Great ethanol warning

[smhardesty]

I guess this is the best place for this. If not, feel free to move it where it should be.

I have had a few discussions with people recently about ethanol. A couple of the guys I talked with flat out disputed that ethanol causes any problems in internal combustion engines. It just so happens that both of them are farmers that grow corn. Strange, isn't it? LOL! After what my own automotive mechanic has told me and what I have seen inside carbs on small engines that have sat for extended periods with an ethanol blend in them, I'm pretty sure ethanol isn't really good for ANY internal combustion engine. I'm doubly sure it's not good for small engines that sit in the shed for 6 months at a time. That's especially true for any engine that the owner does nothing to prepare the equipment for winter storage. Anyway, I found the screenshot below while searching for additional info on ethanol blended gas. I think it explains the harm that blended gas can cause in a really simplified, yet informative, manner. I intend to print this on an 8"x11" sheet of card stock, stuff it inside a clear, protective sleeve, and then staple it to one of the walls in my garage. I do have a couple of plastic gas caps with symbols indicating that ONLY 5% or 10% ethanol blend is acceptable and also shows that 15% is NOT acceptable.

I did get some good news regarding gasoline available in my area. I thought there was no place in town to buy straight unleaded. My dentist actually told me about a place that offers pure unleaded. He has refused to put blended gas in any of his vehicles or in any of his OPE. One of the two truck stops we have in town has one, single pump that is for straight unleaded. It costs an extra 10 cents a gallon, give or take, but with gas at $3.25 to $3.50, what difference does a dime a gallon make? LOL! I'll be buying 100% of my gas from there effective immediately. I'm going to be REAL curious to see what happens to my mileage. I keep great records of every fill up in the car, so should be able to detect any change in mileage. We'll see.

Oh, and the second point in the screenshot is exactly why I run a can of Seafoam though my car pretty regularly. I know there are other products that will do the same thing, or even better, but since I use Seafoam for so many other things that's what I stick in the car. I was just told recently that the best thing to use for small amounts of water in a vehicle's gas tank is isopropyl alcohol sold at parts stores. I've never tried it, but might get a little to keep on hand. I haven't yet researched it, but I'm wondering what the difference is between the isopropyl alcohol sold at parts stores and isopropyl alcohol sold at pharmacies or even Walmart. Is it the same thing?

 

[ILENGINE]

Point 1 is true because they are designed to operate on straight gas

Point 2 is true just because it is the same as water in your gas, and water doesn't burn, but ethanol contained a small percent of water as part of production and can be stable at 70 degrees but can phase separate at 0 degrees even in an air tight container.

Point 3 is false by omission. Ethanol is not corrosive by itself. The water and other contaminates combine to form a mild acid which is corrosive. Ethanol has a lower combustion temp than straight gas so actually burns cooler. The issue with ethanol causing overheating and engine damage is caused by the extra oxygen contained in the ethanol combined with having an uncontained burn as compared to gas which causes 2 strokes to run leaner which causes more heat, but the other side of the coin is ethanol doesn't mix well with 2 stroke oil so can potentially cause a straight gas effect. 2 strokes can be designed to operate on E85 or even E100 without ill effects if they are tuned for it. A few years back Makita was testing a system that changed the carb setting and timing to allow their 2 stroke products to operate on E85.

Little over simplified explanation

 

[bertsmobile1]

Ethanol has less energy than petrol so if you are running it in an engine that is jetted to lean burn strait fuel then it will be running very lean ( hole in piston type lean ) however that is not a problem for engines designed to burn it
Ethanol burns slower than petrol so the timing needs to be advanced just a smidge on engines not designed to burn it .
Ethanol will adsorb moisture which is good & bad.
The good bit is it will scavenge water that has accumulated in fuel tank & run it through the engine ( where it increases power ) .
The bad bit is when it is water saturated any more water will cause it to drop out ( phase separation )
The water ethanol mix is acidic and will cause galvanic corrosion to zinc plated parts and to a far lesser extent to cast zinc like carbs
The ethanol / water mix will support the growth of bacteria , just the same as the bacteria that can grow in diesel tanks left standing for a long time .

And remember it is only 5% to 15 % so it is not very much ethanol in fuel .
Brazil runs e85 and has been doing so for decades
South Africa ran e95 during the BS embargo in engines designed to run strait petrol without the entire country coming to a grinding hault although they did ban the use of all 2 stroke engines at the time .
While ethanol is touted as a enviromental pollution solution in reality it is a political & financial idea done in order to reduce the amount of imported oil .
Like all of the solutions looking for problem ( seafoam , etc ) weather e?? will cause you grief is very much dependent upon a host of factors that will be unique to your location & engine use .
Naturally the oil industry does everything in its power to accentuate the minor problems that can occur with e?? use and the corn lobby does everything they can to push the benefits of using e??
Some where in the middle is the truth
Bioactive sludge in the bottom of your carb is very much as problematic as varnish from strait fuel and a lot easier to clean out .

 

[Hammermechanicman]

I run a mower shop. I love ethanol!

 

[7394]

run a mower shop. I love ethanol!

I don't, so my stuff runs only on 100% Non-corn gas, even my truck likes the 100% better.

 

[Hammermechanicman]

I have 5 chainsaws, 2 string trimmers, hedge trimmer, pole saw, lawn boy 2 stroke mower, tiller, z turn, lawn tractor, IH LoBoy tractor, 3 generators, chipper shredder, mantis tiller, pressure washer, blower, 36" walk behind that all run on E10 with no issues. The FS80 stihl string trimmer is 24 years old and has had at least a hundred tanks of fuel through it all E10. Still has original fuel lines and never had the carb off yet. All 2 strokes get drained and run completely dry at the end of the season and the 4 strokes get filled up with no stabilizer. Everything runs fine.
Customers leave things too long and not stored properly and that makes me money.

 

[smhardesty]

Point 1 is true because they are designed to operate on straight gas

Point 2 is true just because it is the same as water in your gas, and water doesn't burn, but ethanol contained a small percent of water as part of production and can be stable at 70 degrees but can phase separate at 0 degrees even in an air tight container.

Point 3 is false by omission. Ethanol is not corrosive by itself. The water and other contaminates combine to form a mild acid which is corrosive. Ethanol has a lower combustion temp than straight gas so actually burns cooler. The issue with ethanol causing overheating and engine damage is caused by the extra oxygen contained in the ethanol combined with having an uncontained burn as compared to gas which causes 2 strokes to run leaner which causes more heat, but the other side of the coin is ethanol doesn't mix well with 2 stroke oil so can potentially cause a straight gas effect. 2 strokes can be designed to operate on E85 or even E100 without ill effects if they are tuned for it. A few years back Makita was testing a system that changed the carb setting and timing to allow their 2 stroke products to operate on E85.

Little over simplified explanation

I think it was over simplified due to the website it was on and that website's viewers. It came from the "Family Handyman" site. I expect point number three was intentionally worded so as to not totally confuse all the site's viewers. At least, that's kind of what I figure, but I could be wrong.

 

[smhardesty]

I don't, so my stuff runs only on 100% Non-corn gas, even my truck likes the 100% better.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how much difference running pure unleaded makes in my car. Since I found that we actually have at least one place in town that sells pure unleaded I'm going to run it exclusively for a while.

 

[smhardesty]

Customers leave things too long and not stored properly and that makes me money.

That's when I first noticed what an ethanol blend can do to a carb. I ended up with my dad's Troy-Bilt tiller. I got it a couple of years before we bought this place in town 6 years ago. I had already stopped gardening when I got the thing so it sat in the shed until we moved here. Then, I left it in the back corner of my shed until I decided to sell it a little less than a year ago. I pushed it into the garage and decided to check everything out. The first thing I did was try and start it. No go. I pulled the carb and popped it open. I couldn't believe how corroded and rusty the inside was. Everything was crusted including the walls of the carb in places. I tried soaking it and cleaning it, but it was too far gone.

It was shortly after that I was telling my auto mechanic about it and he told me he regularly gets old farm trucks and other equipment that don't get used regularly that have carbs that look just like it. He said the only thing all the equipment has in common is that they all had ethanol blended fuel in them and they all sat for extended periods of time without being started and run. I'm sure that is probably the biggest factor in ethanol related problems.

 

[ILENGINE]

That's when I first noticed what an ethanol blend can do to a carb. I ended up with my dad's Troy-Bilt tiller. I got it a couple of years before we bought this place in town 6 years ago. I had already stopped gardening when I got the thing so it sat in the shed until we moved here. Then, I left it in the back corner of my shed until I decided to sell it a little less than a year ago. I pushed it into the garage and decided to check everything out. The first thing I did was try and start it. No go. I pulled the carb and popped it open. I couldn't believe how corroded and rusty the inside was. Everything was crusted including the walls of the carb in places. I tried soaking it and cleaning it, but it was too far gone.

It was shortly after that I was telling my auto mechanic about it and he told me he regularly gets old farm trucks and other equipment that doesn't get used regularly that have carbs that look just like it. He said the only thing all the equipment has in common is that they all had ethanol blended fuel in them and they all sat for extended periods of time without being started and run. I'm sure that is probably the biggest factor in ethanol related problems.

Basically the people run their equipment on a regular basis don't have problems