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EPA might 'slash' Ethanol in gas

Fossil Heads

Who cares how you spell it (its crap) Marketing at its finest, yea their torn down and completely rebuilt after each race cause they run the piss out of em. By the By dragsters run Nitro not alcohol. I ran ethanol "enriched" fuel in my 1946 C85 Continental for 15 years over 500 hours sat on the runway months at a time never hurt a thing.

http://www.differencebetween.net/science/difference-between-ethanol-and-alcohol/

Not sure, whether this post is supposed to be taken serious or if it is indeed a troll talking, but....here are a few things:

If spelled and pronounced correctly, STABIL does not sound like a duck...

If you really left a tank full of ethanol "enriched" (what an oxymoron:banghead) untreated fuel on the shelf for 2 years, and your bike started, you have found what owners of small engines all over the U.S. are looking for...

Indy cars and dragsters run on alcohol, because they have completely different engines, which are being torn down and completely rebuilt after each race. Do this with your bike, Please!....

Unleaded gas has an ill effect on older engine's valve seats. Those people who haven't let that go, have such old vehicles. I do....
 
Ethanol gas reduces mpg

E10 (also called ÔÇ£gasoholÔÇØ) is a blend of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline sold in many parts of the country. All auto manufacturers approve the use of blends of 10% ethanol or less in their gasoline vehicles. However, vehicles will typically go 3ÔÇô4% fewer miles per gallon on E10 than on straight gasoline.

E85, a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, can be used in flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs), which are specially designed to run on gasoline, E85, or any mixture of the two. FFVs are offered by several vehicle manufacturers.

MPG. FFVs operating on E85 usually experience a 25ÔÇô30% drop in miles per gallon due to ethanolÔÇÖs lower energy content.

See: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/ethanol.shtml

This does not take into account the cost and energy used to produce ethanol.
 
OK...this subject has once again headed down a bumpy road and moving over to Campfire. It's gotten off track from the OP...as usual.

Reminder to follow the Posting Guidelines while participating.

http://forums.bmwmoa.org/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_postingguidelines

Thanks...

I am participating in several motorcycle forums and it seems that here, it is the most difficult to adhere to the "posting guidelines".
Maybe it would help, to point out exactly how a thread got "off track" and violated the posting guidelines when such is being determined by the Admin.:scratch
I keep reading the posts and all I see is a discussion about E10 and E15 and the different opinions about it. Was this not supposed to happen?
 
E85

Ethanol gas reduces mpg

E10 (also called ÔÇ£gasoholÔÇØ) is a blend of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline sold in many parts of the country. All auto manufacturers approve the use of blends of 10% ethanol or less in their gasoline vehicles. However, vehicles will typically go 3ÔÇô4% fewer miles per gallon on E10 than on straight gasoline.

E85, a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, can be used in flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs), which are specially designed to run on gasoline, E85, or any mixture of the two. FFVs are offered by several vehicle manufacturers.

MPG. FFVs operating on E85 usually experience a 25ÔÇô30% drop in miles per gallon due to ethanolÔÇÖs lower energy content.

See: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/ethanol.shtml

This does not take into account the cost and energy used to produce ethanol.
Thanks for the post now I know where to get some E85.
 
Ethanol gas reduces mpg

E10 (also called ÔÇ£gasoholÔÇØ) is a blend of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline sold in many parts of the country. All auto manufacturers approve the use of blends of 10% ethanol or less in their gasoline vehicles. However, vehicles will typically go 3ÔÇô4% fewer miles per gallon on E10 than on straight gasoline.

E85, a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, can be used in flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs), which are specially designed to run on gasoline, E85, or any mixture of the two. FFVs are offered by several vehicle manufacturers.

MPG. FFVs operating on E85 usually experience a 25ÔÇô30% drop in miles per gallon due to ethanolÔÇÖs lower energy content.

See: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/ethanol.shtml

This does not take into account the cost and energy used to produce ethanol.

Mileage reduction tracks with energy content reduction. That isn't rocket science.
 
Mileage reduction tracks with energy content reduction. That isn't rocket science.


If that were true I would lose about 1 mpg worst case in my FJ Cruiser vs regular ole gas when in fact I typically lose 4-5 mpg. I know this is a limited sample but I see it to some degree with every vehicle I have ever had.
 
I am participating in several motorcycle forums and it seems that here, it is the most difficult to adhere to the "posting guidelines".
Maybe it would help, to point out exactly how a thread got "off track" and violated the posting guidelines when such is being determined by the Admin.:scratch
I keep reading the posts and all I see is a discussion about E10 and E15 and the different opinions about it. Was this not supposed to happen?

My take... instead of in a PM to you so all can play.

These topics almost always end up with a political view or difference...I moved it to Campfire to let folks continue kicking the embers unless it gets political .

As you also noted in your previous reply and another poster picked up on...it was near a troll type of response in one post. I was just letting a few new folks understand the rules...nobody was in violation to a point of action...yet.

Motorrad seems to catch everything as it sits at the top of the page...I move a lot of content based on the subject description under Motorrad. Several ethanol threads have come & gone in Campfire...and definitely in the Tavern where it got ungentlemanly to say the least.

I don't sit here ALL day to monitor this...I volunteer as a moderator, not an administrator and am outdoors most of the time and usually sitting on a motorcycle enjoying life...I didn't want to have a bigger issue when I did get back to the Forum.
Yes, other forums do things differently and I choose not to go to most for those reasons. There are also political sites out the yang for those who choose to spend their time doing so.


Back to the possibility of ethanol being cut as first posted... I'm done.
 
The solution for me is simple.....

Crops for feeding the worlds poor and hungry....

Hydrocarbons for fuel and energy.......
 
If that were true I would lose about 1 mpg worst case in my FJ Cruiser vs regular ole gas when in fact I typically lose 4-5 mpg. I know this is a limited sample but I see it to some degree with every vehicle I have ever had.

With an EPA rating of 16/20, your FJ should see a worst case (-4%) impact of 0.64 to 0.8mpg. To lose 5mpg, you would have to be burning nearly pure ethanol.
 
I agree

I am participating in several motorcycle forums and it seems that here, it is the most difficult to adhere to the "posting guidelines".
Maybe it would help, to point out exactly how a thread got "off track" and violated the posting guidelines when such is being determined by the Admin.:scratch
I keep reading the posts and all I see is a discussion about E10 and E15 and the different opinions about it. Was this not supposed to happen?

Some people just can't handle it, so they turn you in to the Internet police, who is actually the Troll here.
 
With an EPA rating of 16/20, your FJ should see a worst case (-4%) impact of 0.64 to 0.8mpg. To lose 5mpg, you would have to be burning nearly pure ethanol.

I am tracking you on the chemistry and math but I can only relay my actual results. We also used to own a Scion XB for the business my wife and I owned and we saw a similar 4-6 MPG loss. Who knows could be a Toyota computer issue.

Either way I am not a fan of ethanol and see it as a political handout to some already very wealthy people (in control of the industry) with thankfully some trickle down to the American farmer.
 
Indy cars been running pure Ethanol every since I can remember haven't seen any problems there.

You have a VERY short memory, as Indycars have only been running ethanol for a couple years.

Before that it was methanol, which is not the same thing and is not available at your local gas station.
 
With an EPA rating of 16/20, your FJ should see a worst case (-4%) impact of 0.64 to 0.8mpg. To lose 5mpg, you would have to be burning nearly pure ethanol.

Math it up all you want. I loose an average of nearly 3 mpg going from straight unleaded to E 15, and another 3 to 4 going down to E 85.
Straight premium 18.5 mpg avg
E15 premium 15.8 mpg avg
E 85 12.5 avg mpg

I have been watching these trends very carefully over the last 13K miles ( New to now). The fuel economy just is not there with the alcohol. The only way to get all of the energy out of the alcohol would be to raise the compression of our engines a bit more. Although the manufacturers have done things like direct injection, drastic timing advance, variable cam timing, etc, to help with the burning of alcohol, our current engines are still based at the core for gasoline consumption. A much better place to be for alcohol as far as compression ratio is concerned, would be about 15:1. This is much higher than ideal for gasoline. Though there have been some cars (mostly very hi-po factory racing stuff in the mid/late 60's), in the 13.5:1 and as far as 14:1, perfromance was great, but other drivability charactoristics suffered. I am going to quit there with compression ratio. I am sure you will look in to it more if you wish to know more.
Lastly, you can not base a fuel mileage comparison on the amount of BTUs in each fuel. Because of a number of differences between gasoline and alcohol, you need to look at acceptable air/fuel combustion ratios. Gasoline, at a perfect mix, is 14.7:1 (parts air to parts fuel). Alcohol is perfect at 8:1. That means that for a given quantity of air, we burn very close to TWICE as much alcohol as we would gasoline. This puts E 15 at about 13.5:1. Also, alcohol acts like diesel. The more rich you run, the more power you make (under these circumstances, the lower your mpg) So, the manufacturers are making the flex fuel vehicles run a bit rich when on alcohol. More horsepower sounds good, right? Add those two facts to the low efficiency/low compression ratio problem, and 15% alcohol fuel is not going to yield a 3% mileage loss. Based on air fuel ratio alone, you are looking at a minimum of a 9% loss. I am experiencing about a 14% loss.

Did we get technical enough, or do I need to get out all of my old racing/mechanics/forced induction w/alcohol books?
 
Gasoline and ethanol can be compared in a laboratory for energy output and matheematical comparisons can be made to determine how much of each it takes to yeild a certain amount of energy.

Engineers in turn can take that and other informtion to design and build engines that maximize the use of fuel.

In the real world where I live there isn't 'pure gasoline' and pure- E10 made up of 90% pure gasoline and 10 percent ethenol. In the US, the last time I checked you would have one of at least 47 different blends of various componets and up to, but not necessarily 10% ethanol. In addition I have to wonder about the real world calculation process v the laboratory. No matter how careful a margin of error in the process must be allowed for in the discussion. Therefore, from my perspective if you understand the base perameters a person is arguing from all of you can be right.

As a replacement component in fuel blends to deal with the original polution problems in my region ethonal was a reasonable solution with minimal impact on mileage in line with laboratory predictions.

As an alternative fuel mixed in a variety of seasonal and regional blends the real world impact on mile per gallons has been greater than the laboratory would suggest. The annecdotal evidence on this forum puts it in the 7-10% range.

As to performance the stuff can be used quit effectively. Racers, hotrodders and a variety of applications make all sorts of horsepower with the stuff. My vehicles have changed over the years and continue to improve in their ability to use the stuff. I have not had any more problems with various components than I had in the past with 'pure gas'. That is my anicdotal experience.

I would like to see an alternative polution component developed that would replace ethanol in gasoline. Until that happens I can live with it.

For a great variety of reasons I don't see corn based ethanol as a sensible alternative fuel. Cane based ethanol does little to change my overall view it as an alternative fuel. Beyond the polution componet need I would happily see the stuff go away.
 
My memory

You have a VERY short memory, as Indycars have only been running ethanol for a couple years.

Before that it was methanol, which is not the same thing and is not available at your local gas station.

I beleive your Memory a little short all these fuel belong to the same faimly please see these 3 links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IndyCar_Series#Fuel

http://www.differencebetween.net/science/difference-between-ethanol-and-alcohol/

http://www.differencebetween.net/science/difference-between-ethanol-and-methanol/
 
Gasoline and ethanol can be compared in a laboratory for energy output and matheematical comparisons can be made to determine how much of each it takes to yeild a certain amount of energy.

Engineers in turn can take that and other informtion to design and build engines that maximize the use of fuel.

In the real world where I live there isn't 'pure gasoline' and pure- E10 made up of 90% pure gasoline and 10 percent ethenol. In the US, the last time I checked you would have one of at least 47 different blends of various componets and up to, but not necessarily 10% ethanol. In addition I have to wonder about the real world calculation process v the laboratory. No matter how careful a margin of error in the process must be allowed for in the discussion. Therefore, from my perspective if you understand the base perameters a person is arguing from all of you can be right.

As a replacement component in fuel blends to deal with the original polution problems in my region ethonal was a reasonable solution with minimal impact on mileage in line with laboratory predictions.

As an alternative fuel mixed in a variety of seasonal and regional blends the real world impact on mile per gallons has been greater than the laboratory would suggest. The annecdotal evidence on this forum puts it in the 7-10% range.

As to performance the stuff can be used quit effectively. Racers, hotrodders and a variety of applications make all sorts of horsepower with the stuff. My vehicles have changed over the years and continue to improve in their ability to use the stuff. I have not had any more problems with various components than I had in the past with 'pure gas'. That is my anicdotal experience.

I would like to see an alternative polution component developed that would replace ethanol in gasoline. Until that happens I can live with it.

For a great variety of reasons I don't see corn based ethanol as a sensible alternative fuel. Cane based ethanol does little to change my overall view it as an alternative fuel. Beyond the polution componet need I would happily see the stuff go away.

Mika,

Anecdotal observations of performance in un-controlled conditions is "at best" subjective. Consider that there are several vehicle elements (drivetrain, tires, etc.) downstream of the engine before vehicle power reaches the pavement. In addition, there's the variation in environmental factors (pavement conditions, path traveled, wind) and the daily/hourly variation in hotel loads (HVAC and electronic devices).

Be it a car, airplane or a ship......in-situ measurements of efficiency/performance often provide ample opportunity for bogus results. Thus, they are loved by salesmen.
 
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