Georgia Fiero Club Forum

General Discussion and Announcements => General Discussion => Topic started by: GTRS Fiero on January 27, 2018, 10:22:30 am

Title: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: GTRS Fiero on January 27, 2018, 10:22:30 am
Do your gas stations have it?

When I went through OK, some of the gas stations offered straight gasoline--for an additional cost.  Each time, I paid extra to fill up with the non-ethanol gasoline.  Later, I was told that all the major gas stations in OK offer this.  The shop where I went had barrels of non-ethanol gasoline that they order periodically.
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: TopNotch on January 27, 2018, 10:27:18 am
Around here, you are likely to find gas with no ethanol in small town gas stations. The reason is that there is a lot of older farm equipment out there that is harmed by ethanol.
On my own lawn tractor, which isn't very old, I had to replace the carburetor. I'm thinking that it was ethanol that did the old one in. It had some plastic parts, whereas the new one had brass parts instead.
 
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: GTRS Fiero on January 27, 2018, 10:31:29 am
Yes, I worry about my ATVs.  Their carburetors have plastic parts.  21 days is the max life for ethanol fuel.  I run them every other week, but the ethanol still does damage.
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: Raydar on January 27, 2018, 11:22:57 am
When I run the wood chipper (which is particular susceptible to carb clogging) I turn off the gas and run the carb dry after each use. I don't buy ethanol-free gas, however. The folks near me who sell it charge an extra $1/gallon for it.
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: GTRS Fiero on January 27, 2018, 11:43:25 am
Is was about $0.30 more per gallon in OK.

Running the engine with the fuel shut off does not get all the fuel out of the carb.  I tried that.
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: Fierofool on January 27, 2018, 12:29:45 pm
Try this:

https://www.pure-gas.org/index.jsp?stateprov=GA

You can replace the state suffix at the end with the state you're searching in to get local results.  There's one on Hazlewood Ave. in St. Louis. 

If you're in the area of some of the larger lakes around the country, marinas have ethanol-free gasoline.  Most boats use it. 
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: GTRS Fiero on January 27, 2018, 12:45:18 pm
The octane is too high.
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: Fierofool on January 27, 2018, 01:07:15 pm
The Fiero will run on all octanes above 87.  It's just that there's no real hp or mpg gain. 
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: GTRS Fiero on January 27, 2018, 01:10:05 pm
My understanding was that higher octane fuels left undesirable carbon deposits.
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: Fierofool on January 27, 2018, 01:24:24 pm
I don't know if it does or not.  I do remember that before the unleaded gases became the norm, Amoco Premium was known as White Gas.  It was clear and had no lead in it.  People often ran it periodically to clean the engine. 
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: Slyp on January 27, 2018, 01:43:08 pm
My father used to refer to Kerosene as White Gas and used it in old pumpup blow torches
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: GTXVette on January 28, 2018, 07:53:04 am
As Stated you can use 100 Octane if you could afford it but no additional advantage , Up here in N.Ga. It can be found most every where (Ethonol Free) for about .30 cents more And we get the 90 proof for all the tools.
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: Fierofool on January 28, 2018, 08:53:18 am
My father used to refer to Kerosene as White Gas and used it in old pumpup blow torches

At one time, Amoco Premium White Gas was also an acceptable fuel for Coleman Lanterns and Stoves. 
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: Raydar on January 28, 2018, 12:03:02 pm

Running the engine with the fuel shut off does not get all the fuel out of the carb.  I tried that.

Probably not all of it, but it stopped it from gumming up all the jets and passages. At least for me. YMMV.
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: oldone on January 28, 2018, 03:49:28 pm
our town has a station for ethanol free.
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: GTRS Fiero on April 03, 2019, 06:03:19 pm
This guy does a lot of neat stuff.  Here, he does the first of a series of tests comparing ethanol fuel to non-ethanol fuel:
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: Raydar on April 04, 2019, 08:23:18 am
I'll have to check that vid when I have a few minutes, to see if my suppositions are correct.
With that said, some of the local stations are starting to carry ethanol free gas (most notably, the Ingles near my house) but it's ~$1 more than regular E10.
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: GTRS Fiero on April 04, 2019, 09:07:48 am
Well, at ~5% (multi-cylinder engines) greater fuel economy, more power, and lower maintenance, it's probably worth that.  So, $1 more is the actual price of fuel, compared to non-ethanol fuel years ago at $0.76/gallon.

Without the ethanol, they do have to add octane.
Title: Re: Fuel without ethanol?
Post by: GTRS Fiero on July 29, 2019, 06:59:12 pm
This past weekend, I ran a 1 tank with ethanol fuel, followed by a tank without ethanol.  Two days later, I ran a tank without ethanol, followed by a tank with ethanol.  This was on the same stretch of road.  The non-ethanol fuel cost $0.31 more per gallon.  Although the engine temp remained the same, the thermostat opened about 200 more times on the ethanol fuel, than on the non-ethanol fuel.  I used .7 gallons less fuel with the non-ethanol fuel.  The fuel runs were 296 miles with the ethanol, and 291 miles with the non-ethanol fuel, just because of where the stations were.  I'd say that's a reasonable sample distance.  All 4 runs were with the AC on.  I got 4 MPG better fuel economy with the non-ethanol fuel.

Over the last several weeks, I have run 7 tanks of ethanol fuel, with the AC on, and got about 31 MPG, each tank.  I ran 285 or more miles per tank.  That is consistent, and should serve as a baseline.