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Old 09-04-2015, 08:46 PM   #1
Ben_
 
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Ethanol?

Have you ever run ethanol in your car? Someone told me that a lot of cars have this capability out of the box without tuning and not for a performance aplication
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Old 09-04-2015, 09:09 PM   #2
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I would be careful. Ethanol may cause deposits too break away in your
fuel system. Also your mileage will decrease.
I wouldn't do it if there is another choice.
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Old 09-04-2015, 09:29 PM   #3
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Have you ever run ethanol in your car? Someone told me that a lot of cars have this capability out of the box without tuning and not for a performance aplication
According to my manual (and gas cap decal), the MAXIMUM amount of ethanol fuel in the Yaris should not exceed 15%. Personally, I would go for 0% if I could actually find any. It's even worse news for newer "direct inject" engines - as ethanol can really jack them up, meaning more maintenance/repair expenses during their lifetime.

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Old 09-04-2015, 09:32 PM   #4
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Have you ever run ethanol in your car? Someone told me that a lot of cars have this capability out of the box without tuning and not for a performance aplication
Most GM cars are E85 flex fuel, which runs 85% ethanol.

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Old 09-04-2015, 10:45 PM   #5
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It's my understanding that if the car has a yellow gas cap that it can run ethanol. My car doesn't have one but has anyone tried it?
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Old 09-04-2015, 11:28 PM   #6
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It's my understanding that if the car has a yellow gas cap that it can run ethanol. My car doesn't have one but has anyone tried it?
You need to convert your car to be able to run E.
Otherwise, all the metals are going to rust, such as the gas lines..
At least, that's what I read a while back

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Old 09-05-2015, 05:01 PM   #7
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That's true I agree. Some people think that the ethanol that is in gas will do the same
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Old 09-05-2015, 07:27 PM   #8
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It's my understanding that if the car has a yellow gas cap that it can run ethanol. My car doesn't have one but has anyone tried it?
Mine doesn't either and no, Ive never tried it!

Ethanol is a political ploy to make money for farmers who should be selling corn for people to eat NOT to burn in our cars! Now that oil is $40 a barrel theres no excuse to put ethanol in gas. Its not good for our cars.

Ethanol needs to DIE!
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Old 09-06-2015, 08:30 AM   #9
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Rust is oxidation for which you need air. There should be no air in your fuel system beyond the tank. Your gas line should be fine
The problems with ethanol was that it would eat early fiberglass and plastic fuel tanks.
It would cause a jelly like substance that would plugged lines or even get into the motors of bikes and boats. The boating industry was hit very hard in the 70's because of this.
As Bronsin pointed out the government subsidy needed a new market for there corn.
Gas with ethanol is a bad idea, there are no benefits to it, unless you want a hotter malatove cocktail.
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Old 09-06-2015, 11:23 AM   #10
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Ethanol has less energy per litre than gasoline. The only way to find it useful will be to do major performance tuning so your engine can take advantage of ethanol having a higher octane number. If you can get the engine to eat a *lot* of ethanol, and have the timing significantly adjusted, and even better, change the compression of the engine, it'll have better performance, hp-wise. It will have TERRIBLE gas mileage, though. REALLY terrible. Don't forget that you'll have to rebuild the fuel system to keep ethanol from rotting out anything that isn't steel (plastics, rubbers, etc)!

Pure 87 octane Gasoline (the gold standard) -- 124 kBTU
Pure ethanol -- 84 kBTU

You need 32% more E100 to get the same energy as Gasoline
You need 27% more E85 to get the same energy as Gasoline
You need 5% more E15 to get the same energy as Gasoline

Basically, ethanol as fuel is, today, a big scam. You have to buy more gas to go the same distance, and there's no break on the price despite this. The only time you might care about it is during the zombie apocalypse, but it's too hard to generate. You'd be better off with a wood gasifier then. :P

The only way I would buy ethanol is if it were at least 5% cheaper (E15), and even then, I value my car's HP over the MPG more than that. For E85 the discount would need to be at least 27%, and my car would have to be already converted to support it (LOL right).

Before anyone comments, yes, I'm aware that E100 can only exist in an abnormal environment (vacuum, pure dry nitrogen, etc, etc) because it will suck water out of the air until it is E96. :P
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Old 09-06-2015, 03:30 PM   #11
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So obviously our cars can't run ethanol. Also thanks for sharing such valuable and interesting information about ethanol. I know there are a lot of people who love it and a lot of people who hate it. Yes gas is cheap right now which is GREAT! Especially for us guys paying $30 a tank (depending where you live) making switching to ethanol not feasible for most everybody

So I'd like to take this conversation a bit farther. The reason I posted this was because I saw one of those controversial documentaries talking about ethanol methanol electricity lpg cng and maybe a few other fuel sources to try to compete with gasoline on the consumer market.

Assuming it was a perfect world and you already had a vehicle that could use any of these fuel sources which do you think is the best source of energy to power commuter cars?
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Old 09-06-2015, 06:00 PM   #12
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Assuming it was a perfect world and you already had a vehicle that could use any of these fuel sources which do you think is the best source of energy to power commuter cars?
Elon Musk says its electricity from batteries stored on board. He is investing in lithium battery manufacturing so he can sell batteries to all the manufacturers who will be building them in the future.

Toyota thinks its electricity from fuel cells.

Any way you slice it your car of the future is going to cost like $100,000 what with safety features and autonomous driving these nice people would like to stick up our ass.

I think its riding a bicycle like the Chinese used to do.
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Old 09-06-2015, 07:52 PM   #13
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Toyota thinks its electricity from fuel cells.
I seem to remember an article about the Toyota fuel cell car within the last month or so in one of the major car magazines. The BASE price (U.S.) was 58k USD and change.

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these nice people would like to stick up our ass.
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Old 09-07-2015, 01:44 PM   #14
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Tesla is supposedly making a 35k electric car in the next few years which I think is GREAT. If solar panels can be recycled I think there might be something to this powering cars with the sun. Maybe even without batteries some day.

You have a point with the safety crap too but it does get cheaper. For example our little cars mine was 16k new and came with 6 air bags abs crumple zones rollover protection stability control and traction control

It seems that the big advancement on the showroom floors right now is (still) turbocharging. The new eco boost trucks get good mileage from my understanding. And the Eco boost mustang gets better mileage than the GT and has more power with a tune. Turbos are awesome
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Old 09-07-2015, 11:24 PM   #15
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If you want to convert for environmental reasons (it isn't likely you'd do it to save money) I recommend an LPG or CNG conversion, whichever is more available in your area. You will usually save money on the fuel (Even after factoring the lower BTU level of it) AND it is cleaner burning than both ethanol and gasoline (and diesel, not that that is a conversion choice, more a new engine choice). Many factories have LP forklifts running indoors all day (Don't try this with your car, though!).

Electric power will be the eventual winner, however, a faster charging format OR battery swap system needs to exist to make it practical. A long distance driver is not going to want to spend money on eating dinner or having a LONG coffee break every 3-4 hours (Well, I don't want to). However, unless the world invests heavily in nuclear energy, you will not save anything. The grid is already heavily loaded in most areas, and electric cars drawing 20 kW all night is just going to kill off time-of-use pricing, which will then kill off the interest of charging anytime except "now".

Solar power at home will need to be WAY more efficient, or homes far larger (and people will need to stop being interested in condos) if anyone really believes solar cars are going to be reasonable. By solar cars I mean electric cars which are charged on solar power exclusively. Let's not forget that many areas don't even get enough solar power for 1/2 of the year to be reasonably useful without a massive FIELD of solar panels per car.

What I believe will really end up existing is a merging of self-driving vehicles and electric cars. Basically a mini-bus that roams around picking up passengers (who have already informed the system of their exact destination via phone, like with uber). The backend will be smart enough to have the bus pick up people along the route it is already headed on and choose passengers that will be dropped off somewhere that it's already going, thus dramatically increasing efficiency and making customers happy (short, efficient trip times). This will likely replace taxis, city buses, and probably subways/street cars, and will be far cheaper. Probably will kill off all public transport and make it private (which will bring it the respect it needs to get more customers). Overall, fewer cars will be sold, but I'm OK with that.

Cities like mine that are too stupid to realize that what I'm talking about is going to happen within our lifetimes are investing heavily into public transit infrastructure that will be obsoleted in a few decades. Oh well. I guess it's just other people's money so it's OK, right? :(

The dumbest argument that I hear about electric cars is that it will kill off the need for mechanics. It has to be the most idiotic thing I've ever heard. The only thing that will likely require less servicing is the engine + exhaust, and of course there's no transmission. I have *never*, in 15 years of ownership, required serious engine service (just lube jobs, and mechanics don't do those, high school lube jockeys do them). And I have grenaded one transmission in a shitbox that went straight to the junkyard because it wasn't worth fixing. Everything else has been suspension related, steering related, electrical, body, brakes, tires, drivetrain, alignment, etc, related. That's PLENTY of work for 90% of mechanics to keep their jobs. And most mechanics would like to stop having to pull engines out of cars, or change clutches, or do transmission service. Those jobs can suck even if they do pay well enough. The rest are sorta gravy work. :)
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