Ethanol and our FI engines?

[DougB]

Hello all,

I know a general question about Ethanol's effects on VWs wouldn't be right for here, but I did want to specifically ask about how an increase in the Ethanol percentage in blended fuels might affect our FI bus engines (mine's a '75). Around me it's nearly impossible to find pure gasoline, and everything has 10% Ethanol. Not it sounds like the EPA is considering increasing the percentage (I added a bunch of info about it in this General/Chat forum thread:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5...highlight=

Just wondering how this might affect our engines, e.g. if it went up to E15.

Thanks in advance!

- Doug
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'75 Campmobile (tin-top to SpaceRoof)
'73 Fastback
'52 BMW R67/2
'41 Zundapp KS600
'55 Puch SGS250
A very, very understanding wife

[SGKent]

Ethanol is:

5 Hydrogen
2 Carbon
1 Oxygen

when burned it would be 5 H2O, 2 CO2

Gasoline is a combination but something typical like:

6 Hydrogen
6 Carbon

When burned I believe it would be 6 H20 and 6 CO2

If I count right, Ethanol only needs 5 oxygen to burn completely with one free hydrogen left over. The benzene needs 15 oxygen to burn completely. The ethanol burns leaner and produces a lot less power per molecule.

What that means is (1) more of the smaller molecule will evaporate thru rubber lines unless one has the Gates Barricade. (2) your fuel mileage will be less (3) Alcohol can absorb water so some unscrupulous folks who work there can fill their cars for free, add that many gallons of water to the big tanks and still pump the same number of gallons of gas but it has a higher water content.*

*At 60F 3.8 teaspoons of water can be dissolved into a gallon of E10 gasoline without it separating out. In a station's 20,000 gallon tank that is 3.8 teaspoons X 20,000 gallons = 76,000 teaspoons of water. 76,000 / 768 teaspoons per gallon = 99 gallons of water that can be added to the 20,000 gallons which will dissolve into the E10.

We see about a 5 - 7% reduction in mileage between 100% gasoline and E10 when we are on vacation. When we hit a station that has probably been cut with water we see mileage drop significantly. The plugs are cleaner today that 30 years ago.
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“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

[Amskeptic]

[Wildthings]