MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Topic: MTBE to Ethanol gas switch (Read 4093 times) previous topic - next topic

MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Reply #15 – April 22, 2006, 10:41:10 PM

my question is what would happen if we used E85 in one of our cars without changing anything?

MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Reply #16 – April 22, 2006, 10:42:17 PM

E85 burns better than regular gas. Like higher octane fuels it is harder to ignite. (one of the biggest debates of all time, does higher octane fuel provide better mileage)

Here in southeast Ohio every gas station sells the 10%-15% blend of ethenal fuel. Have for years. You can't get anything else.

There are about 9 stations in Ohio that sell E85. One is about 45 minutes from here. I'm gona try a tank in the Cougar and see what the hell happens. Our 2000 Dodge Caravan is a Flex Fuel vehicle so whenever we are in Circleville(nearest station) we are going to start filling up on it.

MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Reply #17 – April 22, 2006, 10:42:42 PM

Quote from: Billyf17

E85 robs approx. 20% power and 20% economy compared to straight gas.

It's actually not even that much, more along the lines of 6-18%, depending on vehicle, and tune.

MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Reply #18 – April 22, 2006, 10:44:49 PM

Quote from: CougarSE

I'm gona try a tank in the Cougar and see what the hell happens.

You'll end up most likely having to pump your tank out, and possibly putting in a new filter, pump, and maybe fuel lines, E85 is corrosive, and Flex Fuel Vehicle have provisions to use it...
I put a tank of it in my truck last summer, didn't get very far afterwards, had to pump my tank out.

MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Reply #19 – April 22, 2006, 10:45:05 PM

Ok 20% loss in power is a little over the top. I've never heard of anything more than 2-3%.....

I have a cousin in Nebraska that has been running E85 in is 351 powered 90 F250 for a year now. No adverse effects yet.

MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Reply #20 – April 22, 2006, 10:57:58 PM

Quote from: Billyf17

E85 robs approx. 20% power and 20% economy compared to straight gas. It burns cooler so produces less power. It is rated at about 100-105 octane though. Turbo cars can benefit from that but still lose the economy. It might be cheaper but you end up paying for that in how many more times you have to visit the pump a year. Also the FFV apparently are tuned so they gain 5% power...but that is probably because they take advantage of the octane increase. They still lose about 15% economy based on gasoline use.

He was talking about the E10 stuff that they are replacing MTBE with. It will have a very minimal effect on mileage at <10% ethanol.

E85 is a whole new ball game and requires some thought.

MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Reply #21 – April 22, 2006, 11:08:04 PM

I would have to go out on a limb here, but i seriously think in the next few years, that every gallon of gas sold anywhere in the US will be some percentage of ethanol, and I expect that percentage to rise substantially. I do know last summer when I ran a tank of ethanol in my truck, and it caused me to pump the tank, I was having a coil issue, and most likely the higher octane caused the spark to "blow out", as the truck would start and idle fairly well, but the moment the throttle was opened, it would die. I replaced the coil, plugs, and wires, and now it runs a lot better, have yet to try some more ethanol, but plan to soon.

MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Reply #22 – April 23, 2006, 01:24:10 AM

On E85 the concern comes from the BTU's produced in the combustion process. Gasoline produces a lot more than E85...so naturally it produces less power. To compensate for a loss in power, a vehicles tune will take advantage of the increased resistance to burn (octane rating). With power you lose economy. It doesn't matter how you look at it...if you take heat away from the combustion you take power away. 20% is an approximation. But even FFV can't match mileage with E85 and gas. They can get close but lose power, to gain power they lose mileage. It might be $.20 cheaper per gallon but when you have to visit the pump more often, where do the savings really go? Even the tax breaks do little to offset the costs.

It's a new technology so long term costs and practicality are still unknown, only estimations. Remember hydrogen? Supposed to be the new wave...but recently it has gone away from the media because of the adverse effects not known at the immediate time of the public release of the information. It was just something to calm everyone down. Back then it was more pollution than gas prices. New research was showing that the hole in the ozone was getting smaller...that it might be a cycle that takes hundreds of years to complete, not CFC's...if that is true...what is the point of an "emission free vehicle"? It's just piece of mind for the public. It might be a fad...it might not. We won't know for a couple years when the costs are studied in depth. I'm all for E85 in my Coug...even if I have to get a new fuel system and engine management. They are experimenting with a bunch of alternative fuels. Some can be converted to the majority of current and past cars, but some are only for new cars. The obvious choices to be coming to a pump near us are the easily converted types...like E85.

MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Reply #23 – April 23, 2006, 01:39:52 AM

The thing about FFV's are the fact that the compression ratio "cr" has to stay constant for regular gas, whereas e85, or even higher ratios, or even 100% ethanol, prefer higher cr, around 14:1
It's been proven that vehicles set up for ethanol can, and have exceeded miles per gallon figures than regular unleaded gas vehicles.
Yes, the BTU's are lower for Ethanol, BUT, it is an oxygenate, therefore, it is capable of surpassing gasoline in power per gallon.
Without turning this into a political thread, like Ive seen in so many other threads/forums, Ive just got this to say:
The way this planet is poisoning itself, it really doesn't matter whether Ethanol makes 3 mpg more OR less than gas, it's renewable, and cleaner, and will keep money in this country. Yeah, I'm a farmer, and a automotive hobbyist, so I can understand both sides of the issue, but on the other hand, I'm not a green freak who doesn't eat meat type.
If a third world country can 100% undependent on fuel, why can't we?
We have the tech to do it, just that the white house, and Big Oil got us all by the balls, they know nearly everybody is gonna go to town in a gas burning vehicle, regardless of whether the price is 2 bucks, 3, 4 5 a gallon, yeah we all bitch about it, but when will the complacency stop, to actually start the push to really develop alt. fuels? Again, not trying to sound like some kinda radical, or activist, but i'm sick of hearing all the whining about gas prices, yet i don't hear about people saying that engine oil is to expensive to change it every 3k miles..:D

MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Reply #24 – April 23, 2006, 08:04:01 AM

The thing is, gas isn't expensive enough. You'll know when gas gets expensive enough when you start to see SUV's and full sized trucks sitting on dealer lots with an inch of dust on them. When you start to see more cars in the HOV lanes, with more than one person in them. When you start to see fewer cars at McD's idling in the drive thru. In other words, when the price of gas starts to affect how people use it, you'll know it's too expensive. Right now it's just an inconvenience.

...And when you start to see people looking for alternatives, and I mean REALLY looking, not just gabbing about it in message boards, you'll start to see the price come WAY down. The reason is simple: People choose gas over other fuels because it's cheap. Power companies choose oil over other fuels because it's cheap. People heat their houses with oil because it's cheap. When it becomes cheaper to use other fuels (or, in the case of wind/hydro/tidal power, no fuel at all), the price of oil will plummet because the oil companies will want to keep us hooked on the stuff. They don't want to price themselves out of business.

In the meantime, the only way we can spend less on fuel is to use less fuel. If every gallon of gas sold in the USA was 10% alcohol, there's a 10% reduction in reliance of oil for vehicle fuel. If 10% of electricity was produced by wind power, there's another 10% less. If everybody bought 10% more fuel efficient vehicles, another 10% less. I know the math isn't quite as simple as that, but every barrel of oil we don't burn is a barrel of oil we don't buy. With close to 300 million Americans and Canadians, if we could each cut our use by even a few percent, it would make a huge difference in the price. The key, though, is the price. Right now, it's not high enough to make us want to cut back.

BTW, for all those that think the US is absolutely dependent on Middle Eastern oil: The USA gets about 12% of its oil from thge middle east. The rest is either produced domestically or is imported from Canada, Venezuela, Nigeria, and other countries.

MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Reply #25 – April 23, 2006, 09:06:56 AM

When the local Husky/Mohawk's regular went to 10% (used to be all gas, other grades already had E15), I definitely noticed the car run differently.

When leaving work, there's a short drive 100ft? to the main street, where I just barely touch the gas pedal to move. Normally the engine revs up a hundred or so, and I slowly pull up to the intersection.

With a full tank of the E10, it felt like someone was turning the gas flow up and down a couple of times per second. I think it's called a "lean surge". Switched back to all-gas, and no more surging.

MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Reply #26 – April 23, 2006, 02:49:59 PM

Whenever put something beside E10 in any of my vehicles, I can't tell one whit of difference...
There's only one station in the nearest town that even has gas w/o any ethanol in it, and it' usually higher than everywhere else, too.
Some people say they notice a difference, I never have.
Dad brought home a couple gallons of it this weekend, I'm going to the other farm in a bit, will put some in about a 60% ratio (e60) in my 92 Ford truck, see how it does, as it's out of gas anyway.

Believe me, if I could effectively make my own ethanol, and make more than a 15-20% price break on the difference of it, and buying gas, I'd do it.

MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Reply #27 – April 23, 2006, 02:50:45 PM

Do the dual fuel GM cars have a different O2 setting in the ECU when the E85 switch is flipped? I can't imagine that E85 would work with a 14.7:1 A/F ratio since 100% ethanol is stoich at like 9:1 AFR if memory serves me. This is where the extra fuel goes - there is more fuel to air with ethanol. Also, MTBE was methanol based, essentially oil based, but the ethanol can be made with plant husks which can eventually reduce oil imports. I was reading about a type of genetically engineered inedible corn (for feed I think) that grows much faster & bigger than regular corn - just one of the many possibilities in getting this ethanol stuff up to speed. I think E85 is the highest amount of ethanol you can run in a conventional engine as the 15% gasoline is needed for it's volatility so that the engine can even be started in winter. 100% ethanol vehicles would need fuel heating like diesels to get started in the winter - among other issues with 100% ethanol. I bet if we really put an effort into it we could come up with a more efficient conversion process for ethanol. It's just chemistry - something the USA is really good at...

MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Reply #28 – April 23, 2006, 03:45:08 PM

Yeah, back east where there's a lot of E85 used, in winter it's usually a mix of about 70% ethanol..E70, if you will...
I've been around the stuff for years, Dad hauls it every week, we use it on the farm, etc etc
I'm all for the stuff, and I think evenatually it'll have far more widespread usage.

MTBE to Ethanol gas switch

Reply #29 – April 24, 2006, 09:38:19 AM

nothing wrong with ethonal, just need to retune are cars for it.

been saying it for over 15 years, why aren't we making more ethonal?
why, cause the oil companies bought all the patents and are sitting on them, cuase they want to sell cheap oil at high prices, but f them and their record profits, I have a compact car, and HAVE to drive to work, cause the us auto industry is shiznit, i have to drive 70 miles to work (wife is still in school) so it is not like I can find a different job, there are no jobs in lansing michigan, they just closed all the ed plants so no one needs computer support any more. i can't use less, i already don't stay at home as much as i can to save fuel, and it is still killing our budget, all so some retired guy can get 98 mil. it is bullshiznit and I wish some companies with some balls would go out there and start pumping money into the ethonal economy, get some refineries up. it would give our farmers sitting on empty land something to grow instead of the government paying them to do nothing.

like was mentioned if BRAZIL can do it, why can't we?