Modern Fuels...are they cheating us?

I'm not sure why you thought it necessary to start a new thread to point out another recent thread that addresses a problem that really has been around for years.

Who is being cheated by who?

 

if the fuel companies knowingly produce the type of fuel being discussed here,
shouldn't they be held responsible for selling a potentially dangerous product?
why not go one step further and place the onus on the epa for causing this
coercion in the first place.
pretty hard to justify clean air at the risk of incinerating a human life!

 

I think the biggest issue is making people aware of fuel line importance, and not just taking the sales guy's word for it. As I posted in that thread NAPA ia not a very reliable source for fuel hose. They don't seem to know what in the hell they are talking about and change their reccomendation daily. I have about 70 dollars worth of hose that I can't use because of a badly informed sales person at NAPA, and coolant rated hose on my cross over tube that has been on there for 6 years.
Many of us live in areas where NAPA and Bumper to Bumper are the only close and easy suppliers of parts. DIY owners need information. I would love to just send my cars to a Ferrari trained mechanic when I have a problem. For me that would mean a 600 mile trip.

 

I've bought a lot of useless stuff over the years as well. Keep in mind that the sales guy at the parts store might know next to nothing about the products he's selling beyond looking it up in the book. There are a couple stores near me that call me with questions about products because they know that I do research before coming to the store. UPS and Fedex are where most of my parts come from but I've gotten to be pretty good at knowing what I can get locally.

The reality of the "boutique" car business is that very few of us are near an OEM parts source.

 

Hell, I have been doing this for near four decades and always thought that low pressure fuel hose in a low pressure fuel application would most likely work fine. Some industries are changing faster than many of the aftermarket suppliers can adapt. Not much can be taken for granted any longer in this business.

Dave

 

I cant say as I understand this statement.... Enlighten me if you would.

Dave

 

It isnt just the sales persons at fault. It wasnt that long ago I pulled the fuel pumps on an F40 to find silicone coolant hose holding them together....... Now that is a real job removing half dissolved silicone from (2) fuel tanks that are highly baffled done by some folks that one would hope knew better.

 

a substantial amount (but not all) of napa coolant and fuel hose is produced by the gates corp.
it is a simple matter to go the gates website and look up the specs on the hoses of interest.they
publish the industry standards along side their products.
with a little bit of persuasion, the napa guy can furnish you with the gates equivilent hose part# and
then you'll know what you're getting. by looking at the gates spec. you'll know which napa hose to buy.

 

as a side note I know someone who purchased 5000 gals of bio diesel and it separated into vegatable oil solid after a month or so, he even tried using a heater to re melt it back down in its tank with no success

 

In Minnesota we've had ethanol in our fuel for quite a few years (how long have you been gone?). I've seen fuel hoses deteriorate quickly and cleaned a lot of "growth" from inside carbs. I've been substituting the more expensive "fuel injection" hose (and clamps) on some cars for most of 10 years. The cheaper hose works for it's application but it's life expectancy is much shorter. I guess I wasn't aware that ethanol was a "new thing" in the rest of the country.

Using coolant hose for fuel is risky business and silicone is worse than nothing.

 

I was referring to the SAE30R9 hose that is typically marketed as "fuel injection hose". It is quite a bit more expensive and typically priced by the inch rather than by the foot. In my experience it has been satisfactory for long periods of exposure where the "cheap stuff" (SAE30R7) does seem to break down more quickly. You'll note that I'm not being too specific regarding the life expectancy of these products. These are my opinions from experience, not quantitative results of a controlled study.

 

I am not sure what all the fuss is about with 10% ethanol in fuels. Over 20 years I designed and installed ethanol blending systems in Amoco fuel terminals in the midwest.

 

As I stated many times, this is nothing new regarding alcohol, yes I dealt with it for a good while back in Minnesota but never had failures of the kind I am now seeing. Life expectancy of the R7 hose went from 5 yrs to 5 mins this summer, Now That is New and in my book it no longer works for any fuel application, period. That alone is worth a new thread if it brings this issue to even one persons attention. What R9 hose have you been using for the larger sizes? I was unable to find any manufacturer that had it.

The SAE30R9 hose is made with different hose liner composition with a much lower permeation rate than the R7. An unnamed hose engineer said "dont use the R7 hose on an expensive car".... well then, "what R9 hose do you make in 1.375?" "Nothing, you have to use the R7 for that" .

It was only a matter of time..... No fuss at all here.

 

I think the oil co.'s pick a metro area to try a new formula of fuel for a while and see what happens. I think this is what is taking place because from some areas we see fuel distributors with o-rings aged and deteriorated far beyond their actual age. Phoenix is the area that comes to mind as being the worst example of something different in the fuel.

Larry Fletcher
CIS Flow Tech Llc

 

That is shocking and frightening. Who serviced the car before? I'm not asking for a specific name, but was it a Ferrari dealer? An indy who specialized in Ferraris? I can't imagine someone would take an F-40 to Joe Blow mechanic down the street.

Scott

 

When you pull up to the pump and start filling your tank, do you ever really know what your pumping in? 10% ethanol? How do you know its not 20% or higher? What else is in it? There are a lot of chemicals that manufacturers and do gooders put into our gasoline, and the mix is constantly changing. The only fuel I know of that is "pure" is aviation fuel, but few of us can really run that type of fuel "legally".

The other issue is the parts we are being sold. Most all of our parts are imported, and if we actually had a DOT that checked out the stuff they supposedly regulate, most of it would be sent back on a slow boat to China. Gone are the days when we could trust the parts we buy from suppliers and manufactures, or the pimple faced kid behind the counter at the local parts store, you almost need to have an engineering degree to know if the parts your buying will even meet the standards in use 40 years ago, much less today. And fuel? Better dust off your chemical engineering degree and buy some fancy scientific equipment, because we dont have a clue what were burning.

And not only dont we know what were burning, we dont even know its BTU rating. Have any of the older crowd among us noticed the drop in fuel economy over the last few years? Perusing the EPA website on cars and fuel economy, its interesting to note that the EPA has gone back as far as 1985 (as far as they go back?) and readjusted their fuel economy ratings downward. Virtually all cars have taken a 10-20% drop in overall fuel economy. And not just gasoline, but diesel powered cars too.

I think it would be wise to use hose and other parts in the fuel system that can handle just about any chemical that could be found in fuel, including ethanol levels above 50%. You could easily get a load of something the engine wouldnt even run on, but it would be nice to know that whatever garbage we pumped wouldnt eat up our cars fuel system in the process.

Cheating us? We were paying as high as $4 gallon for watered down low powered fuel that can eat up our fuel system. Rip off is more the term I would apply. But as long as Uncle Sammy looks the other way, not much we can do but figure it out ourselves.

 

At first I thought it was a regional thing but after some calls to other shops I found it The hose going dead soft and spongy and in turn hard as a rock once dried out) nationwide. Seems to have been happening only when the price of oil was high as I have not seen it for a few weeks when I try to recreate it in the shop.



"That is shocking and frightening. Who serviced the car before? I'm not asking for a specific name, but was it a Ferrari dealer? An indy who specialized in Ferraris? I can't imagine someone would take an F-40 to Joe Blow mechanic down the street.

Scott "
Yup, disturbing at best and I will leave it at that.



I tested the winter blend fuel from a station near my house yesterday. After paying $1.63/gal for this completely NON-Flammable Rabbit P*** I ran the test and found it to be only 9.4% alcohol. I expected higher but did not find that to be the case. The BTU's in this winter stuff is ugly as I now have to down shift the rolling chicken coop to crest some of the hills on the way to work.

If we are to take at face value much of what I read about the topic ad the seperation issues I have whitnessed in my tests I have learned a few things. First, we have always known to use stations where there is a high traffic flow and quick turn over of their tanks, this is now a Must in my opinion. Seperation can happen in underground tanks as easily as in a cars tank and the pickup for the underground tanks is at the bottom. Second, if you see the plastic bags over the pump nozzels at the station indicating that maybe one of their tanks has run out....pass on that station for a while. On my tanks at my station years back, the pickups left around 300 gallons at the bottom of the tank when it would no longer pump out. That bottom 300 gallons can be an ugly mixture that you dont want stirred up with a new fill.

Paul might have hit it. Maybe the fuel companies just put their toe in just to test the water. In my thinking I would have suspected the cause would have been a local fuel depot but indications are that is not the case as this was so wide spread after I made all the calls. Who knows, I doubt we ever will know for sure but at least the word is out and owners know what to look for and have now seen the issues on the table and can decide for themselves on the appropriate action if any.

I am going to move forward (highly reluctantly) with making the large size fuel hose as I still have not found anything satisfactory for my own use for this application but highly question if I will ever be able to sell it due to product liabilty insurance costs, we will see. The hose samples I recieved and have had in testing for 4 weeks now have shown no signs of problems in fuel from the old Maserati's tank that caused all of the problems from the start of this search. The intank rubber parts are now being prototyped in this new compound and should be done and ready to test soon. How much time can be wasted on something as basic as hose?!

Straight sections of coolant hose are done and are better than I ever hoped for and all formed hoses for 308-355 are soon to follow. I will need help from the owners to identify all of the correct lengths of given sizes as I had it all made in 6' sections so the belly pan hoses of the Mondials and 246's would be covered. I will decide on a distribution method in the next couple of days.

Dave

 

I'm curious what procedure you are using to determine alcohol content and what equipment is required to do this? Thanks.

 

The idea that fuel companies sell whatever blend they want is preposterous. The standards are governed by state and federal requirements. Here is an older fuel requirements map http://www.exxon.com/USA-English/Files/US%20Gasoline%20Map%20100102.pdf Drivability problems are most common with winter blend RFG fuels. With California blends being the worst.

 

The idea the government is watching any of this, or even cares a great deal is equally preposterous. Over the years I have many times bought fuel quantities that exceeded my fuel tanks capacity. Not once, in all the calls I made to weights and measures, have I ever gotten anything more than a run around and double talk. Also, I have personally spoken to state officials about fuel quality and BTU ratings, only to be told they didnt know, they dont test for it. The only time they seem to raise any real concern over fuel quality is when aviation fuels get mixed up and airplanes start falling from the sky.

State and federal requirements only matter if you get caught. If no one is watching and no one really cares, its just another bunch of useless legislation with no teeth. And in the rare occurance some large corporation does get caught, punishment amounts to no more than a hand slap.

 

Well, there you have it, I am not smart enough to argue a point here.

The State and Fed Regs are in place so the SAE can then advise on minimum requirements for components subjected to these fuels, or so I read.

I am testing weekly and can tell you the limits have been exceeded a number of times. Strangely, when I most expected it to happen with the winter blends, I have not seen the limits exceeded. PUSHED, yes (9.7% alcohol in one test this week and I have no idea what the margin of error is in my testing method is) but not exceeded. The times I found the limits exceeded was during the summer when the cost of oil was very high. That said, at the same time a fuel sample taken from an owners car having the fuel hoses changed only showed 4.1%..... Bear in mind, I am only testing for alcohol content, nothing else. When Bruce gets off his duff and builds me a Still I will then be able to boil down the alcohol and see how much water it contains, this I am very curious about!

I have Allen Scientific Glass right next door who is a major supplier of glass Lab equipment and they are helping me with the needed fixtures for doing the testing. Rube Goldberg would be proud. Old vacuum pump I use to pull down tires/wheels that are getting Nitrogen, glass cooling condensers, graduated flasks.... More than one person walking in and looking a bench full of "yellow liquid filled flasks" has questioned what kind of twisted stuff is going on here?