15% ethanol-Ok or not?

The little layer to be concerned about...
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Dave,
very interesting post there.
So were these beakers ethanol-enhanced fuel, or ethanol-enhanced fuel saturated with H2O to determine alcohol content?

Of more interest, how are you defining "failure" in the rubber fuel hose within 1 hour, and under what conditions? BTW, when I was working in fuel systems testing, E22 was the mid-range bogey for corrosiveness.

 

The later, as stated I was testing for alcohol content early on. After a good amount of discussions with Chemists and my hose Engineers that understand this far more than I, it seems there are multiple levels of corrosiveness at various levels of alcohol content. As each manufacturer / distributor has their own proprietary blend of additives to hold this all in suspension there were far too many variables for someone like me to chase this any further. All I was worried about was containing what we were given out of the pumps.

Soggy wet on the outside of the jacket under low pressure (sub 12 PSI) and then the hose turned hard as a broom stick as soon as it dried out. New hose off the spool, removed from the car after an hour of FI set up on an old Lucas Injection system. A 4' section held at one end would stand straight out without drooping

 

This is a scary thought!!!!!! Let me lay out an issue with the State Of Washington ethanol regulations.

We own and operate several Subaru Service Centers, and have noticed some premature failures of emissions componants, O2 sesnsors, and cats, not paticular to specific Subaru but 2005 and newer Subaru's and all motors and models.

The factory has done some extensive testing and they found extremly high levels of ethanol residue. Upon further research it was determined that in the State of Washington there is no accounting/regulation/ specific matrix for who adds ethanol, or excatly how much, as well as there is NO oversite either State or Fedral to monitor ethanol levels at the local pump/stayion level. The states attitude is the petroleum industry is a fine upstanding group of guys and surley can regulate them selves, so why should we?????

Now it has been determined that this product will separate over time with out a stir or movement. Lets now assume that you frequent a station that happens to have a slow moving tank of ethanol fuel and they get a new delivery which will stir the tank bring up the speparated ethanol from the previous load then adding the new load, you now have a far greater amount of ethanol pumped into your tank, at any given time.

The factory has estimated depedning on all of the above factors you may be puming nearly 40% ethanol at any given time. They also found that in some batchs of ethanol/gas ethanol had been added on 3 different occations to the same load. The left hand did not know what the right hand already had done( can we say lack of monitoring)

This over blending of ethanol has shown to cause damage to emissions componants downstream after the fuel has burned, by taking out 02 sensors, cats by causing the catalist to overburn internaly and explode the honeycomb inside and clog the cat complety. Thus causing a severe overheat condition on your engine, and comprimising your exhaust system and valve train. The automotive manufactures are well aware of these issues and as they are responsible for emissions systems up to 80,000 miles or 8 years, they are spending zillions of dollars in warranty repairs for this problem each year, even though its really not their fault or their system design. guess who pays for this, in added costs, you the consumer.

We have had double failure of cats on the same vehicle over a period of time, it was supposed that the cat was defective and the OBD2 code told us PO420, cat below threshold, replace. We did as told and found that it was not really the cat gone bad but an over abundace of ethanol clogging the cat and causing the check engine light to set. The factory has determined that the system was working,but its the stuff in the fuel that caused the failure. So what is catagorized as an emission system failure is not necessarly a failure of an actual componant but the ethanol added to the fuel.

So we really never know for sure what actual amount of ethanol is in the blend, we will not know for sure exactly how much ethanol we are pumping into our cars at any given time. This is not a case of if a little is good more is better!!!!!!!!!

Sorry to be so wordy,

Howard Musolf
1981 308gtsi
1982 400i Cabriolet
Maserati Spider
2 many brass era cars.

 

Beef, poultry prices would come down. So would other crop prices. Farmers who never grew corn before, are doing so simply because of ethanol. This is at the expense of of other crops.

Supply/demand

 

We were just notified by Subaru to direct our customers to the "Top Tier Fuel' website.

This site contains a wealth of information regarding the best quality fuel and which suppliers monitor and provide the cleanest and most regulated, with additives and of course ethanol and the minimum and maximum % allowed. Major and smaller suppliers in your locations are listed. Check the list out you may be surprised at who is good and who is not so good for providing quality fuel for our cars.

Interesting to note, Costco, Safeway, Fred Meyer, and Arco are visibly missing from these regulated suppliers. I guess there is a reason why the price is less these retailers. No more cheap gas for my toys!!!!!!!

Hope this helps,

Howard Musolf
1981 308 gtsi
1982 400i Cabriolet
Maserati Spider
2 many brass era cars.

 

Howard,
do you see any fuel trim codes in any of these Subis? Presumably they only allow the trims to go so far before setting a code (in the P017x range, perhaps) for System Too Lean. Or else, can you look at the fuel trims on the vehicles that come in with problems and see if the system is adding lots of fuel? If the vehicle is really seeing a high percentage of ethanol, the fuel injection trims should show that it was trying to compensate. Have you had a chance to sample any fuel from the cars that have had problems? It's quite disturbing to think that the state (which presumably regulates fuel stations and their pumps, tanks, etc) doesn't regulate fuel quality.

 

This is why I avoid stations if I see a refueling truck in the vicinity. You never know for sure, of course.

 

Our Subaru diagnostic tool "Hitatchi Select Monitor", runs thru a lap top that has been programed to show all phases of runability both normal, and then on the hi and low side.

In other words, we can take down stream live output from a monitored vehicle and compare with a perfect factory pattern. This also allows us to make input changes in all parameters of sensor, sender, or in the case of the cat add or subtract input to see if with a slight modifacation we can clear up or make worse the reading.

If we can cure or clear a reading by ECM modifacation, the Select Monitor will allow is to modify the parameters of the input signal from the ECM signal to overcome the low or hi reading. While this is avalible there is a limit to the % of change the monitor will allow, I'm sure due to Fedral regulations.

We have found in our testing that even though we had a cat code PO420 cat below threshold, and the schematic calls for replacement, by modifying the input signal, changing the O2 sensor readings, we actually cleaned the PO420 up enough to save the cat, which was a saving our customer, over $1000.00 parts and labor. Interesting enough, that car is still running today with the same old cat, nearly 1 year later.

The other componant was to have our customer change his fuel brand. He went to one reccomeded on the fuel web site, and now uses a quality brand of measured ethanol fuel. we have monitored his onboard memory systems for the past year and all numbers are well within the normal ranges. One advantage to our diagnostic system is that it is totaly portable and is especially designed to hook up and drive the car under all types of conditions, while keeping and downloading input to the laptop for review after the driveability run.

Hey Rifledriver, care to weight in on this, I'd be very interested in your expertise,

Howard Musolf
1981 308gtsi
1982 400i Cabriolet
Maserati Spider
2 many brass era cars

 

leave it for the russian martini and out of your (gas) tank

 

I am surprised the Feds allow any adjustability of the engine operating parameters in a late model car. Quite a bonus regardless of the % that can be changed, every little bit helps. We have the same ability to live monitor and capture data with the SD tester on the Ferrari's. As antiquated as it is it is still a necessity to deal with the fine points of these cars. I would be very interested in what degree your fuel trim can be changed on the Subaru's.

By the very nature of the system design, using alcohol is completely backwards. All of the programmed fuel system curves are done so based on pure gasoline, at least those designed pre 02. For near 5 years now we have been working on a solution for this by redesigning the O2 sensor and it is this research that led us to making our Gold Connector Kit. There has to be constants in place and it didn't take long to see the need for that modification. Once that could be considered a constant we then had to deal with the variables of altitude (in our area alone we will change 5000 feet in a 1 hr drive period), temperature extremes (-20 to +110), humidity (we go from desert on the front range to quite high humidity in the Mountains) and then the complete unknown of what alcohol content would be pumped at the next fill up. When we thought all of the variables were on the table we then started testing for the absorbed water content in the alcohol and found another huge variance in that. The effects of water in the combustion process then adds another host of variables, not all negative but variables none the less.

With our new O2 sensor design we found we could deal with a good 80% of the variables but that isn't good enough for real world driving. Anything changed in the way of O2 sensors would have to be tested by the Feds. and the folks I am working with are connected at the hip with them. Granted it would be in a controlled lab setting as they are very narrow minded and don't want to be bothered with variables we encounter in the real world. We continue to pursue this but the file of data is near overwhelming due to the variables. Simply put, we have to decrease the amount of variables to deal with this effectively. No one system can adjust properly for gas, alcohol AND water, let alone the additives holding this in suspension as each requires a different fuel curve to operate efficiently enough to not damage downstream emissions components.

In today's world of burning pond scum and pig food, the 2.5 to 7.3 Motronic systems have to be kept in a very high state of tune as they are on the very edge having to deal with variables in what the engines are fed. We figured out how to contain this mixture.... how to burn it effectively in an engine designed to be run on the ragged edge is a whole different matter.

 

Kinda brings to mind how the Feds. are dealing w/the Gulf disaster.

Sorry for the hijack!

Very good info.!! Thanks!

 

good info. tks

 

I thought this is the what products like Stabil is suppose to prevent. I use the marine Stabil version in every tank of gas. It is suppose to do an even better job of preventing the separation and water absorption. Here we have 10% ethanol all year round.

Any thoughts or data on the utility of these products?

Robert

 

No hijack at all. Add to your statement, """they are very narrow minded and don't want to be bothered with variables """ and I completely agree.

Every chemical, petrol and structural scientist and engineer nationwide having any knowledge of this type of problem should have had a plane ticket show up on their desk within 2 days of the rig falling. Easy for some putz like me to critique when I know nothing other than what the news states. "I'm in charge!" OF WHAT?! Another low point our kids will be dealing with for a long time.

I have to think the fallout of this event will once again change what we have to deal with in the way of fuel. The natural progression will be to hard sell fuel that has a lower environmental risk associated with it. Its not only here to stay, it will get to be more of an issue. Cant keep the CEL's off? The Cash for Clunkers program should show you the current mindset regarding answers from the regulatory boards, cant fix it... buy a new car. Follow the money, they have no intention of looking for solutions, there is no money in that, just look at the price of corn futures over the last 10 years. Most of the vehicles involved in the Govmnt testing where 5-6 years old.... I have socks older than that. The final solutions for older cars will only come from grassroot efforts where there is little to no money to be made.

Needless to say, Im a little biased let alone frustrated. As a pro in the industry, we are expected to have the answers... for which question?! We dont even know what the questions are yet. This likens back to the time when computers first started showing up on cars and mechanics had to adapt and learn or change to restoration work only. Times are a changin...

 

Most of the vehicles involved in the Govmnt testing where 5-6 years old....

This is the part that is annoying.
ALL of these new cars have Fuel Injection.
With FI, there is no need to oxygenate fuel.

WTF are we still putting Ethanol in Gas?

 

The high-pressure fuel pump on my 2009 BMW 335i just went bad after 5,100 miles. The car would *barely* start and ran rough as heck...puffing out dense black smoke (I thought I was on an episode of LOST).

The 335 engine / fuel pump has been having this problem since they were introduced in 2007. The dealer says it is due to ethanol in the gasoline. They also told me that I received the 3rd generation fuel pump but that 2010 335s were still having this problem.

So, don't think that just because you have a new car you are immune to this ethanol damage to internal parts.

 

Same issues the Ferrari's are having.

When the molds are finished for the in tank rubber fuel system components there will be a solution to that problem that fixes far more than just the Ferrari marque. It took a good bit of effort to figure how to mold the liner material we use in our fuel hose. Once done with that it took / is taking a good bit of $! to make molds to produce those "rubber" parts. Likelyhood of seeing a payback on that project is near nil until it is expanded into high volumn marques, dealing with it on Ferrari's is nothing but a pain.

I have been preaching / griping about this for 5 years now, this is a safety issue that folks need to take very seriously. The later cars have for the most part solved the issues using Poly lines for the external components but the earlier cars are still quite vunerable to external leaks that have a habit of finding hot components. That said, they still use the failing rubber components inside the tanks???! To a degree this isnt all the fault of the car manufacturers, they too are dealing with a moving target but also have some job security built into their products.

All of the catalogs say their components are "Alcohol Resistant"... the game has changed since those were printed and alcohol is not the only problem!

"""WTF are we still putting Ethanol in Gas?"""

Because its PC and PROFITABLE. How many have thrown in the towel when their daily driver is giving them fits and buy a new car? Follow the money.

 

& to the letter, they mean only 'resistant'.

Amen to that.

 

& if the feds were on top of it, they would have frozen the assets of BP, TransAtlantic, & anyone else having a big part in this mess so that we 'taxpayers' don't end up bailing them out.

This could be just the 'short' of it. If the cut & cap attempt fails, it won't be 'till August when the relief wells take the pressure off to put an end to this gusher. This is where the 'bailout' will really take hold.

 

Not at all. Regardless of what the BMW dealer says, a 2007-2009 vehicle does not fail due to ethanol. New BMW fuel pumps are failing as well (as in, less than 500 miles). The problem with the 335 is that they are direct injection and the fuel pump runs at very high pressure compared to a "normal" car. The pumps aren't engineered well.

The dealer isn't going to admit that it's a defect in the vehicle is all. He probably is going to have it in his shop for 30 days (pumps are severely backordered) and doesn't want you to think about doing a buyback.

 

What's wrong with "can't fix it, but a new one?" If in fact you can't fix it, you should buy a new one.

Cash for Clunkers is not about ethanol, it's about 1) emissions and 2) car sales stimulus.

FWIW I completely agree on the uselessness of ethanol, but blaming Cash for Clunkers is mindless mudslinging.

(I'm not saying I agree with Cash for Clunkers either.)

 

The thought did cross my mind that they might be BS'ing me on the ethanol to pass the blame and avert attention from a poorly engineered pump. Who knows...

The good news is that the car was only at the dealer for 48 hours before we had it back. I have read about plenty of folks waiting weeks for this fix.

 

Because of the agriculture industry and its donations to politicians.

There is only one rational for putting ethanol in gasoline--octane; but with modern crude refining techniques (especially those using natural gas to sweeten the crude) there are plenty of light distilates comming out to blend into gassoline that gives it the octane our cars need.

The really sad part, is how much money the government gives back to agriculture.......