High content Ethanol in SL's

[Olazz]

I read an interesting piece in the paper yesterday that from next year the content of Ethanol in unleaded fuel, will increase from 5% to 10% following an EU directive; of course the UK will follow this blindly as usual, but lets not get side tracked.

The article went o to say that this will affect all cars manufactured prior to 1993 as they will NOT be able to run on fuel with that % of Ethanol content.

So does anyone have an opinion on this, or is this just an ill-informed journo spouting nonsense?

[JamesL]

Often discussed but the most comprehensive write up I found was Peter's

http://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=11150.0

[Raymond]

Interesting.  Is ethanol different in Europe?  Here in Florida, we have no choice.  E10 and even E15 are almost all that is available.  I've found one station that sells alcohol free regular octane and it's 24 cents per gallon more than 93 octane.  I have talked to a couple of other vintage car owners who are having real problems.  If you thought SU carburetors were trouble before...   I'm only averaging about 3,000 miles per year, but so far after running E10 93 octane, my car is showing no serious ill effects.

Still, burning food for transport is lunacy!  The price of corn here in the US has more than doubled in the past two years because of this folly, and we are no less dependent on imported oil.  There is plenty of evidence that fuel economy goes down with ethanol.  So, we're burning more food and still burning more than 4,000 gallons of petroleum in gasoline per second in the US, (figures from the US Dept. of Energy for 2010).  E15 will only make matters worse. 

The Historic Vehicle Association has a program called Ethano!  http://www.historicvehicle.org/Commissions/Commissions/Legislative/Say-no-to-E-15-fuel
Check it out.

[Sirasila]

Here in Thailand we have the same problem. Gasoline with 95Octane and 91 Octane are becoming less available.  Most stations nowadays carry 95 Octane E10 and 91 Octane E20 and E85.  I have been lucky enough to live a short drive from a station with Regular Octane95 but that closed down last week.  I'm probably going to have to resort to regular 91 Octane that is still scarcely available.  The problem with using Ethenol E10 is supposedly that they chew up on the rubber parts and O rings of the older engines and will cause problems in the long run.  I'm all ears if someone here have a way to make our engines compatible with these E10s.  

[Benz Dr.]

Interesting.  Is ethanol different in Europe?  Here in Florida, we have no choice.  E10 and even E15 are almost all that is available.  I've found one station that sells alcohol free regular octane and it's 24 cents per gallon more than 93 octane.  I have talked to a couple of other vintage car owners who are having real problems.  If you thought SU carburetors were trouble before...   I'm only averaging about 3,000 miles per year, but so far after running E10 93 octane, my car is showing no serious ill effects.

Still, burning food for transport is lunacy!  The price of corn here in the US has more than doubled in the past two years because of this folly, and we are no less dependent on imported oil.  There is plenty of evidence that fuel economy goes down with ethanol.  So, we're burning more food and still burning more than 4,000 gallons of petroleum in gasoline per second in the US, (figures from the US Dept. of Energy for 2010).  E15 will only make matters worse.  

The Historic Vehicle Association has a program called Ethano!  http://www.historicvehicle.org/Commissions/Commissions/Legislative/Say-no-to-E-15-fuel
Check it out.

Ray,
better get your facts straight. People don't eat field corn - animals do. Once the starch is extracted from the corn the left overs are DDG ( dried distilers grains ) and is fed to cattle, chickens or hogs. Only a small fraction of field corn is used for direct human consumption and then it will be a corn variety with special traits. Corn flakes would be one example but even that is a special variety which is not fed to animals.
As for lower milage - I doubt that. Ethanol adds oxygen to the fuel which makes it burn cleaner. Anything that promotes cleaner burning with add economy to your engine. I saw no diffrence when we switched over some years ago. It mayn not be higher but it sure didn't go lower.

As for ethanol asddng to the price of things or the increase in the price of corn adding massively to inflation - think again. The price of oil is the major cause of increased costs from food stuffs to funiture. It costs more to move all of this stuff around. If we weren't producing ethanol your cost for a gallon of fuel would be higher still.

Who would you rather give your money to, the American farmer or some guy in Saudi Arabia? Before the price of corn went up it was about $2.30 a bushel. Massive subsidies were required to prop the system up in the forn of the US farm bill which would suggest that maybe the prices were a bit too low to begin with.

[Naj ✝︎]

Anybody tried Miller's VSPe?

http://www.moss-europe.co.uk/shop/viewproducts.aspx?plateindexID=10371

Naj

[paults1]

Star Tron is a enzyme fuel tratment that cures ethanol (E-10) problems. 1 oz. treats 6 gallons. Works for all 2 cycle & 4 cycle engines.  Our local Stihl dealer & repair shop recommends this product.  I use it in my yard equipment but not in my 230SL, yet.  Waiting for more conclusive evidence for the SL engines.  I wonder if it will reduce the octane because the ethanol is used to boast octane according to the labels on the E-10 gas pumps here in Illinois. Further info. is on their web site www.startron.com.
Regards, Paul '63 230SL

[Jordan]

I was talking about this (the ethanol in gas) a few months ago with our local service station owner.  He told me that none of the gas stations in the Niagara peninsula have any ethanol in their gas.  All of our gas comes from the Nanticoke refinery on Lake Erie apparently and it is so old that it was never retrofitted or upgraded to add ethanol to the fuel.  If this is the case (maybe Dan knows more) you are all welcome to visit Niagara and fill up your tanks. 

[Benz Dr.]

Some fuel has it and some doesn't. I look at this a little bit like when they stopped putting lead in gas some years ago. It affected only the cheapest junk that America could put out which at the time was during the 70's. None of that stuff is around now and not becasuse of unleaded fuel but mostly because everything made back then was junk.

Next time I'm up in Niagara I'll fill up. 

[Richard Madison]

On the way back from Tom Sargeant's annual gathering of Pagodas with the traditional Chili lunch, stopped for gas on the New Jersey Turnpike (Sunoco). The petrol pump had a sticker that said: "May contain up to 10% Ethanol"...so we don't know what we're buying as far as Ethanol content..but the car seemed OK after a fill up. Not sure if there will be long term affects.

Richard M, NYC

[mdsalemi]

One question and one comment, Richard--

First, how did your car run on this trip down to Tom's

Comment: ethanol in normal concentrations ~10%, will not cause any immediate runnability issues.  The whole problem appears to be corrosion and related over the long term, like smoking cigarettes, or salt on the roads, or too much fat-laden food.  One tank won't kill you...

[Raymond]

Hi Dan,

WRT "People don't eat field corn - animals do."  People eat animals.  At least most of us do.  That still makes food corn part of the food chain.  If you want to burn food for transportation, you should burn sugar cane.  The BTUs per acre are staggeringly more efficient than corn.  The subsidies that farmers were getting are somewhat offset by the subsidies paid to support the manufacture of gasahol.  I'd be fine with that if the subsdies paid to Exxon, Conoco and the like were taken away and given to the corn squeezers.  Maybe then they could fund a search for an energy-efficient way to make it.

Anecdotally, I just made a run to Atlanta and Back in the '89 Bimmer.  350 miles each way.  The tank of fuel I bought on the way up was 10% alcohol.  On the way back, with the reserve light on, I found a place that had "No alcohol" fuel.  Temperatures and time of day were about the same.  I averaged 5 mph faster coming home.  I got 18.8 mpg on the E10 and 19.4 on the pure petrol.  This is only one instance and certainly isn't proof of theory.  I just found it interesting that I got better mileage driving faster without the alcohol.  

There is substantial evidence that alcohol is harder on rubber than petrol.  

To the original question; I have an opinion and my feeling is still that corn is not a good answer to petroleum...yet.

[Benz Dr.]

OK Ray,
what US State has the most cattle? And don't go look it up on the net, OK? 

 In the mid west, where most of the corn in NA is grown, I haven't seen any sugar cane fields, so that's not going to work. After the starch is extracted from corn what's left is fed to animals, so nothing is being wasted. There is also a lot of carbon dioxide from this process that is used in the soft drink industry. There are things made from corn that would really surprise most people and it has many uses. Even the insulator on a spark plug is made from corn.

The conversion ratio from corn to ethanol is about 2 to 1. Feeding corn to cattle is about 3 to 1. For every three pounds of corn you feed you can get roughly 1 pound of gain. This doesn't factor in other things such as hay or silage. In other words, a 1,200 pound steer will need more than three pounds of food every day. I raised cattle for over 30 years so I'm kind of familiar with what they do.

All kinds of things get subsidies, that's hardly new. Since I don't farm in the US, I really don't know what they get, or if US farmers see all that much anymore. There was a time when there was an export subsidy but I hink that was replaced by the US farm bill. I believe that contained land set-asides or conservation acres, which is basically paying people not to farm their land. We have no such program here at all. The only things I get a small break on is the price of crop insurance. I pay a certain premium per acre and the Feds kick in about the same amount. We also have an income stabilization program that tops up a certain amount per acre. All of these programs have to meet both NAFTA and GATT treaties as well as WTO requirements or a countervail will follow.

I guess with the political and economic climate in the US and other countries people are looking at who gets what more than ever.

Now, if you could tell me where I put my car keys, I'd have less time to post about agriculture. 

     

[Rick Newton]

I have just purchased a product by "Lucas Oil Products" called Safeguard Ethanol Fuel Conditioner which is designed to prevent the corrosion effects of ethanol based fuels. The additive comes in a 16 oz. bottle and can be used to treat up to 80 gallons of fuel...cost is about $10.00 for the bottle.

At this time,I am not able to comment on it's results as I have just added to my gas.