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ae101rKev
Occasional Poster

Location:
West Aust
Registered:
October 2002

Re: More Ethanol on Today Tonight	Thu, 24 July 2003 02:37

Im also into boating and in the boating environment ethanol is a big hate First of all it does damage rubber fuel lines, and also fiberglass / many plastic fuel tanks. Generally rubber fuel lines in cars will take years to break down to a dangerous point. Also some carbies (eg Holley) contains plastic floats etc that can be damaged from alcohols. (part of the Holley alcohol conversion kit has brass floats, etc) Secondly alcohol absorbs water, up to almost its own weight. In a marine environment this can be really dangerous to an engine as water does not compress and can cause extremely higher compressions in engines and in turn engine damage. Although most boats have water / fuel separators at 5% water these would become ineffective within an hour or 2 of use as the capacity would be exceeded. In a car environment generally this is not really of concern, as typically it does not come into such an environment. But for a car due to condensation in the fuel tank, it may have a high value of water in the bottom of the tank, the first dose of alcohol at 10:1 (10%) could cause serious problems. Hint here: Run metho at 100:1 (1%) in your tank monthly to dissolve any water from condensation etc. At 100:1 it will not cause problems to the engine. Even if you dont plan on using ethanol fuels this will help prevent your tank from rusting. Thirdly ethanol (or any alcohol fuel) is an oxygenate therefore required more volume of fuel to obtain the correct burn characteristics. Ie. When converting an engine to alcohol, racers run jets that flow approx twice as much compared to running petrol, otherwise you will run your engine too lean. We all know a lean engine will die. Now using 10% ethanol in a car; the ethanol component will be say 50% lean, therefore overall 5% leaner than the original total value. Since most car manufactures run cars a bit rich this should not be a problem. If you have a old carby, or modd efi car (some chip burners run cars leaner than factory spec for more power) that is already running around 14.7:1 air/fuel or worse this extra 5% leanness could be enough to cause engine damage. So for the average car with not too much water in the fuel tank and running a bit rich, ethanol should cause no major problems. BP trailed it and no longer use it. Also the main reason we have ethanol fuels is it subsidies our failing sugar industry. KEv [Report message to a moderator]

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