Guys,
Sunoco stations here in Ontario put up to 10 or 15% ethanol in their gasoline. I have never had any problems with these blends with modern cars, or even with my 1961 Pontiac. I fueled there with my new Pinto last week, and within minutes, the 2000cc started to stall repeatedly. Lower idle speed, it seems, but also erratic idle (low, and then really low, and then none). I don't have a tach, I am just going by the sound.
I did not attempt to readjust the idle. I used up the gas to almost empty, and put some ethanol-free gasoline. The idle speed went back up (and went back to being consistent). No more stalling. She purrs again.
Has anyone else seen this?
The province of Ontario is considering legislating the addition of ethanol to all gasoline. I don't know when, but it is coming. Perhaps one of you lives in an area with the same law. Is there a way to run ethanol-blends in a 2000 cc without the sputtering?
Oldcarpierre
i havn't tried it but it might be that the pinto doesn't have good enough compression ratio for it or either too good of comression ratio? i don't know though.
i heard ethanal is supposed to clog gas lines my dad was tellin me that truckers put the e-85 in their trucks and i guess it clogs their gas lines but i dont kno
It is possible that there is some water in the tank at the station. It settles to the bottom of the tank, the ethanol will be attracted to the water and it will pull all of the additives to the water thusly making poor performance or causing your car to die. Gas however won't have water in it because the water is heavier than the gas, so it will go to the bottom of the tank. Gas stations run out of gas when there is about 500 Gallons in the tank. The old myth about cheaper stations having water in the gas is not true, it all comes from basically the same place. I haul 3 or 4 different brands of gas and it all pulls from the same storage tank, the different additives for each brand,Citgo, Phillips, BP, Mobil etc. are injected as it is loaded in the truck.
Tercin
Hello oldcarpierre,
\ The Pinto carb has the smallest jets possible for them to get good fuel economy.
it takes more alcohol to make the same HP.
Your Pinto was simply not getting enough fuel.
From Pintony
Good point Pintony.. Fuel injected cars automatically adjust fuel mixture and don't have this problem. Since ther is more of them on the road then our trusty carbs, we will have to rejet, or try not to get this crap I guess. Anyone have any other suggestions?????????
I am a firm believer in Ethanol and ultimatly it will be our soul souce octane booster. Ethenal is 100% or 200 proof grain alcohol. The same as Everclear that you can buy at the liquer store. This is pure alcohol. It is made from corn and/or Milo in any combination. When this alcohol is produced it is consumable by humans and can be taxed at a higher rate so the Ethanol plants add 5% gasoline to make it poisonous to humans and this de-natures it. When Ethanol first appeared at the pumps in the early 70's it was 10% of the gasoline, this was called Gasohol but that term has been dropped.
Ethanol will clean a fuel system and keep it clean because Alcohol disolves varnish. But it can and will clog a fuel system till it is cleaned out. It is wonderfull for injector engines because the added pressure on the fuel actively builds varnish deposits and this is what clogs injectors from time to time when the layers break away. Also, one need not use fuel presevatives or drain fuel when storing a vehicle like over the winter months.
Alcohol when mixed with gasoline (or HydroCarbon) acts as an Octane booster which means that it SLOWS the combustion chamber burn time. The Octane booster that has been in Gasoline is a man-made or synthetic product that is soon to be or recently outlawed because it is a polluting son of a gun. Enter Ethanol.
Gasoline does not make your car run because it is flammable it makes power primarily through a chemical reaction between the Hydrogen in the gas and the Oxygen through the carb or injectors at a high pressure in the combustion chamber that produces PURE water or H2O. The bummer is that about only 15% of the fuel/air mixture reacts this way the rest exits as unburned air poison. That is why they make E-85. If the chemical reaction (detonation) happens before the cylinder is lit by the plug at the proper ignition point then you are running solely on the flamability of the fuel which makes for terrible gas milage and much stress on the pistons,rods and crank.
When you raise the Octane level in a fuel by SYNTHETIC or NATURAL means you are stabalizing (or slowing) the detonation time so it happens when it is supposed to and not before.
Ok!!! Saying that let me answer your question.........A carburated engine has a fuel efficiency burn signature based on compression, cylinder turbulation and fuel feed (jets). Your engines fuel efficiency envelope will only get so good no matter how high the Octane rating. You have 2 choises, change the engine or change the ethanol percentag. Changing the engine would require Higher compression and better cylinder turbulation with jetting adjustments made relative to what your new fuel efficiency signature would be. Your car should run fine on 10% Ethanol. Check your plugs and adjust you carb as needed to get the color right. The reason your engine slows with ethanol primarily is due to compression. Ethanol is clean to burn,keeps fuel systems clean and will not harm your engine.
High_Horse
A bit more on ethanol.
For those who are interested, pure Ethanol has a lower energy density than standard grades of gasoline, meaning that even under optimum conditions, with an engine that is designed and built from the ground up to be used for ethanol ONLY, when used as the primary fuel source in internal combustion powered vehicles, the same volume of ethanol will yield lower mileage (fewer mpg) than would a comparable vehicle (vehicle size and weight, engine output, etc.) using gasoline, gasoline and ethanol mix, or diesel fuel.
Ethanol does burn cleaner and yield fewer harmful emissions, but as far as energy sources go, nothing is free, and an advantage in one area is frequently offset by an equally important disadvantage in another area. Pure Ethanol as a fuel has been used for many years in certain areas of the world where the cost of PRODUCTION of the ethanol makes it a viable alternative to petroleum based fuels. Brazil is one such place, where enough raw materials (feed stocks) can be grown without needing to be imported, that the cost of ethanol production is significantly less than the cost of ikmporting, refining and producing finished gasoline.
Now you may be thinking, we've got a lot of growing area in the USA, why don't we use Ethanol powered engines more here? We COULD grow the corn, milo, and basically anything including "weed" type plants that can be fermented and distilled to produce the alcohol, but that would require a LOT of growing area. Much of the economically available growing area of the USA is already spoken for and already in production, and we are losing more agricultural acreage to development for single family housing with a high percentage of large areas of non productive open spaces such as lawns, plus new roads, manufacturing, and many other non-farming uses every year (golf courses, parks, etc., etc.).
To meet the ENTIRE needs of our car and truck fleet and replace most of the petroleum based fuel with ethanol, we would need more ADDITIONAL growing area than is currently being used to grow our ENTIRE corn, wheat, rye, rice plus several other main crops which we use as domestic food sources and can also afford to use the surplus for something to trade to other countries.
Agricultural production is one of the few remaining areas of commerce where we currently have a sizeable and POSITIVE trade balance with the rest of the world, meaning we send out more agricultural goods as valued in dollars than we buy from them. This also means that we as consumers pay a smaller portion of our income for our food than any citizen in any other developed country, including those countries where the household income is HIGHER than it is here.
Personally, I'd rather be able to be assured of being able to eat regularly, and for a reasonable cost, than to drive regularly for a cost that is not going to be going downward in the short term. The number of vehicle we have on the road in this country will grow very slowly from this period of time, as out population is relatively slowly growing, and we already have a "fully mature" vehicle population (more than one car per household). Millions of additional vehicles are being built and put on the road EVERY YEAR in countries such as China and India, who currently have a VERY small vehicle population (that is just beginning to rapidly grow), compared to ours are already competing with us for the available crude oil, driving up the price, while the level of oil production is basically at it's peak now with no expectation that output can increase much at all, except for a VERY short period of time as the world wide available oil stocks decrease every year. The compeition for ol will not decreas over time, only increase, until it becomes high enough to make alternative energy sources more economically viable that they currently are.
In the USA, I suspect that we will make a fairly large change in our use of petroleum as an overwhelmingly high first choice source for portable energy within the next 15 years or so,as a higher percentage of the older vehicles (the ones that we currently drive) are gradually replaced every year with newer technology ones, using alternative energy sources.
My owners manual for my 2002 hyundai says DO NOT USE ETHANOL, it will ruin the catalytic converter. I was in a pinch the other day, and had no choice but to fuel at a station which had ethanol in its fuel, I only put enough in to get home, but now the car wont idle right until it is warmed up, and it stinks to beat all hell until it does, i have lost power and fuel economy. I have tried fuel injector cleaners since this, but it still does it. My car has the catalytic converter built into the exhaust manifold. at a price of almost $900 for a new one i am a little disgusted.
If we can distill our own fuel, i wouldn't mind the ethanol conversion, but the gov't will get greedy, and it wont be any more economically viable for us in the end anyway. If you disagree, then why is there red dye in off-road diesel??
I myself would set up a still, what i dont put in the car, will go in me. :drunk:
High_horse,
You got me wondering now. I will try ethanol blends from Sunoco again, but I will use one of the higher octane versions to see if it makes a difference.
Dirt track Demon,
Nice to see that Hyundays and Pinto have TWO things in common. Number 2, they don't like ethanol fuels. Number one, both of them had "no respect" - for all of you Rodney Dangerfield fans out there - when they were introduced.
Oldcarpierre
Your car should run ok on 10% Ethanol- Here in California, all gasoline has ethanol i believe, and my cars run ok. I bet that a lot of the Midwest (US) states are adding ethanol too.
Maybe you are burning water residue from your tank as Tercin said; or your idle may be already on the lean side, and alcohol does run leaner, so perhaps you were having a bit of lean misfire. Might want to try it again and adjust the idle mixture a bit.
good luck!
mike
I lived in Iowa in the mid 90's and they had what they called gasohol 15% alcohol
I ran it in my 95 S-10 and I also had a 74 pinto with a 2.3 I ran it in both vehicles, seemed to run better on it. It was also 10-15 cents a gal. cheaper. sure beats the crap out of that reformulated junk they force us to use in the summer
OldCarPierre,
If I were you I would start out with the 90 Octane Ethanol Fuel. It is about 10%. I would keep some spare fuel filters with you. I would do my carb adjustments based on the idle mixture because if it idles ok then it will run ok on the secondarys. If you have never had the top of your carb off it would be a good idea to check the float bowl for debre. I ran E-85 in ThunderPinto shortly after I considered my break in time to be up, and yes during cold starts I had to help it along till it warmed up and yes it smelled like burnt corn. But after that it chirped second with no problem. I went up to the station last weekend and put in 5 bucks worth of E-85 and 5 worth of 10% in an effort to get about a 50% mixture and my last cold start did not need any help. I cannot imagine Ethanol clogging up a catalytic converter because burned alchohol emits only carbon dioxide and nothing else.
High_Horse
Quote from: lugnut on May 08, 2006, 09:42:34 PM
I bet that a lot of the Midwest (US) states are adding ethanol too.
mike
it's been around here in hastings nebraska for about ten years now. there's an ethanol plant less than three miles east of town. it's about five cents cheaper than regular
krazi
I still havent seen Ethanol mix yet. Here in southern Indiana things must move real slowly from the west.
i havn't seen an ethanol mixed with gas either and i'm in california. it is probably mostly the big towns that get it.
Here in the St Louis area and 3 surrounding counties if you buy gas it has 10% ethanol in it period. I run it in my 73 and so far no problems. If you go to some of the rural counties you can get "conventional" and that can be sold either with or without the ethanol. Station owners get a big tax break if they add the ethanol to their "conventional" unleaded. My Caravan can run on E-85 but the only place near here that sells it is about 8 miles away and it is around $4 a gallon, I haven't tried it for pricing reasons.
Tercin
maybe theyre doing it and i don't know. but if they are it is running just fine and my car is a 74 2.3 too.
Here in more-or-less northern Illinois, I think every gas station I've ever been to has a sign stating that the fuel "may" contain up to 10% ethanol. I know of only one station in the area that sells e-85, and it's over a half hour away. Although my first car (73 chevy impala) ran on "regular" gas (not unleaded) and there was actually a station in my hometown that sold it. I think I ran both regular and unleaded in it. Whichever was convenient, prefering the regular.
As for the E-85, the one downfall I've heard of that no one else has covered is the necessity to change your fuel lines. I've heard that the E-85 corrodes common fuel lines faster. I don't know for sure about it, it's just what I've been told.
Check out xcelplus.com - they are offering an E85 conversion kit - that may provide some clues about what a non-flex fuel vehicle needs to work well with E85
Many of you may not be old enough to remember this, but ethanol was already starting to be introduced into gasolines on a widespread basis about the time of the first "gas crisis", in the 70's. It has been present at a low level of concentration, but in a large percentage of the national gasoline retail market for many years now, but until recently it had been there without attracting much attention. Where it is a component in the fuel, most states require a sticker on the pump.
More history:
During WWll, many domestic vehicles were being run on ethanol, and diesel engines being run on vegetable oil. (In fact the original diesel engine made by Diesel (his name) was meant to be run on PEANUT oil.)
Going back with gasoline engines, Henry Ford was using pure ethanol on an experimental basis very early on with the same thought in mind as is presently being discussed i.e., having farmers make and distill their own fuel. Also used vegetable oil in some of his diesel engines.He came from a farming background and did a lot of other things intended to help farmers, such as using soybeans to make a type of plastic thatwas used in his cars for a time.
Automotive and tractor enigies in the early days had very low compression ratios, and could more easily tolerate extreme variations in octane from using bad or stale gasoline, kerosene or "alternative fuels". My uncle had in his collection of old tractors, a huge Rumley tractor (about 10 FEET tall) 10,000#+ one cylinder, with all steel wheels-no rubber, from about 1910-20, that he used to burn up all of the oil motor oil, kerosene, paint thinner, etc., that had accumulated on his farm during the year.
By the way, anyone who has had an experience with ethanol "smelling like burnt corn" may be using some locally obtained "product" that is intended for drinking instead of for use it in their car. IT tends to have some remaining impurities, which by the way is what gives you most of the headache-the impurities, not the alcohol.
Pure ethanol is the same thing chemically as moonshine, hootch, white lightnin', etc., any of which can be made from distilling any vegetable source that contains fermentable sugars. When the ethanol made from corn is industrially distilled, it is also filtered afterwards to a degree not economically feasible by small time distillers, and SHOULD have no odor or taste remnant.
Ideally, you don't want ANY impurities in gasoline or engine fuel used in closely tolerances engines, as those same impurities and additives are mostly what builds up and causes problems. I guess that you could think of this as a long term mechanical hangover.
It's no myth that in the old days, some moonshiners and their friends used to use moonshine as fuel for their tractors, trucks and other vehicles, partly because money was so scarce, and that way they didn't have to come up with actual hard currency to pay anything for their fuel, including the fuel tax. It was also locally traded in small quantities within communities, even when not transported very far or sold for profit.
Of course, moonshiners with greater aspirations had to have the fastest cars and trucks, so they also had to have the best mechanics, who could make or substitute whatever parts or adjustments were necessary to have a dependable engine. When super "ethyl" blends came on the scene, that was then the fuel of choice, along with very high compression engines for the day plus whatever other "go-fast" stuff they could think of using.
Stories abound around here of the very same mechanics selling to 2 markets, making engines and building heavy duty suspension cars for both the police AND the moonshiners, always being sure that the moonshiners' cars were a little faster and handled just a bit better. (Makes sense to me-after all, they did pay better......)
i am just old enough to rember the ethanol craze from the 70's. i rember there was some type of conversion that need to be done to the car. the gas stations i worked at in the late 80's had lables for 10% ethanol. i have not noticed them in a while.
In response to the original post I would guess there was water in the tanks at the gas station. I don't know If other cities have seen similar incidents, but here in Dallas there have been at least 30 known instances of cars stalling and not starting because of the recent mandate to replace the mtbe additive with ethanol.
We have a local radio show on 570am that is about everything automotive hosted by Ed Wallace, and this past week's show was all about ethanol. The host had called around to the different dealers to see how many were being affected. I don't recall the exact numbers, but there were several that had 4 or 5 cars in for serverice, and a couple that had 9 or so. And those were just the ones that he found out about at the dealer, who knows how many went to quick lube places or independent mechanics. Basically, ethanol attracts water, and water doesn't burn. So they either had to drain the tanks or use fuel treatment to break up the water.
If you don't mind I'll get on my high horse for just a sec (don't worry its quick). I don't think ethanol by itself will be the answer to our energy problem. As a whole, we need to use less gasoline and seek out viable alternative energy sources. IMHO natural gas could help ease the burden. It's cheap, doesn't need refining, and only needs a pipeline to be transported. If Congress sees ethanol as the only answer, there is a better way to produce it than with corn. A South American country (can't recall the name) has been using sugar cane for the past couple of decades to produce ethanol. Sugar cane ethanol yields 8x the energy put into producing it. Corn ethanol only yields 1.2x the energy because the starch in the corn has to be broken down into sugar before it is converted to ethanol; the sugar cane is sugar to start with. By simply switching the source crop, there would be a net increase in energy production. There are several other ways to help energy costs that I won't bore you with, as I'm sure you quit reading this post a few paragraphs ago.
That's all, I'm done now.
Jimdawg,
I question your figures as to the NET energy requirements in ethanol production from sugar cane in South America vs from corn in the USA. I agree that it's most likely higher, but I suspect that a complete and true "apples to apples" comparison is not being done, and that there may not be as great a difference as you quoted. From what published source does your information come? I'd be interested in reading it.
The country of which you are thinking is probably Brazil (larger in square miles than the USA in case anyone reading this didn't know) and the main reason that sugar cane may have a higher overall (net) energy yield in. re. ethanol production is most likely NOT that the starch in corn has to be converted to sugar.
Firstly, what some people do not know is that a good portion of the starch in the corn kernal is a result of 1. varietal differences 2. sugar already present in higher sugar content varieties of corn BECOMING starch because of such factors as delaying harvest past the point of maximum sugar content and/or the extended time between harvest and chilling or sufficient heating (as in boiling/roasting) both sufficient heating and chilling slow the process of sugar>starch conversion.
The sugar content of corn decreases over time (especially in storage) as the starch content goes up. This is why fresh from the field sweet corn tastes so much sweeter/better than the same corn even a few hours later, as anyone who has had truly fresh-from-the-stalk corn will attest. (Interestingly, with potatoes in storage, the reverse happens, with some of their starches gradually turning to sugar over time.)
Secondly, the starch to sugar conversion is a process that actually requires very little energy INPUT as a percentage of the total energy required to produce ethanol via distillation.
Next, commercial quality corn as it is currently raised in the USA and many other countries requires much greater energy INPUTS and equipment necessary to prepare the ground for planting, plant/ fertilize, care for in terms of insect and disease control, harvest, store and transport than does sugar cane, which is not generally grown for direct human consumption.
Sugar BEETS are also probably much more energy efficient to convert to ethanol than is corn, for much the same reasons as sugar cane (PLUS they have a much higher sugar yield per acre than does either sugar cane or corn). Corn or sugar beets that are NOT grown for human or animal consumption would not need the same level of inputs, as a fermenter doesn't care how pretty an ear of corn or a beet is, or how it tastes.
The energy required to MAKE, operate and maintain the equipment needed to produce and handle a crop, as well as that used in conversion, is also part of the energy equation, so in Brazil, by using sugar cane waste products and ethanol as fuel for some of the equipment needed in the total production process, this also decreases the overall outside energy inputs which would typically be coming from other sources (coal/oil/natural gas/off site electrical generation) in this country.
With no-till practices becoming more wide spread all the time world wide, plus increases in fuel efficiency of the typical farm equipment being used, closer monitoring of growing conditions and then being able to tailor inputs to specific areas even within a particular field through GPS mapping and control of farming equipment, the total (gross) energy inputs required for successfully growing and then bringing to market corn as well as other field crops, are becoming smaller. Genetic improvement, (both traditional selection/selective breeding as well as newer techniques of gene splicing) of corn, sugar beets, and other commercial crops have historically, and today continue to increase their per acre yields tremendously over time.
It is quite possible that with an orientation towards developing possibly non-edible strains of corn, beets as well as other non traditional foodstuffs as sugar sources grown specifically for feedstock in ethanol production, and in using land that is currently unsuitable for producing a profitable crop, energy inputs required per unit yield of ethanol may change considerably.
Some of the ideas and information i got in this discussion I think my problem will be finish.,.
_________________
Aprilaire Humidifier (http://www.aprilairehumidifierparts.com/)
Personally, I'm concerned the government jumped on the E85 bandwagon. With grain-based ethanol, the price is determined by commodity pricing. The more used, the lower the supply and higher the price. Also, alcohol does not lend itself well to transportation over long distances.In areas where corn is not grown in large enough quantities, E85 is not viable. I don't believe ANY material that is "food" is a good idea.... at some point, the demand for the commodity will drive the price up and be reflected in food prices.
Brazil has problems growing enough for ethanol production, so not a real good example. IMHO, E85 is a disaster waiting to happen. If we are to change to a "greener" society, I would feel better about something that is a HUGE natural resource... natural gas. Supplies are plentiful, pollution is low, and technology exists to retrofit (economically).
I feel the only reason E85 was chosen is the power of the lobbyists in Washington. Somebody got their palm greased and it sure wasn't me....
Quote from: pintoman2009 on May 07, 2006, 10:16:59 PM
i heard ethanal is supposed to clog gas lines my dad was tellin me that truckers put the e-85 in their trucks and i guess it clogs their gas lines but i dont kno
I think you are thinking of Biodiesel which is often derived from veggie/corn oil, similar to E-85. Bio diesels cleans up fuel systems and tends to clog filters and things until the tank and lines are all cleaned out.