Ethanol in my gas!!!

You Americans whinge too much... we pay for regular petrol already $1.35 on average while in US you pay around 87 cents? And dont be worried, ethanol is not that bad for your car, actually its main purpose is to cut down petrol costs however here in Australia, the highest rated petrol is 100 PULP and it has 5% ethanol, the rest is 98 PULP, without ethanol.

 

try closer to $3.50 US, a gallon.............and it's only going up and up and up...........

 

No biggie, we havent seen petrol dip below $1 mark for over 2 years now, maybe more. America has petrol much cheaper than Europe and Australia... and you guys tend to drive those big V8s... argh you petrol suckers

 

CCCP is referring to .87 a liter not a gallon. He figured it at about $3.30 a gallon.

 

No worries man. 10% ethanol has been in use many years in variouos parts of the country in order to reduce emissions. It does not affect performance or hurt rubber parts. It actually helps carb cars in that parts stay cleaner and working better. The only real downside is a slight decrease in gas mileage compared to pure gas.

Dave

 

Actually it does effect performance, as you don't get as much output from ethanol compared to gasoline.

 

Its time to change for biofuel i think

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/01/14/detroit-2008-ferrari-fills-in-details-on-f430-spider-bio-fuel/

 

It sure beats sugar or pee in the gas tank............

 

some have found that it increases performance and efficiency

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/new-cars/news/2006/ethanol-10-06/tests-of-ethanol-vs.-gasoline/1006_ethanol_test_1.htm

the Koenigsegg CCXR is more powerful from Bio fuel!

"...Koenigsegg has managed to create the Bio Fuel Powered CCXR with even more spectacular performance than the standard CCX.

These two almost conflicting results are made possible due to the simple fact that the ethanol in biofuel has the positive side effect of cooling the combustion chambers, as well as a higher octane value, well over 100 RON, which gives the high power. Due to the fact that the biofuel has higher octane and cooling characteristics, the power has gone up to 1018 bhp at 7,200 rpm and the torque to 740 lb-ft at 6,100 rpm."

http://www.rsportscars.com/eng/cars/koenigsegg_ccxr.asp

 

I have been told the same.

 

What if it helps the enviroment? Horsepower over life? I don't know if it does or not, but at the rate manufacturers are increasing horsepower, I suspect we can give up a few for a good cause. Best

 

There was a good article on ethanol in the Dec issue of the Panorama magazine (for those of you also own Porsches)

Basically having 10% ethanol in the gasoline means:

Heating value
100% Gasoline = 115000 BTU/gallon
Gasoline + 10% ethanol = 111100 BTU/gallon

Air fuel ratio for perfect combustion
100% Gasoline = 14.7
Gasoline + 10% ethanol = 14.3

Theroretical driving economy
100% Gasoline = 100
Gasoline + 10% ethanol = 98

Good news is the ethanol has a naturally high octane and when mixed with gasoline will incrase the combined octane number.

Bad news is that ethanol picks up water, if you didn't drive the car on a regular basis would result in corroded parts in fuel distributor, and injectors.

 

Here in Brazil, where ethanol has become in the last few years one of the most used kinds of fuel (i believe today is actually selling more than gas because of it's lower price), we can see in magazines that besides being less agressive to nature it's actually more powerfull. Cars that run with ethanol, "flex fuel" or only ethanol, have greater output than cars that run with gas. The downside is that it gives out a lower km per liter than gas. I've heard dealers telling they're clients to run gas once in a while in "flex fuel" cars as most people only run them in ethanol. I've been told that running it with gas once in a while would prevent the engine and other small parts from being damaged after thousends of kilometers. Also, i believe that gas in Brazil has about 20% of ethanol and I have never heard of problems concerning supercars using brazillian fuel other than "dirty" gas. Can someone confirm that last information?