I've seen many posts regarding Ethanol but none that address the problem with Ethanol. Here in VA we are now state mandated 10% Ethanol blend. This is used to boost octane and increase "real gas" volume by 10% (or you can say reduce consumption by 10%, your choice).

Now here's where it gets interesting. Ethanol is "chemically charged" to bond with gasoline. This same bond also attracts water molecules. Water is found in all fuel tanks in all fuel stations. That's a fact. When Ethanol bonds with water, it becomes a heavier molecule than gas alone. This heavy water/ethanol molecule then drops to the bottom of the fuel station's tanks. Most pumps at these stations collect from the bottom. If your gas in contaminated you then pump straight water/ethanol into your tank. You will be able to drive about a block before your engine stalls for good. You now have contaminated your fuel system. EXPENSIVE PROBLEM.

Here's the other problem. Say the water/ethanol blend is in very small concentration and thus not populating the entire area around the tank pickup. You now have the problem of excess ethanol at the bottom of the fuel stations tank and not dispersed throughout the gas/ethanol mix. You now pump gas with less octane due to reduced ethanol. You can still drive, but now with 89 to 90 octane vs. 91 to 93.

Many fuel stations have sensors that can detect the amount of water in underground fuel tanks. The problem is that many were never intended to work with Ethanol. The fix is a manual "sticking" of the tank. I'm sure you have seen this and assumed that someone was checking the level of the tank. A long stick with a substance, not unlike brown toothpaste, is lowered into the tank. The brown paste will turn bright yellow wherever it touches water. This is used to manually check the water content in the underground tanks. This should be done prior to and after a fuel truck delivery.

What is your insurance that your station checks? Absolutely none. This is NOT state mandated. This is NOT a law. You must HOPE that your station maintains their tanks properly and checks for water consistently. Think it can't happen at the "big boy's" stations. A Chesapeake, VA SHELL station recently made CNN after they unknowingly pumped numerous customer's fuel tanks full of water.

Not trying to scare you, but these are the facts.

 

here in ny we been doing this for years. even longer in cali. welcome to to our lives. pretty soon they'l sniff you to. be warned!!!!!

 

All I can say to all of the above statements is be sure not to fill up at a station that doesn't sell much fuel, and, I wouldn't recommend filling up right after the truck has been there, but that would ensure the mixture is proper.

I don't like filling up right after the truck has been there because they stir up all the crap in the tank and it could get into your tank.

 

right.... as long as they pump mucho fuel then youll be ok

 

Water in a gas stations tank is a reality. There will always be some. The substance I used many years ago turned pink with water contact and if the pink color was 2 inches or less then all was fine. I don't think that the fuel pickup was located on the bottom of the tank however. That just doesn't seem wise. Water can easily be seperated from fuel with a 1 micron filter and I believe many pumps have those installed, such as a water trap on a boat. This is many many times finer than the fuel filter on your car. 10% ethanol has been used in the midwest since the 70's when it was known as "gasahol". This is nothing new and there is no need for panic. Its use is more widespread across the country now.
You can test for the percentage of ethanol in your gas by half filling up a glass graduated cylinder with pump gas and noting the level. Fill up the other half with tap water and let it stand. The tap water will fall to the bottom. You will see a distinct line in the cylinder where the water meets the gas. After a while the ethanol will absorb into the water and the line will move up into the cylinder. The amount the line moves is the percentage of ethanol in the fuel.

 

That was going on with a Speedway gas-station by my house. Turns out it wasn't an isolated issue and speedway got sued. All the local gasstations now have been completely re-vamped and no longer dispense such blends of gasoline.

 

Here in VA it's state mandated, we MUST have ethanol in our gas as of last week.

 

We have had ethanol in our province for years. I have used it in my various cars especially my turbo cars with zero problems. The turbo cars seem to like the ethanol blend.

So I would say you are seriously overreacting here.

 

I've been tuning and data loging my Supercharged truck for a year now and have used nothing but 93 octane super unleaded, I have a really good tune.

Last week after I filled up with the new Ethanol mix I notice two things, first
I started hearing Ignition knock and started seeing Knock retard at my cruise and light accel areas, also I started seeing my LTFT #'s go possitive like it needs more fuel.
My LTFT's always ran -7 to -2 now they are +5 to +8 that’s a big change.

I believe you can tune just fine for the Ethanol but I believe from what I have observed the MPG will suffer and there will be a loss in HP because you will
have to run less Ignition advance and more fuel.

This new Ethanol Mix will cause problems and could destroy a High HP boosted engine if the tune is not changed, like I said I had no KR until I started using the new fuel, FACT.

 

Admittedly your engine is now a bit lean and needs a retune for the fuel. Don't you think after retuning your knock retard might diminish?

 

Interesting..on my turbo 92 talon with big turbo had much less knock with no tuning changes for the ethanol over 91 premium.The ethanol was 92 octane .

 

Just FYI, from working at a gas dock, the tank pickup is not at the bottom. We almost ran out a couple weeks ago, and we had about 350 gallons (12 in.) of fuel in our tank, and it stopped pumping. Also, the fuel distributor came out and changed our filters on the pump, and gave us extras, and wanted us to change them again after a few tanks of the 10% blend. This is also much less of a problem in cars, as there isnt nearly the amount of water in the tank as in any boat. So basically, there isnt a whole lot of need to worry about the water in the tank problem.

 

No, whats going on is that the Engine computer is triming up the fuel (+ LTFT)
to keep it at the 14.68 AFR in closed loop and the timing advance still needs to be backed down some to keep it out of KR .
I just like my tune right on the money so I am retuning the VE table for a -2 to -5 LTFT.

Keep in mind that this truck was tuned to the max on 93 octane for best
MPG in cruise, so I did have my advance up to the limit just before KR.

So others with a less agressive tune may not see the issuse I have with the Ethanol mix.

I have not started tuning the WOT PE fueling or timing yet, more fuel may fix that but I will start out on the conservitive side on fueling and timing.

 

Most tanks are big round cylinders underground. Underground tank systems are supposed to have a slight angle when they are put into the ground so that all the sediment and junk can collect at the lower end. The fuel is then pumped from the higher end of the tank to make sure you get good fuel. This is how it works with JET fuel and am pretty sure the same thing applies for regular fuel.

 

The issue is more with the water detection equipment. If stations don't upgrade their procedures they can unknowingly pump water/ethanol into customer's tanks. A Shell station here locally ruined 4 customer's cars doing just this. CNN picked up the story as well (about 10 days ago if you'd like to research it.) Here's a memo that Veeder Root sent to us regarding the water/ethanol detection problem.

http://www.cadillacfaq.com/faq/answe.../veedere10.doc

 

Very good article.

 

would this new gas cause my car to get worse gas mileage? my trans am has a tune on it and ever since i started using this new gas my gas milage has gone way down, it may just be a coinsidence though

 

As a chemist I have some problems with that article.

1. Gas is made of Pentanes (C5H12), hexanes (C6H14), and heptanes (C7H16), plus other additives. Even if water (H2O) did bond with ethanol (C2H5OH) (see below) it wouldn't be heavier than gas, not to mention they are in solution, which keeps the parts of it from "falling out" of solution.

2. If ethanol comes close to water no actual bonding takes places, it dissociates its charge and hydrogen atom into solution just like water does.

3. a big byproduct of combustion reactions is water, so the small amount that manages to find its way into the chamber is not going to be the end of the world.

All molecules are chemically charged. If they were mixing anything besides ethanol it would be like "ethoxide cation" or something similiarly named.

I wouldn't worry about having 10% ethanol in your gas, yeah it might suck at first b/c you will may have to retune your vehicle, but once you do everything will be back to normal. And yes it will get less gas milage because ethanol has half of the stored energy that gasoline does.

Any questions?

*subscribed*

Josh

 

So whats the ******* point of it then? They try to make it cheaper, but we have to buy it more often. That makes sense.

 

i will get to see how this pans out first hand