down here in florida, the last chain of gas stations changed to the E10 (10% ethanol) and i have noticed my gas milage drop significantly in my mustang (camaro is not on the road yet) from around 17 down to 14-15. i have heard of the E10 negatively effecting gas milage but i am wondering if you all have noticed it as well?

 

NGK has a TSB out on this exact problem.







I need to go a heat range colder in the Camaro, just haven't had the time. I did the same in both my Nissan truck and my Honda Accord and I went back up to my old fuel econ. The upside was turning the timing up on both vehicles even more.

 

YES!. My dad drives a Taxi for a living, and if anyone would notice a fuel consumption rise in a short period of time, it would be him.

Him and his partner used to drive an impala (3.8), and his partner filled up on shell gas (premium) always. They recently established a new contract in which he is new vehicle owner. They ditched the impala, and went for a 4cyl 2005 camry. Youd think it would use less gas in 100% city driving over the same distance. But it wasnt much better. Culprit----> 10% ethanol (my dad filled up his camry at Pioneer, regular gas which clearly labels the 10% ethanol content at each pump). I asked him to switch gas stations and see what happens.

Like mentioned in the other thread, try Shell. An owner of 4 of these stations in Ontario, says Shell doesnt use Ethanol. It may be true for all across north america. Just make sure you ask a manager and not the pump jockey. The first guy i asked said it DOES have ethanol, but he barely spoke english. The owner was a bit more reliable though.

I cant vouch for the MPG, but i can DEFINATELY feel the difference in power for my 3.4L lumina van, when pumping shell gas, vs. some other brand of gas.

 

That first TSB doesn't make much sense to me.

I was under the impression that the blended fuels got worse mileage due to fact that alcohol has 30% less usable energy than gasoline, so you're basically dealing with fuel that has 97% of the energy it used to per volume. That's assuming 100% ethanol is being blended as 10% of the fuel, that's not always the case. I believe they are allowed to use anywhere from 90% and up. That means, 10% of the 10% could be plain water. That would bring total fuel to 96%.

That's only a 4% loss though, so i guess the TSB makes up for any additional loss.

 

i agree, it does not state "10% ethanol" it states "less than 10% ethanol." but the main goal of any business is to maximize profits and considering that ethanol cheaper than regular gas, they are probably going pretty close to the 10%.

but i have noticed negative effects.

 

shell gas has a lot of soap in it, and probably ethanol too.

I believe that here in NJ we have had 10% ethanol for quite a long while now.

Ethanol blows, its a waste of time. I hear it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than a gallon of it will produce. Fak it!

 

10 years ago, this was the truth. This is also why corn isn't a good feedstock. Soy isn't a bad feedstock, and you net more energy used.

Where we need to go is biodiesel with algae. If all of the huge SUVs and most of the cars were to run on algae biodiesel, then gas woudn't be an issue anymore.

There are things you can do with e85 that can't be done with gasoline. You can run more boost and timing with that much ethanol, and you make more power and get better fuel econ. Our issue is that we're running ethanol in engines inteded to run on gasoline.

 

Thats exactly it! We are in an energy crisis (or so theyd have us beleive), and the problem isnt so much a shortage of energy, but compatibility. There are other energy sources, but we are so dependant on petroleums, that it seems virtually impossible to switch to anything else.

So when you try to save money in the short run, and run 10% ethanol in a gasoline engine, you get the worst of both worlds....

However, Mr. Banks is working on some pretty cool stuff with E85 and bio-diesel. Hopefully he will send some of his ideas into production soon, cuz we could really use them. Im sure alot of you have heard of his diesel truck, that races and wins against full blown track cars.

 

A retune and swapping to alcohol safe fuel lines and gaskets are about all that's needed in the short-term. Coating the aluminum and switching to a lined fuel tank are long-term solutions.

 

i dont really see how gas mileage is effected with ethanol

because with E85 you need to inject more E85 to make same energy/power as gasoline

so 10% ethanol gas has less gas per volume and thus should make less energy/power than regular gas. In order to restore the same power, you need to inject more gas thus richen the mixture.. BUT since same tune is used, basically the mixture is just now leaner and leaner usually means better gas mileage.

with NGK recommending cooler plugs since the combustion is getting hotter, that would mean its leaner to me, since lean has hotter burning temps. So really gas mileage should go up?


But i can see making less power means you need to press down on the pedal more to go, but how less power are you gonna make with 10% ethanol gas?