organisation Qinetiq to prepare a report that drew together information from many sources and it can be accessed by using your browser to search for QinetiQ/10/02471.

Tim Moores

[Alpineandy]

Millers are now producing a fuel additive that reduces some of the ethanol problems (not sure if it covers them all though) - http://www.millersoils.net/1_Millers_frame_CLASSIC.htm

I know there is a lot of controversey about Ethanol addatives, apparently according to one report I have read;

The Ethannol is very ungreen to produce, we get less miles to the gallon, I can't remember all the facts, but i'll try and get a scanned copy of the write up in my fathers classic motor bike circular, it quotes a lot of interesting information.

I do know that I found a small weepage of fuel from the carburettor on my GTA a while back I sorted the leak and thought nothing more of it, apart from....lucky it did not catch fire!!

With the recent carb problems I have had, we rebuilt and adjusted my original carb and when doing the carb swap I was very lucky to find one of the hot water supplies to the carb had what looked like a a 7-8mm split in the end of the hose. Luckly it was a long section of pipe that the rubber hose attached to, otherwise major coolant loss would have resulted.

Under closer inspection the hose was not split but had melted I can only assume it was directly underneath the fuel leak and the fuel had disolved the pipe beware

Si21

I have run 10% ethanol fuel (96) in my Turbo for the 6 years I have owned it with no ill effects so far. I did replace both pumps but only because at 250 000Klms I thought they had done enough service. Have done another 30 000Klms since then. Have tried BP Ultimate 98 with seemingly no advantage over the much cheaper ethanol blend.

I actually think the ethanol may be better for power as the latent heat of evaporation helps out the poor intercooling of the GTA.

Fuel economy doesn't appear to much different, whichever fuel is used, more to do with the type of driving, and driver habits.

There are other issues too....

I have seen carburettors that are totally gunked up internally and have heard of others too and this is an effect of the Ethanol in the fuel. Also for many classic cars that very offten do limited milage, the ethanol absorbs water in the tank, so if the car is laid up people are going to have to think about draining their tanks. My 21 turbo stood for a year had 3 gallons in the tank but would not start until I put another 2 gallons of fresh fuel back into the tank. I realised the fuel had gone off, it was not until recently I linked it to the Ethanol problem. I'll try and get the article off my Dad this weekend it makes for interesting reading, although I admit the affects will be more apparent on older vehicles.

si21

Ethanol is alcohol, a lovely solvent so any gunk would have been caused by it shifting gunk from elsewhere in the system.

Ethanol has a lower heating value, but its "octane" rating is much higher. Tesco 99 ron is achieved through the use of Ethanol.

Yes it absorbs water but you're talking less than 5% of less than 5% of the contents of your tank.(assuming a 5% blend) and it shouldn't separate out.

It can cause problem swith old rubber seals.

All petrol "goes off" over time - I've cleaned out enough DeLorean tanks that've been laid up for decades!

[Alpineandy]

It can cause problem swith old rubber seals.

Which is exactly what the Millers additive says it can stop.

Ethanol is alcohol, a lovely solvent so any gunk would have been caused by it shifting gunk from elsewhere in the system. Brand new carb idel jet blocked by white deposits, Petrol is a very efficient solvent, I just think this particular solvent has more adverse effects on older cars than it's supposed benifits

Ethanol has a lower heating value, but its "octane" rating is much higher. Tesco 99 ron is achieved through the use of Ethanol.

Yes it absorbs water but you're talking less than 5% of less than 5% of the contents of your tank.(assuming a 5% blend) and it shouldn't separate out.

Yes it migh only be 5%but it sinks to the bottom of the tank so when you start up you get 100% water

It can cause problem swith old rubber seals.

Yes it rotts them away

All petrol "goes off" over time - I've cleaned out enough DeLorean tanks that've been laid up for decades!

of coures all petrol goes off but I am sorry the quality of fuel is not what it used to be in this regard

I use other additives to ensure my petrol is of reasonable quality. There are a lot more bad points than good as far as I can see.

Fact - Its causing problems and the more percentage they add the more problems are going to result

As if I dont have enough problems with the car as it is

si21

Since the forum decided to plaster the quote over half my answer


Yes it might only be 5%but it sinks to the bottom of the tank so when you start up you get 100% water

It can cause problem swith old rubber seals.

Yes it rotts them away

All petrol "goes off" over time - I've cleaned out enough DeLorean tanks that've been laid up for decades![/quote] of coures all petrol goes off but I am sorry the quality of fuel is not what it used to be in this regard

I use other additives to ensure my petrol is of reasonable quality. There are a lot more bad points than good as far as I can see.

Fact - Its causing problems and the more percentage they add the more problems are going to result

As if I dont have enough problems with the car as it is

si21

Water does not separate out of ethanol in fuel any more than water falls to the bottom of a bottle of vodka.

Ethanol causes older style rubber seals to expand and soften. it does not rot them away to nothing. Those that do no mechanical work (eg injector seals) versus those that do (pressure regulator) should last a very long time.

I would be very careful to check the credentials of any fuel additives. The manufacturer claims are often over-hyped and any truly advantageous ingredient would surely be employed by the oil companies and marketed as being "better"?

[Alpineandy]

any truly advantageous ingredient would surely be employed by the oil companies and marketed as being "better"?

Unfortunately big business doesn't really work that way.
If it was free then maybe they'd add it and charge an extra few pence per litre, but if it costs then they prefer not to do it. The real example of this was when they moved to lead-free. The FBHVC did quite extensive tests to ascertain which additives actually worked as effective replacements for the loss of lead. They finally accepted 4 or 5 of them as fit for the purpose (IIRC millers and castrol were 2 of them). The additional cost for fuel companies to have added one of these to their own ful as a 'lead replacement fuel' would have been minor but they weren't interested. They used theirown stuff that was cheaper and proven as comparitively ineffective.

I think the fuel companies would also worry that by using this stuff and stating it, then they could be viewed as saying 'without this the fuel is cr4p'.

Lifted the following statements from
http://forum.onlineconversion.com/archi ... t-233.html

Gasoline has a BTU rating of 18,676 BTUs/lb, whereas ethanol is 38% less @ 11,585 BTUs/lb and per gallon ethanol is 34% less

Extract from http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/pdfs/fueltable.pdf

Quoting from it.typical lower heating values (LHV) are given for several
fuels:

Fuel, BTU/lb, BTU/gallon
Gasoline, 18676, 116090
#2 diesel, 18394, 129050
Ethanol, 11585, 76330
Propane, 19900, 84500
Methane, 20263, 19800
Hydrogen, 52217, N/A

if I produce ethanol or I get money from selling fuel (producers,
retailers or Governments that make tax revenue per gallon) or I'm an
organisations that sell items needed to "fix" vehicle fuel systems, modify
storage systems to cope with ethanol or a company whose business it is to re-tune vehicles to cope with ethanol etc., etc., I would promote that
ethanol in petroleum is a really great idea and I would be prepared to spend quite a lot of money to promote its use.

Tim Moores

Water does not separate out of ethanol in fuel any more than water falls to the bottom of a bottle of vodka.

Ethanol causes older style rubber seals to expand and soften. it does not rot them away to nothing. Those that do no mechanical work (eg injector seals) versus those that do (pressure regulator) should last a very long time.

I would be very careful to check the credentials of any fuel additives. The manufacturer claims are often over-hyped and any truly advantageous ingredient would surely be employed by the oil companies and marketed as being "better"?

Well it appears that loads of classic car and motorcycle owners have experienced differently and are having nightmares with the stuff.

I am sure oil in general floats on top of water Either way water absorbed into the fuel is not going to be good in any instance whether it floats on top or not.

Iam sure Ethanol in modern cars is great as they have been designed to maximise efficency upon the fuel that is available in the current market place. Where as our cars in the eyes of the oil companies ...shouldn't be on the road after the car is ten years old anyway.

si21.......do they really give a dam ....It's all about maximum profit

Well it appears that loads of classic car and motorcycle owners have experienced differently and are having nightmares with the stuff.

I
si21.......do they really give a dam ....It's all about maximum profit [/quote]

I am only one owner, but I have had no problems with the ethanol 10% blends that I use in most of my machines. I have done 55 000Klm in the past six years on a 1968 BMW R60/2 using mostly ethanol and some 91 unleaded with no detriment.

I do use the Flashlube product with it to supposedly stop valve seat recession. I don't have any recession, but may not have done if I didn't use it. Compression is low at 7.5 to 1 but performance is fine and it often goes 6 weeks between fills as it has a 27L tank. Starts first kick with just an old magneto ignition not dependant on the age of the fuel.

Lifted the following statements from
http://forum.onlineconversion.com/archi ... t-233.html

Gasoline has a BTU rating of 18,676 BTUs/lb, whereas ethanol is 38% less @ 11,585 BTUs/lb and per gallon ethanol is 34% less

indeed, the heating value of ethanol is lower than pure petrol. But what we're dealing with here is a blend of the two with only 5% ethanol. So we have a net reduction in heating value of 33% of 5%, roughly 1.6%. But that isn't the end of the story, with ethanol's raising of the RON value allows for a more stable burn and more efficient "use" of the available energy (if the engine is tuned to use it). And of course it is supposedly carbon neutral etc etc.