How do you all manage with E10 fuel ? Here in the UK we have just changed over to it for "general consumption" E5 only being available in a very few places(very expensive too £1.59.9 A LITRE !)My 327 does not like E10 at all ,even with octane booster -do you put more/less advance in the timing ? I would love to hear how you cope in USA.
I BELIEVE ethanol increases the octane. Having said that, my straight eight engine performs fine on E10. 9.5/1 compression. 87 octane. Ben
I've had problems with rubber parts in the fuel system such as the diaphragm in the fuel pump, after replacing a couple of fuel pumps I switched to unleaded premium with no ethanol. Is more expensive but seems to eliminate the problems in my older cars.
I hate ethanol fuels in anything with a carburetor. Ethanol has less energy in it. With that your engine will start to run leaner and you may need to richen it up or pull some timing. An old c10 I had would ping on the highway with 93 octane e10 at 14 degrees of initial timing. With 89 octane ethanol free no pinging at up to 16 degrees of initial. Fuel injected cars change the fuel trims to compensate all of this automatically. Also be careful of rubber lines and don't let the fuel sit for more than a month without some sort of stabilizer
The number of clear premium (no ethanol) locally is on the rise. Seems there is one on nearly every corner all of a sudden including a new one 300 yards from my sub division. Corn is for making everclear.
Yeah, but that just lets them use a lower grade gasoline to mix with ethanol, to get the desired final octane rating. I haven't had any significant issues that I can blame on E10, aside from letting things sit too long, then it can cause problems. But I live where it's dry...in more cool/humid climates, you'll have to deal with the ethanol absorbing water out of the atmosphere. Fuel systems on newer cars are sealed up, not vented, so old cars have problems when left sitting for months at a time not being driven.
Replace flexible hoses with ethanol compatible line. Minimize its use by using steel fuel lines if you can. I have one 6”line. I have used an additive (1 oz per refill) for 10 years and have never had a problem. My carbs have ethanol friendly accelerator pumps. I believe your engine will run hotter especially during idling. Fuel is the only difference in my 56 from 56 and they never over heated then as our family owned them. Good luck.
We have had it here in the Midwest for 35 years. Not really an issue at all. Ran it in my 54 Chevy, the Rocky 33 with a flathead and my W motored T. I notice more from the different additive packages the various companies add than the alky. We ran some tests with my daily hooked up to the computer. The engine liked EXXON/Mobil fuel the best. I ran a fleet of fuel haulers at the time and had access to the specs on fuels pulled from our local pipeline.
As it is the fuel that has changed, I'd go for adjusting the carb first. Adding alcohol usually makes engines run leaner, so rejetting to give it more fuel may be required.
@squirrel down here in sw Florida our fuels absorb water in about 3-4 weeks with all of our humidity. I've had cars that won't even start on that crap after sitting for 4 or 5 months
My 327/375 HP (Rochester FI) SBC will not run more than 20 minutes on 93 octane E-10. It starts to percolate in the fuel line and bowl. I now use 100LL avgas or 110 octane race gas exclusively.....timing at 16 degrees initial, 37 degrees all in by 2400 RPM. My Honda house generator will not run more than 3 minutes on E-10 that is more than 3 days old......absorbs too much water by then.....I now use non-ethanal 90 octane exclusively in it.
With larger engines (cars, trucks) no issues; HOWEVER: All non-ethanol-friendly hoses are replaced, and then I recalibrate the carburetors (low compression 10~12 percent richer, high compression 6~8 percent richer) and use ONLY leather accelerator pumps. I also do not allow the engines to be left unstarted for long periods of time (water absorbed by the ethanol). Also play with timing, often a couple of degrees advance will help. With small engines, MANY issues. I have tried every ethanol stablizer known to man (I think), ALL with negligible benefits, if any. Well, they do serve as a "transfer of accounts" item. They transfer funds from my account to that of the vendor! Bought a new wheeled-trimmer, and the owners manual stated failure to use a certain brand of stabilizer would void the warranty. Used it according to instructions, and the next spring, the engine would run on ether, but not on gasoline. The carb was plugged worse with the stabilizer than without!!!!! And the )(*&^%$#@ carb rebuild at the factory dealer was NOT covered under warranty!!!!! So far the best way I have found for the weedeater to start the following spring is to run it at idle until it runs out of fuel, then add a bit of non-ethanol fuel, and again run it until it runs out. Temporarily plug the bowl vent and let it sit over the winter with a dry tank. But even the fuel-injected John Deere L & G will not run well in direct sunlight if the ambient is 85 degrees F. or above. Not really a bad thing "honey, its too hot for the mower (s) , I am coming in". This one water-cooled, and air-cooled small engines are worse. Don't figure the government will ever be smart enough to get rid of the ethanol, so just adapt as best I can. My experience, high compression engines adapt much better than low compression engines. Boosted engines are the most difficult to get right on the street (with carburetors). Jon
Our local volunteer Fire Department showed me a document they received a couple years ago that stated "all mission critical equipment equipped with small gas engines should only be fueled with non-ethanol fuel". Cutting saws, water pumps, gas engine hydraulic pumps ESPECIALLY if equipped with 2 cycle engines. Many problems with damage from water intrusion into the fuel and not starting/running reliably as these all have non sealed fuel systems. As someone suggested, run the fuel bowl empty if possible and add fresh fuel to start was recommended. My son parked his old pickup with the fuel tank behind the seat for a couple years with E10 in it and that was the worst rusted tank I have ever seen in my 50+ years of working on cars. Most new cars have plastic composite tanks and stainless or plastic fuel lines as well as sealed fuel systems.
My two farm tractors, IH and Ford, won't run if I leave e fuel sitting in them over a week. If I run them nearly dry and refill with pure gas, I don't have as many problems. Easier for me to just use pure gas all the time in everything with a carb. Cost here is the same as mid grade e gas, so in the long run it saves money and time.
The one other thing I noticed, most of us are OVERCARBED anyway. It is the nature of the hot rodder. Because of this as @carbking said, our larger engines are not affected as much. As noted, I have ran 3 hot rods in recent years with no ill effects. I also have several years experimenting with blends as high as E85, thats 85% ethanol in a flex fuel vehicle. It really is some interesting stuff. LOTS of racers switching to it for many reasons. I have a local friend with an OT screamer that is puttting out WAAAY over 1500 horspower in a street driven car on E85. He is close to dipping into the 7's in the 1/4.
Here in the tropical climate of Florida, todays gas will evaporate out of the carburetor in 2-3 days. I have found that I had to modify my carburetors in the idle circuits and main jet circuits to obtain decent drivability and performance. As to small engines, I have been running the carbs dry after each use for 20+ years, and only keep less than 2 gallons of gas on hand in order to be able to use up the fuel before it gets to old.
No issues here. What is not metal tube is rubber hose that will tolerate it. If tuning with an O2 sensor, index on 14.2 instead of 14.7, adjust other numbers accordingly. A few folks that I know have pulled out their float bowl vents and tapped the holes for fittings. They are experimenting with small one-way valves that don't allow vapor out. No idea yet of results.
Gimpy - I would be very interested in the results. Just at first blush, it would seem this would exasperate leakage of fuel beside the throttle shafts once the engine were shut down, and might create stalling issues in hot city driving. But actual test results would be very welcome! Jon.
In my 70 year old Fergie petrol tractors I put a squirt of diesel in with the E10. A generous squirt at that and so far they fire up even if parked for a few months. Compression is fairly low on these old bangers.
I tried putting a vacuum cap over the vent tube on my Q-jet after parking it, a couple of times. Same result as before, dry float bowl a week later. Maybe it can vent somewhere else, I don't know that carb well, but I did pull it off and check the well plugs, not leaking.
We don't have low octane gas here in the UK. We only have two grades, normal 95RON and super (97-99RON) I'm lucky being in the south-east of UK, as Esso Super sold in the south-east of the UK is still E0 and will be until 2025/6.
Interesting. I have an old gas tractor too and it starts right up, but the gas tank is on top, gravity feed with no fuel pump, so the carb is full as soon as I turn the petcock on, like motorcycles are, or were.
Your fuel in the UK is no different the America when you realize the octane ratings are based on different formulas...97-99 European octane rating is 93-94 in the US...
You don't have the humidity there like was mentioned by several of us. That seems to be the main problem here as well. E fuel will absorb a lot of water in a short period of non use, especially in older vehicles with vented fuel systems. It doesn't seem to affect newer closed fi systems as much.
I have removed the ethanol several times for use in small equipment by pouring about a quart of water into 4 gallons of gas in an Alhambra bottle. The water sits on the bottom. After a day the lever rises about an inch. Another day not much more.
I'm about to order pumps for my WCFBs. They advertise 'fluorelastometer ethanol resistant' pumps. That's not leather is it?
In the US we don't use RON to measure in octane, at least not exclusively. We use (RON+MON)/2, also known as AKI. UK 95RON is about 90AKI UK 99RON is 93AKI. You have the same fuel as the US.