My car hates ethanol

[RichG]

Since I got my car (1990 525i 5-speed) about a year ago, I had mostly filled up at Sam's Club (Wholesale Club) because the price was usually 10 to 20 cents cheaper than anywhere else. After I got a Dinan chip and started to use the higher octane fuel, I was a little concerned because the higher octane fuel at Sam's said it contained 10% ethanol. But I thought 10% can't have that much affect on stuff...

This past week I needed to fill up and Sam's was closed so I went to Shell and got the 93 octane (same octane as Sam's). The next day on the way to work I noticed an immediate improvement on the obc reading for mileage. After running through a whole tank (17+ gallons) and checking the actual mileage, I found that I got 26.2 mpg (US) with mostly highway driving. The most I EVER got before was 24.3 mpg. That's about an 8% increase in mpg's so I figure either the car hates ethanol or Sam's just carries crappy gas. With that increase in mileage and if gas stays around $3/gallon I figure I can pay over 20 cents more per gallon at Shell and still be ahead.

I know others have said not to use any ethanol because of other side effects, but I didn't really think it would cause that much difference. I'm guessing having the Dinan chip makes it all that more important.

Looks like I'll be going to Shell from now on.

[Rus]

Ethanol is known to cause higher fuel consumption because it carries less energy than gasoline. Thus, more fuel tends to be consumed to satisfy the power requirements of the vehicle. Its a double edged sword in a sense.

[The Stretch]

I wish I could get non-ethanol gas around me. I notice a HUGE difference in my mileage. if I try, 29mpg versus 24mpg highway with ethanol. Not to mention the improved idle, response and power with straight gas. You are not alone.

[Sam-Son]

Sam's is crappy gas

[Alexlind123]

Sam's is crappy gas

Yep.

[CharlesAFerg]

Yep.

What's that?

[attack eagle]

that 10% ethanol caused an 8% reduction in fuel economy... wow, that means that 10% ethanol causes only a reduction of 2% in petroleum consumed...

BTW it's is there for emissions purposes supposedly. We get that crap gas 6 months out of the year here by law..

[RichG]

Ethanol is known to cause higher fuel consumption because it carries less energy than gasoline. Thus, more fuel tends to be consumed to satisfy the power requirements of the vehicle. Its a double edged sword in a sense.

I agree about the less energy. I wouldn't have guessed just the 10% would make that much of a difference. So are the E-85 fuels going to be even worse, or are the engines made for running the E-85 tuned for the less energy which could bring the mileage back up some? If not, the E-85 better be a fair percentage cheaper than the regular gas to make up for it.

Unless you're really into helping the environment and willing to pay the difference...bring on the hydrogen cars!

[Ross]

Plus ethanol is corrosive and hydrophilic.
A bad idea brought to us by certain lobbyists and bought hook,line and sinker by the "greenies".
Milk is about to cost $4/ gallon now because the corn that used to feed cows is now powering some *******'s Escalade.

[fin]

Some form of additive will be used in gas to reduce emissions whether it is ethanol or MTBE (methanol from petroleum). And gas retailers don't have to tell you when they use either as long as it is below 10%.

Alcohol absorbs water reducing corrosion (and ice in fuel lines). Gas tanks rusted out more often before it was added than after. And it's a solvent, not a corrosive.

There isn't enough farmland to supply all the ethanol needs/energy needs of societies with high standards of living.

Allowing only Commercial vehicles to weigh over 4000 lbs would go a long way towards reducing consumption. If Americans could move away from "Bigger is better" without adding regulations, that would be best of all.

Cheers,

Fin

[attack eagle]

Man, my touring weighs 4000 lbs. And so does yours.

Cars that run on e85 get worse gasmilelage when using it. you cna't change the laws of physics... if it requires a certain amount of energy to move an object, the lower energy fuel must provide worse gas mileage.

[Sam-Son]

Man, my touring weighs 4000 lbs. And so does yours...
Are you sure about this? My '95 sedan weighs 4575 lbs

[Ross]

I don't know the difference then of a solvent versus a corrosive. I do know I have two older cars who's fuel systems are suffering and the rest get lousy "gas" mileage.
Gas tanks rusted because of crappy build and leaky fuel tanks at the filling station.
I prefer my alchohol with the scent of juniper, well chilled, not in my fuel tank.
You are absolutely correct about the mind set here. Conspicuous consumption is everywhere.

[ThoreauHD]

The last guy at the table pays the check. That's the mindset of humans in general. The poorer countries would do the same as the US, but sadly they are poor for a reason.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y106/toasty0z/crip.jpg

[gjmane36]

Use a Top Tier Gas. He is some additional information http://www.toptiergas.com/index.html about top tier gas.

[Alexlind123]

Are you sure about this? My '95 sedan weighs 4575 lbs

No dude, thats the GVWR, or the gross vehicle weight rating. Thats the weight of your car including the maximum load it can carry.

[Bill R.]

I wouldn't say bought hook line and sinker by the greenies...
I consider myself a greenie but was under no illusions about the current gasahol setup.... Actually a motor built for alcohol will produce more power than a motor setup for gasoline... there was a reason we ran blown alcohol dragsters and funnies... you can extract more useable energy from ethanol than you can from gasoline even though gasoline contains more energy per pound. Cars with knock sensors and computers that will advance the timing until knock is present will do ok on ethanol.... not to mention that fact that no carbon is produced when you burn ethanol so the engine stays cleaner without buildup. But the lobbyists and special interest groups have screwed us over on ethanol anyway... Look at Brazil for a lesson in how it could be. They cancelled all subsidies on sugar forcing sugar manufacturers to become efficient and then they mandated that x amount of ethanol is produced each year for fuel purposes. And the crops that they use in Brazil yield a much higher output of ethanol. Such as sugar beets or cane instead of corn which is a fairly low yield.









Plus ethanol is corrosive and hydrophilic.
A bad idea brought to us by certain lobbyists and bought hook,line and sinker by the "greenies".
Milk is about to cost $4/ gallon now because the corn that used to feed cows is now powering some *******'s Escalade.

[attack eagle]

the sole reason alcohol powered drag cars make such big power is the compression ratio... and the fact that they drink that stuff faster than you could pump gas from the station. they run so rich flames come out the exhaust for pete's sake. They can get away with it becasue of the slow flame front propagation and the cooler burn.

Now if you have a 60's engine, like a 409 etc that was designed for leaded fuel and had 11.5:1 or 12:1 or even 13:1 compression, I bet it would run way better on e85 than it would on 93 octane...

Most cars do not advance timing until knock happens... that is too risky. instead they start at a certain map and retard timing from there or default to a conservative map on knock.

cars that do good on ethanol? turbo cars. crank the boost up 4-5 psi, up the fuel by 11-13% across the board and you are good.

[Ross]

I've heard that they, and nitro motors are so rich that if ignition drops off for more than a few revolutions they will hydro a cylinder, true?

[Bill R.]

Not true. They still run the same air fuel ratio for maximum power that any car would run, just because they move a lot of fuel through means they also have to move a lot of air through. I've worked on a number of KB's, Donovan's and Rodecks in the past. I still stay in touch with a number of friends who are racing fuel cars currently and they tell me that the nitro cars are coming close to reaching the point of hydrolock right now just because of the shear volume of fuel they are pushing through the motors now and they have to start coming up with other ways to make more power since they can't put anymore fuel in. Usually on a nitro car if the mag misfires for a couple of revolutions at 10k rpms, the fuel is going to detonate anyway and either pop off the blower or say goodbye to the bottom end so its pretty hard to determine that hydrolock took place when sifting through the pieces.







I've heard that they, and nitro motors are so rich that if ignition drops off for more than a few revolutions they will hydro a cylinder, true?

[Bill R.]

Compression ratio is a factor just the same as it is on a gas powered race car. But just as important or even more so is the huge amount of lift and duration used, the greater amount of advance that you can get away with. And the flames aren't coming out because its so rich, they are coming out due to the sheer volume of fuel and air and the giant amount of valve overlap allowing the combustion to still be taking place while the exhaust valve is open. My statement still stands that you can extract more usable power out of a motor built for alcohol. The slower burn allows you to extract more. And i beg to differ on the statement that most cars don't advance the timing until knock occurs. Virtually every modern car that i work on does. If the knock sensor is faulty they do have a predetermined map that they fall back on. Every obII car that i've scanned with my scan tool shows the timing being regulated by the knock sensor, on some the amount of lead at relatively low rpm is quite surprising.




the sole reason alcohol powered drag cars make such big power is the compression ratio... and the fact that they drink that stuff faster than you could pump gas from the station. they run so rich flames come out the exhaust for pete's sake. They can get away with it becasue of the slow flame front propagation and the cooler burn.

Now if you have a 60's engine, like a 409 etc that was designed for leaded fuel and had 11.5:1 or 12:1 or even 13:1 compression, I bet it would run way better on e85 than it would on 93 octane...

Most cars do not advance timing until knock happens... that is too risky. instead they start at a certain map and retard timing from there or default to a conservative map on knock.

cars that do good on ethanol? turbo cars. crank the boost up 4-5 psi, up the fuel by 11-13% across the board and you are good.

[bulldog_shotgun]

^^ true but that still will only go so far.
E85 is some where around 110 octane, and advancing the timing curve only regains so much hp, the best way to correct would be higher compression. gas engines converted to run on e85 have never yeilded the hp they did on gas. however engines designed to run on e85 can beat a engine of the same displacment designed for gas.

of course without subsidies there is no way we can produce E85 for the current cost of (with mileage ratio included) gas. heck it can barely stay cheaper with subsidies, so the people who use E85 cost us all money, in higher taxes.

back to the original post i doubt its the E10 that is causing the lost MPG, my guess we be shell has 10% ethanol as well. here in ohio its required by law.

side note the KB's i have worked on ran no where near stoich. i think stoich on the methanol we ran on was around 10:1 (9.7 i think, but can't remember exactly) and we were past max power rich about 7 :1.

[Bill R.]

on your side note, stoich ratio for gas obviously doesn't apply to alcohol or nitro cars... the nitro cars run closer to 1:1 ratios of a/f but then again since nitro is 53% oxygen and its released when burned to ratio can be misleading... With the alcohol cars we were running much lower ratios than a street gas car but still in the max power range. And we would still backside at least 6 of 8 pistons in the qualifying runs if we really had to make power...




^^ true but that still will only go so far.
E85 is some where around 110 octane, and advancing the timing curve only regains so much hp, the best way to correct would be higher compression. gas engines converted to run on e85 have never yeilded the hp they did on gas. however engines designed to run on e85 can beat a engine of the same displacment designed for gas.

of course without subsidies there is no way we can produce E85 for the current cost of (with mileage ratio included) gas. heck it can barely stay cheaper with subsidies, so the people who use E85 cost us all money, in higher taxes.

back to the original post i doubt its the E10 that is causing the lost MPG, my guess we be shell has 10% ethanol as well. here in ohio its required by law.

side note the KB's i have worked on ran no where near stoich. i think stoich on the methanol we ran on was around 10:1 (9.7 i think, but can't remember exactly) and we were past max power rich about 11.7 :1.

[bulldog_shotgun]

yeah, i had no idea that stoich was that rich on nitro, but thats why i said i think it was 9.7:1 on the methanol blend we were running. stoich on regular unleaded is 14.7:1.

i just reread my post and noticed a typo though.i said we ran at 11.7:1, thats not right. LOL damn that would be lean. that was supposed to be 7:1 LOL

[Barney Paull-Edwards]

Before you get on your high horse take alook at a Prius. Fiat punto is better MPG and how the hell do you dispose of the battery? Have a friend who`s proud of his Prius, what a complete crap car, just because a few film stars buy one it must be good,less to the gallon than my smart and ugly as sin. Sorry for the rant but hate trendy engineering, same as dumb reasons for using Ethanol, now Methanol, whole different ball game! Not ethat Blutec diesel Merc uses a can of Urea in boot to improve emissions, could not keep a strraight face at somebody praising a tank of piss!

[Ross]

This is all ******** guys. There is a guy who invented a carburetor that will make a big v-8 get a hundred miles to the gallon and one horsepower per cubic inch.
The auto industry squashed it years ago, and had the guy murdered.
You can get the same result by hooking twelve of those tornadoes in a row and putting oxygen pills in the gastank. I'd do it but no room under the hood.

[attack eagle]

And i beg to differ on the statement that most cars don't advance the timing until knock occurs. Virtually every modern car that i work on does. If the knock sensor is faulty they do have a predetermined map that they fall back on. Every obII car that i've scanned with my scan tool shows the timing being regulated by the knock sensor, on some the amount of lead at relatively low rpm is quite surprising.


every OBDII car I've worked on doesn't.
of course they are all jap turbo cars. I've seen the timing being adjusted by the ecu constantly (even at idle), but it isn't in response to the knock sensor. It's in response to the timing map. They have a short term trim and a long term trim but those are both - adjustments. IF max timing in a cell is 8 degrees... in the absence of knock you will NOT get 9 10 or 12. you will get the maximum the manufacturer thought was safe and no more. You really see this with EVOs since they have varying maps depending on where the cars US destination was. Cars bound for the southwest are slightly timing retarded compared to their SE bound bretheren... So if you bring a SE car out here and feed it good fuel you will get more power than a SW vehicle on the same fuel. If you take a SW vehicle to the SE you will be down on power.
If you bring an SE car out here and feed it pump it will go down on power compared to an SW car as it will go far more timing retarded than needed as it defaults to a conservative (fuel rich timing retard) map. It will keep testing to see if it can go back to the better map, but it will not go above timing spec'd in the ecu itself.


A scan tool won't tell you why the ecu is doing something to timing, or how it does it, only that timing is changing. you have to actually know what the ecu's timing and map values are



This is all ******** guys. There is a guy who invented a carburetor that will make a big v-8 get a hundred miles to the gallon and one horsepower per cubic inch.
The auto industry squashed it years ago, and had the guy murdered.
You can get the same result by hooking twelve of those tornadoes in a row and putting oxygen pills in the gastank. I'd do it but no room under the hood.

NO that was the Saudis thru all-kay-duh.

[Bill R.]

never worked on a prius, there is a phone number right on the battery and toyota will pay a 200 bounty for any batteries returned to them. They are using nimh batteries which are completely recyclable and don't have the disposal problem that conventional lead acid batteries do. Disposal of the conventional lead acid battery that it uses up front is actually more of a problem and since every car on the road uses one its not too great a problem either.

Edit, if you go to this link from toyota and look at the third and fourth questions from the bottom it has more info on the battery. Link here (http://www.toyota.com/about/environment/technology/2004/hybrid.html)





Before you get on your high horse take alook at a Prius. Fiat punto is better MPG and how the hell do you dispose of the battery? Have a friend who`s proud of his Prius, what a complete crap car, just because a few film stars buy one it must be good,less to the gallon than my smart and ugly as sin. Sorry for the rant but hate trendy engineering, same as dumb reasons for using Ethanol, now Methanol, whole different ball game! Not ethat Blutec diesel Merc uses a can of Urea in boot to improve emissions, could not keep a strraight face at somebody praising a tank of piss!

[Bill R.]

first gas crunch in the 70's There were 3 different carbs supposedly , one was the fish carb one was the pogue carb and Doug Roe supposedly developed on and had it on a pinto or vega so the rumor said... I had a fish carb when i worked at a vw/porsche shop running on a vw... Here's link to completely adjustable fish carb (http://www.boni.com/fish/)

It was somewhat of a joke.....

(http://www.boni.com/fish/)



This is all ******** guys. There is a guy who invented a carburetor that will make a big v-8 get a hundred miles to the gallon and one horsepower per cubic inch.
The auto industry squashed it years ago, and had the guy murdered.
You can get the same result by hooking twelve of those tornadoes in a row and putting oxygen pills in the gastank. I'd do it but no room under the hood.

[RichG]

back to the original post i doubt its the E10 that is causing the lost MPG, my guess we be shell has 10% ethanol as well. here in ohio its required by law.

If it's not the E10, is the difference just in the gas quality? It must the tier one thing then.

I'm still thinking it's the ethanol. I don't think the Shell around here (Indianapolis) has the ethanol, but I could be mistaken.

[Herb]

I don't know if this has been mentioned already, but according to my Chem. Professor - who worked as a Chemical engineer for Exxon and a reverse chemical engineer for Amway - said that E85 ethanol is worthless ****, it lowers fuel economy while at the same time causing MORE polution than regular gas, just a different set of Cancer causing polutants, so not actively being measured by todays standards.
FYI

[Ross]

A guy who ran the auto parts store I patronized in the early seventies was particularly perturbed at all the bogus claims being made for miracle devices.
He had devised a plan using a combination of these gadgets where if their claims were true, some claiming percentage increases in economy and others quoting hard numbers, the vehicle they were installed on would actually MAKE gasoline. When this obviously wouldn't work he intended to sue the bunch and put them out of business.
He never followed through and all those companies managed to put themselves out of business. It was a fun thing to talk about back in the days of hanging around the speed shop.