Ethanol

[fogdot]

Has anyone had any bad reactions from ethanol?
We haven't had it here in Florida until recently. When I put about a half tank of it in my TR3, I started getting a lousy warm up and idle.

 

[Don Elliott]

I used in New York state an Penn. on the way to VTR near Philadelphia. When I was slow in traffic where they were doing work on the freeways and two lanes of traffic about 5 miles long had to merge into one lane, the ethanol caused me all sorts of fuel starvation problems during these bottlenecks. About 5 times in 1700 miles, it happened to me. Once I even dismantled my fuel pump and found nothing wrong, but the flloat bowls were empty and the car wouldn't run. I put it back together again and it ran fine. About two weeks later, it happened again when I filled up woth gas that I later found out had ethanol. It sounds like I was getting "vapor lock".

Here in Canada, some gas stations (brands) have it and others don't have it. Since then I buy my gas where I know there is no added ethanol.

 

[roofman]

I think the general consensus was to avoid it as these old cars seals and rubber parts may have adverse effects from the ethanol. I burn mid grade w/o ethanol. I wonder if all grades will one day have it?

 

[TR3driver]

I wonder if all grades will one day have it?

I believe they already do contain 10% ethanol in the US, unless maybe the legislation passed last month repealed the earlier rules. The new law calls for even more.

Basically any 'rubber' fuel component made in the last 10 years or so should tolerate E10 (since many states have been using ethanol or MTBE for longer than that). And if you have components older than that, perhaps it's time to change them anyway. Certainly seems like good practice to me (but then I had to change everything for CA's MTBE anyway).

 

[TR3driver]

FWIW, Joe Alexander is offering carburetor heat shields to help solve some of the problems with ethanol & heat on TRs.
https://www.the-vintage-racer.com/

Haven't had a chance to try mine yet, but it looks very well made and the concept is sound. Might even find another bhp or two in hot weather.

Of course it doesn't look even faintly original, but maybe TRA/VTR will allow it under the category of 'safety related' ?? Certainly having boiling fuel under the hood/bonnet can't be a good thing.

 

[Banjo]

Seems like it'd be allowed if it came down to having to install one to be able to drive the car.
Ethanol is not nice stuff. It's having adverse effects on new cars as well. Computers getting poor readings from O2 sensors and A/F sensors and sending fuel trims outta whack, Catalyst below efficency threshold codes... all kinds of nastiness.
Personally I don't like the stuff. I don't see it as any kind of solution either.

 

[Guest]

Personally I don't like the stuff. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thirsty.gif

I used to like it....alot!

 

[Don Elliott]

Is that because you drink it ? ? ? ? ?

 

[Brosky]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:]I used to like it....alot! [/QUOTE]

Being a southern boy, would you be referring to the other type of "corn squeezins"?

 

[Guest]

Has anyone had any bad reactions from ethanol?

Loads of them. I think the correct name is "hangover".

Sorry, but with a feed line like that what do you expect...

 

[Guest]

Used to drink it.

An interesting comment from some news source compared the cost of producing ethanol from corn to the cost of using gasoline. Ethanol costs a lot more to produce than gas. Somehow, I think we are all getting ripped here.

What are the Brazilians doing? Sugar cane?

 

[Harry_Ward]

Biggest problem I've seen from the ethanol additive is when our equipment sits unused over the winter. It turns all the rubber carb components to mush not Mash Bill /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/jester.gif.

Ethanol also leaves some kind of white crystalline looking deposits about the size of very fine sand in the carb float bowl chambers. Does an excellent job of plugging up the low speed idle jets as well. Manufacturer recommended we start everything up at least twice per month and let it run for a about ten minutes. Anything sits longer than the two months we now drain and fog with Deep Creep. We never had a problem before ethanol.

 

[swift6]

I sure hope your referring to the 10% ethanol mix and not E85.

Some states (Colorado is one) mixes all of their gasoline with 10% ethanol. We were on the MTBE diet for years as well before they determined that it had a bad effect on surface water sources. Other states offer only one or two grades with a 10% ethanol mix, often at a higher price. At least I noticed that last part when I visited relatives in Nebraska over Thanksgiving.

Not only does the rubber in the lines get affected if its the older stuff, but the ethanol mix also lowers the threshold for the fuel to vaporize. Hence the vapor lock issues that only appear when using the ethanol mix.

In the summer months, we get hit with the tri-fecta of issues. Ethanol mixed fuel, high altitudes and extreme heat. Nothing like thinned out gasoline and 100 degrees at 7,500 feet on a nice summer day. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/frown.gif Electric fuel pumps, heat shields and auxiliary fans are quite common on most LBC's here and go quite far at curing most of the associated ailments.

 

[DrEntropy]

I pumped half a tank into the Alfa inadvertently last month. Noticed the "new" 10% ETHANOL sticker onna pump after the fact. Wasn't there the week before! HORRIBLE running at idle, lumpy off the line. Some people are absolute idiots. The stuff is JUNK. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/mad.gif

An interesting comment from some news source compared the cost of producing ethanol from corn to the cost of using gasoline. Ethanol costs a lot more to produce than gas. Somehow, I think we are all getting ripped here.

I can't see just WHY we're even being subjected to it. The cost/benefit ratio is FAR too skew'd to have it make any sense (if ya take the left-handed farm subsidy outta the equation) at all. Total nonsense. Price of ALL cattle and poultry foodstuffs is gonna go thru the roof from increased feed costs as well. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wall.gif

 

[Guest]

Price of ALL cattle and poultry foodstuffs is gonna go thru the roof from increased feed costs as well. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wall.gif

Bought any fried chicken lately? It's already going through the roof......



<span style='font-size: 8pt'>Oh wait, this is the Triumph forum.</span>

 

[TR6oldtimer]

Here in Santa Cruz, our progressive city council has added to the ethanol subsidy by renting a city owned corner lot for a dollar a year to an environmental group who will put in an E95 ethanol station. Yep, E95, even though there are few if any cars in the county that can burn it. The group pushing this alternative fuel here, states it will give instructions to buyers to only put it into a tank that is at least 1/4 filled with gasoline. Go figure how this is going to help. Yep when your tank is near empty, first go to a regular gas station and get a quarter tank, then to make you feel like you're helping the environment, drive over to the ethanol station and tank up.

Oh, and have you read about the E95 alternative to diesel? Well they do have one and it will run in unmodified diesel engines, but look at these stats and figure if it makes sense.

One gallon of #2 diesel contains about 130,000 Btu of heat energy, while E95 fuel contains about 78,000 Btu per gallon.
And,
Gasoline has 125000 BTUs per gallon versus 75000 BTUs per gallon for ethanol.

MPG on ethanol is 7-25% less then gasoline.

When the time comes where only E85 is available, you will minimally need to adjust the carbs richer, change all rubber components, and install a higher pressure fuel pump. Maybe it is time for our favorite carburetor re-builders to set some up for ethanol.

 

[TR3driver]

FWIW, I once tried running my TR3A on pure ethanol (no gasoline at all). Only took a brief drive (since I'd only bought a gallon of the stuff), but it seemed to run fine. Disconnected the choke linkage and pulled the jets down by hand to set the mixture. And no ill effects from the (admittedly very brief) exposure to ethanol.

Haven't tried it, but I'm doubtful that the mixture adjustment on the emissions ZS carbs has enough range for E85. My guess is that someone is going to have to design a different, thinner needle for it.

And if you do try to use a higher pressure fuel pump, you're also going to have to redesign the floats &/or valve to handle the increased pressure. Among other things, E85 is less dense, meaning the floats won't float as well as with gasoline, leaving even less force available to shut off the valve.

 

[TR3driver]

Ethanol costs a lot more to produce than gas.

Problem with all those analyses is that they assume we can continue to pump already made petroleum out of the ground. If instead you figure making gasoline "from scratch" then ethanol comes out a winner.

There also seems to be a lot of room for improvement in current ethanol production methods in the US. Brazil does seem to be doing better at producing it from sugar cane, using an overall process that also produces sugar and electricity. And we can (do) grow sugar cane here, the sugar cane farmers just don't have as big a lobby in Washington.

Don't get me wrong, I dislike change as much as the next fellow. And I'm not convinced ethanol is the right solution.

But as I see it, we have to at least start getting ready to get off of fossil fuels because eventually they ARE going to run out. Ethanol may not be the right way to go, but since there is no clearly superior alternative, I think we have to try it.
/rant

 

[Adrio]

My fuel pump rebuild kit had a bad reaction to the stuff. I went through three different kits and all the diaphragms disolved in the stuff.

 

[BryanC]

Well, where I live, E10 is mandated by law. You can't go to a station anywhere around here and get anything else. Ethanol is used here as a replacement for MTBE aimed at reducing pollution. There are many issues associated with E10 (and E85) on the money and political side. However, I haven't had any trouble with running my TR6 on E10 - no failed fuel pumps, leaking gaskets,poor idle, etc. Maybe I'm just lucky.

Bryan