TheSamba.com :: View topic - 87 octane -vs- 93 octane

Fri Sep 28, 2012 10:12 pm

http://pure-gas.org/

Fri Sep 28, 2012 10:13 pm

IdahoDoug wrote: They are a total waste of taxpayer money and they are damaging the things we use them in. The program is now considered an agricultural subsidy and will never go away as a result. I'd much rather simply cut farmers a check, personally.

Ditto.

And I keep forgetting to pick up a bottle of ethanol neutralizer... my cars need it desperately since they're not driven much these days.

IdahoDoug wrote: You can find a station in your area selling "real" gasoline by googling for the website that has these locations by zip code. Can't recall it.

Already posted earlier today :wink: :

padge206 wrote: since i'm going to be going through less gas nowadays,
i'm looking at putting ONLY ethanol-free gas in my van:
http://pure-gas.org/

Living in a metro area, ethanol-free gas is a no-go. :( :evil:

Fri Sep 28, 2012 10:39 pm

good info. I've been using ethanol free gas for a while. 87 octane.

Sat Sep 29, 2012 7:09 am

From what I have heard the ethanol also deteriorates seals and anything rubber that it comes in contact. I have been warned not to let ethanol gas sit in anything if I am not running it regularly. This was from a Stihl guy, but the same principles should apply to van's sitting for winter too.

Sun Sep 30, 2012 4:43 am

I can't tell a difference between between grades. I've only run E0 gas once in my bus, but can't tell a difference there either. I'll admit, I wasn't paying attention to milage.

This is slightly off topic, but... I've never seen any damage caused by ethanol fuel. I've put about 40K miles on my 2.1 WBX running E85... put a conversion kit on it a few years back.

Mon Oct 01, 2012 4:33 pm

OMG what a difference with just topping off with 10 gallons and driving about 40 miles up the mtn from buena vista va back to the blue ridge pky. sadly after about 100 miles it started surging like it wanted to cut out but never did. so when i got to lynchburg va i found a place that sold 90 EF gas and the surging wet away soon after filling up ¯\(°_o)/¯ ) its about 100 miles back home from LB, and it ran great the rest of the way home, but oddly the exhaust started to leak at the Y pipe. regardless i think there is something to all this, i'm sold on finding and filling up when i can.

Mon Oct 01, 2012 5:05 pm

So speaking of octane, what about 85? We are currently touring the National Parks of Utah and ever since SLC the lowest 2 gas options have been 88 and 85. Where we come from they are 89 and 87 and the van has always run fine on the latter. Is 85 too low to use in a standard 2.1 WBX? Is the difference in available octanes an altitude thing? I'm confused.

Mon Oct 01, 2012 6:18 pm

IdahoDoug wrote: You can find a station in your area selling "real" gasoline by googling for the website that has these locations by zip code. Can't recall it. We have one, fortunately.
http://pure-gas.org/ Doesn;t do me any good, none in MA, RI or CT!

Mon Oct 01, 2012 6:26 pm

vanagonjr wrote: IdahoDoug wrote: You can find a station in your area selling "real" gasoline by googling for the website that has these locations by zip code. Can't recall it. We have one, fortunately.
http://pure-gas.org/ Doesn;t do me any good, none in MA, RI or CT!

Talk to your local small engine shop. Bet they know where to get good gas close to you. I would guess that a lot of boaters know where to get it as well.

Tue Oct 02, 2012 3:40 am

Looked into it. Even for marine, (I have several friends that are boaters) there simply is no ethanol free fuel in Mass. (except aviation) And if you saw what the marinas charge here for fuel, one wouldn't want to fill their tank there anyways!

For small engines, Stihl sells it by the quart for $8, so at $32 a gallon, it's out for anything but the weedwacker. I've never seen it for sale however.

Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:45 am

When you geo on a long trip check the pure gas website and fill up at a station. You will become an EF convert quickly.

Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:46 am

Quote: Is the difference in available octanes an altitude thing?

Yes, in higher elevation markets the minimum octane sold goes down since the minimum octane requirement of engines goes down. 85 at 4000' ASL is to your engine what 87 is at low elevation. No worries.

There is no constant benefit to using a higher octane than your engine needs, it does offer some insurance against high-load detonation but if your engine isn't pinging on the lower octanes then it's insurance you aren't collecting on.

Quote: This is slightly off topic, but... I've never seen any damage caused by ethanol fuel. I've put about 40K miles on my 2.1 WBX running E85... put a conversion kit on it a few years back.

We have had E10 here seasonally since at least '94 by mandate, and year-round since the late 90's. I have never seen any fuel system problems that can be related to ETOH in the fuel, but I have seen Albuquerque's air quality improve since then. I continually chuckle at the people who fret about the small ration of ETOH in E10 (especially because there's normally only about 6%, at least until recently), doom and gloom and so much superstition as far as I'm concerned.

Tue Oct 02, 2012 9:16 am

tencentlife wrote: I continually chuckle at the people who fret about the small ration of ETOH in E10 (especially because there's normally only about 6%, at least until recently), doom and gloom and so much superstition as far as I'm concerned.

Chuckle all you want, but I want my engines to start. Over the last year in particular whatever they have done to the fuel makes it hard to get a hot restart on a carbureted engine. I dislike having to crank my engine for 15-20 seconds with the throttle held wide open and then having it take another 2-5 minutes to clear up so that it runs smooth again. When running ethanol free I can just hit the key and it is idling smoothly. I couldn't careless about the octane, I always ran rot gut Gulftane which was a couple of points below regular when I could get it, I just want to fuel my cars and trucks with what they were designed to run on.

Somehow I don't think my pumping large volumes of raw hydrocarbons out into the atmosphere during cranking or the vast amount of other crap that spews out of the exhaust for a couple of minutes until the engine stabilizes is helping the air I breath.

Why should we take high sulfur Diesel fuel, pump it through a farm tractor that probably has little in the way of pollution equipment on its engine so that we can grow corn to make the same number of BTU from the resulting alcohol we make? I would guess that even without the extra pollutants spewing from the pipes of our older rigs due to trying to get ethanol to burn in engines that weren't designed to burn it we are already creating extra pollution by burning so much extra Diesel to make it, plus we are putting that much more land into cultivation. Just because the Diesel farm equipment isn't running in the cities doesn't mean it is all that environmentally friendly. To me ethanol tainted gasoline is mostly a government program to make the rich socialist owners of large corporate farms all the more wealthy.

Tue Oct 02, 2012 6:06 pm

I'll second Wildthings sentiments. Total political boondoggle from the word go, and I doubt the air quality in ALB has improved due to the use of ethanol fuels. Lots of information on the damage it causes on a wide spectrum of gasoline engines, particularly the fuel system components and fuel tanks. Just based on the energy yield (btu's used to make it vs btu's produced in usable form) which is near zero, it is a waste, let alone the damage issues.

DougM

Tue Oct 02, 2012 9:17 pm

A stock Vanagon with 9.1:1 compression and no knock sensor derives zero benefit from anything beyond 87 octane. The ECU cannot adjust timing based on knock sensor input, therefore will run identically on 87 vs 93. For many using 93 in a low compression car, same thing...waste of money. Is there a mileage difference adding ethanol? Max, 2 to 3% reduction, assuming you can measure this accurately as BTU drops from 114K/gallon to 111K.

Unless the manufacturer specifically recommends premium, using it is a waste of money. They only ever recommend it if compression is in the 10:1 range, and/or forced induction is used. The exception to this would be direct injection engines that in some cases (Mazda) are hitting 14:1 on 87.

My converted van uses an i4 2.0 liter with performance mods. Compression was actually lowered a bit to 9.5:1 (from 10:1) on the advice of Darryl from Tectonics...and the digifant II has a knock sensor, unlike a stock Vanagon. 0-60 times measured using a g-tech (auto trans. 90 Westy) are 14.5s using either 87 or 92 octane. This engine is producing 50% more HP than stock, at 2 liters and sees little to no gain using 92 octane.

You'll see better gains for free on a stock Vanagon by just checking tire pressures monthly. Don't waste your money on premium.

Wed Oct 03, 2012 8:56 am

Yes, ethanol is a waste-just like cash for clunkers and most every other government mandated program.

Sun Oct 07, 2012 12:08 pm

well my 241 miles last tankfull of the E-FREE went down with the 10% stuff to 208 miles at 14.5 gal both times. thats 2 mpg difference, so my conclusion is it runs way better with the E-FREE but the price avg 50-60 cents more a gal does not justify it for me. after one place out of 7 places had it at $3.62 but most want over $4.00 a gal. btw the cheaper place had just closed :(

Sun Oct 07, 2012 12:55 pm

devesvws wrote: well my 241 miles last tankfull of the E-FREE went down with the 10% stuff to 208 miles at 14.5 gal both times. thats 2 mpg difference, so my conclusion is it runs way better with the E-FREE but the price avg 50-60 cents more a gal does not justify it for me. after one place out of 7 places had it at $3.62 but most want over $4.00 a gal. btw the cheaper place had just closed :(

Not sure what you are paying for gas, but we are paying $4 for alcohol lace regular and $4.40 for alcohol free premium, which is 10% more. Since you are getting 15% better mileage out of alcohol free, around here at least, you would save money running the more expensive fuel.

Sun Oct 07, 2012 1:30 pm

last i paid was $3.49 for the reg 87. the place that sells the E-FREE that is the closest to me is 20 miles away, there price was $3.94 a gal. what i should do is get a few cans of the E-FREE it would keep it under the 10% mark mixing it in a few gallons at a time.