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I'm pretty sure all gas sold in Oregon now contains 10% Ethanol... they are trying to pass a law to make it 20%

I may start using shell... I use chevron and 76 right now... when I lived in memphis all I used was BP.

Mooneggs wrote:I'm pretty sure all gas sold in Oregon now contains 10% Ethanol... they are trying to pass a law to make it 20%

Don't be sad. Ethanol will be a very good thing for us.

Inodoro Pereyra wrote:

Mooneggs wrote:I'm pretty sure all gas sold in Oregon now contains 10% Ethanol... they are trying to pass a law to make it 20%

Don't be sad. Ethanol will be a very good thing for us.

that's a joke right?

Nope. It's not.

Care to explain? I thought that the more ethanol, the more problems with older engines?

Ethanol gets worse mileage, less octane rating, destroys fuel systems, absorbs moisture... list goes on. Ethanol is junk, and since more farmers are using their fields to grow corn rather than wheat, etc our produce prices are way up. Notice how grocery prices went up with gas hike last year but now gas is 1/2 cheaper and prices never went down. This is just another government scheme.
Just a few links how ethanol is bad for fuel systems, etc
http://www2.highlandstoday.com/content/ ... m-ethanol/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.timesanddemocrat.com/article ... 463991.txt" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.jwardell.com/mini/2006/06/27 ... -problems/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

93vtecklr wrote:Care to explain? I thought that the more ethanol, the more problems with older engines?

not just older engines, read last link I've posted in my previous post. Ethanol destroys fuel pumps even in new cars

Mitmaks: you're oh so wrong...

Ethanol has 3 big advantages compared to gasoline:

1. It's an oxygenate.
2. It burns colder.
3. It has an octane rating of 135.

(1) Means that, at the high temperatures found in the combustion chamber, ethanol provides a little extra oxygen to the mix. Gasoline has had oxygenates mixed in for the last few years. Ethanol doesn't need them.

(2) and (3) Mean that we can either deck our engines to increase compression ratios to 15:1 or more, if we want to stay N/A, or we can boost the hell out of them, without any fear of knocking.
100% pure ethanol has a 135 octane rating. E85 (the highest purity you can legally buy in the U.S.) has an octane rating of about 100-105, depending on what you use as a denaturant. But you can also make your own (under the watchful eye of the law, of course) and get octane ratings over 129 easily.

But the most important part is, we have the knowledge. We're members of a forum full of knowledgeable people, and are USED to having to adapt stuff from other cars, because of the lack of parts for ours, so the next time some stupid ricer put his civic besides ours, happy because he's got "the kit from E-bay that gives the civic 15 more HP on the new gas", we can get on our "slightly modified" twin turbo BP or KL MX-3 with 30+ psi of boost, step on the go pedal, and lose him so fast he won't be able to smell our exhaust.

As for ethanol destroying engines, fuel pumps, and other cr@p, Brazilians have been using ethanol for more than 30 years. Why don't you ask them?

I can't ask Brazilians for simple reason is that I do not speak any Portuguese. I'm sorry, I wish I could talk to them

mitmaks wrote:I can't ask Brazilians for simple reason is that I do not speak any Portuguese. I'm sorry, I wish I could talk to them

Yes you can. There are several Brazilians right here, and they speak English. One that comes to mind is Miguelitto.

Ethanol is only good for those who have higher compression engines or are running big turbos. It has been proven to lower gas mileage across the board, so the 10-20% ethanol sucks, unless it is reducing the price enough to compensate.

E85 or 100% ethanol would be good if the majority of us could take advantage of it...but since we don't all have turbo's or 15:1 CR, we're just losing power and mileage.

I still think diesel is the best, but that's neither here nor there...although I've been reading into diesel technology that uses water/meth injection and eliminates a radiator...this just brings me back to the efficiency of a steam engine though. sigh.

mitmaks wrote:

93vtecklr wrote:Care to explain? I thought that the more ethanol, the more problems with older engines?

not just older engines, read last link I've posted in my previous post. Ethanol destroys fuel pumps even in new cars

Could that be faulty engineering on the part of MINI? Or just poorly made mixture?

onlytrueromeo wrote:Ethanol is only good for those who have higher compression engines or are running big turbos. It has been proven to lower gas mileage across the board, so the 10-20% ethanol sucks, unless it is reducing the price enough to compensate.

E85 or 100% ethanol would be good if the majority of us could take advantage of it...but since we don't all have turbo's or 15:1 CR, we're just losing power and mileage.

Nope. Engineers at a Swedish car manufacturer (I don't remember if it was Saab or Volvo) did a comparison a few years ago. Two identical SUVs, one with a gasoline engine, the other one with the same engine modified to run exclusively on E100. The E100 engine showed more power, and a 18% increase in gas mileage.
If you want to keep your engine's compatibility with gasoline, your gas mileage will go down, but if you modify your engine to run ethanol exclusively, due to the increased thermal efficiency of higher compression engines, the mileage goes up.

A 15:1 compression ratio is just a shave away. You don't need a specially designed engine.
You can either deck the block and head enough, you can use domed pistons, or you can get a crankshaft with a longer stroke. Of course it will take some experimenting, but so does any other modification you want to do on an MX-3.

no argument that pure ethanol would be nice on RACE CARS ONLY. Afterall I do have cobra that's s/c and I run it on race gas. However I wouldn't dare put regular 10% gas in it, unless I want to see it blow up.

mitmaks wrote:no argument that pure ethanol would be nice on RACE CARS ONLY. Afterall I do have cobra that's s/c and I run it on race gas. However I wouldn't dare put regular 10% gas in it, unless I want to see it blow up.

Like I said, ask the Brazilians. They have much more experience than both of us combined.
Race cars are cars. 60 years ago, 87 octane gasoline was for FIGHTER PLANES ONLY. Today it's low grade.