My Experience - Removing Ethanol from Gasoline

originally posted by: lordcomac

If anyone has documentaries on ethanol fuel, I'd love to know of them.

I would recommend starting here: David Blume
Not a documentary, but the author of a thick book about ethanol.
Al

Just so you know. .....the math in your OP was high. A 4 cycle engine only fires on every other stroke. So a 4 cylinder engine idling at 1000rpm each cylinder would fire 125 times per minute or averaging slightly more than 2 times per second.

But thank you for posting about this subject it is an issue that is causing a huge amount of unnecessary expense ( overall ) for the average person. Unfortunately I think it will be found that farmers are receiving large subsidies from the government for growing "fuel". And as usual the average citizen is footing the bill on both ends.

originally posted by: HarryJoy
Just so you know. .....the math in your OP was high. A 4 cycle engine only fires on every other stroke. So a 4 cylinder engine idling at 1000rpm each cylinder would fire 125 times per minute or averaging slightly more than 2 times per second.

But thank you for posting about this subject it is an issue that is causing a huge amount of unnecessary expense ( overall ) for the average person. Unfortunately I think it will be found that farmers are receiving large subsidies from the government for growing "fuel". And as usual the average citizen is footing the bill on both ends.

Ah, yes- four stroke, two strokes per cycle- I must have doubled my number at some point there. I'll have to re work the numbers when I'm more able minded.
Thank you for checking!

originally posted by: HarryJoy
Just so you know. .....the math in your OP was high. A 4 cycle engine only fires on every other stroke. So a 4 cylinder engine idling at 1000rpm each cylinder would fire 125 times per minute or averaging slightly more than 2 times per second.

But thank you for posting about this subject it is an issue that is causing a huge amount of unnecessary expense ( overall ) for the average person. Unfortunately I think it will be found that farmers are receiving large subsidies from the government for growing "fuel". And as usual the average citizen is footing the bill on both ends.

re-thinking the maths...

1000rpm four stroke engine, two strokes per rpm and four strokes per bang means two rounds per explosion.

that means at 1000rpm, there's 500 explosions per cylinder per minute- 8.3 every second per cylinder- twice my OP and four times your reply.

I just did the math three times and had two friends do it too- I'm still having a hard time believing it.
Can someone confirm?

a reply to: lordcomac
Ok....you are right about my math being wrong. First of all I worded something wrong. A 4 cycle engine doesn't fire on every other stroke....it fires every other time the piston comes to the top. Every movement of the piston along the length of the cylinder is a stroke. It takes 4 strokes to complete a combustion cycle 4 strokes requires 2 revolutions of the crank. So...enlight of that fact if a 4 cylinder engine is running at 1000 rpm that means that each cylinder is firing 500 times every minute. So....since there are 4 cylinders we can multiply that by 4. So 4×500= 2000 explosions per minute total . 2000÷60=33.33 times per second. ..total. So 33.33÷4=8.33 times per second for each cylinder...So...You and your friends are correct

P.S. You're right it does seem incredibly fast....especially since engines rev much higher then that...but the math doesn't lie.

Aye- thanks for confirming!

Crazy fast. To think my 85 toyota in the dead of winter idles well over twice that.

Drives the point home- ethanol doesn't belong in gas!

New engines are engineered to use it, and use it without problems- but would still be better off without the stuff.

Now, slower burning hot fuel could be better- if we were using turbines instead of pistons... but that's another story.

originally posted by: ugmold
Todd Teske, chairman, president and CEO of Briggs & Stratton, weighs in on the issue of E15 fuel in the outdoor power equipment market.

Thanks for this. He's not wrong. Down south, and for most of the US, e10 is OK as long as you use it up within a few months. Especially on more modern devices, where seals are more likely to keep water from the air from getting into the fuel.

Of course, they don't care at ALL about people using a 30 or 40 year old engine- they don't care much at all for anyone using it out of warranty. The average person pays someone to mow their lawn these days- that person sees the engine has a write off, expected to last until the warranty expires.
Me, I'm slated for a better life- but I don't have the kind of lifestyle that supports paying someone to come over and clear the driveway every time it snows.
I'm stuck doing the best I can with what I've got, and right now the best I've got is a garden tractor that is far superior to any lawn/garden tractors on the market today- built back in the 80's, with 70's technology.
Just not tuned for this fuel.

The documentary referenced in my next reply mentions the quality of gas these days, too-- and I remember it!
25 years ago, if you dumped some gasoline in a dish and lit a match 20 feet away, you'd be "playing with fire", as they say it. Today, you have to get within an inch of that gas for it to light.
A *lot* of the fear and caution of working around gasoline these days comes from folks who worked with it back then.
It's just not that scary anymore- it's just dirty.

Gas has changed, and it's just not what it used to be. Now we add junk to it- old engines can't be expected to run well on it. I weep to think I'll never know what this tractor- or my car for that matter- is supposed to run like.

originally posted by: bigal7997

originally posted by: lordcomac

If anyone has documentaries on ethanol fuel, I'd love to know of them.

I would recommend starting here: David Blume
Not a documentary, but the author of a thick book about ethanol.
Al

Very interested, THANK YOU!

Not sure if you've watched this and have a passion, or if you just happened to stumble across it in a quick search on the subject. I've seen the video around before, but never watched it.
That video was three hours long, so it took me a while to find time to sit down and watch it- I just finished.

Most interesting ethanol as a fuel video I've ever watched.

Now I'm really curious to get my hands on, or build, an engine actually built for the stuff.
My big complaint is that none of the engines I own were built to run ethanol- I have one vehicle and one small engine that were built to tolerate the stuff, and they do just fine... but neither were built to run it exclusively.

VERY interesting information in that video is the heat problem. Anyone working on an old gas engine running e10 fuel will tell you, they run HOT. that ethanol makes the engines hotter, and it causes problems.
Ethanol burns at a lower temperature, though- according to this video, and many other sources.
Personally, I've burned a lot more ethanol than gasoline in open fires and thought it was way hotter- but I've mostly stayed away from gasoline experiments having the fear of old-timers who had REAL gas to work with instilled in me.

So much more to learn- but the big takeaway is that an engine engineered and built to run on pure ethanol has no problems- they use much higher compression to get similar efficiency out of it. Amusingly enough, modern cars are starting to use super high compression to do the same with gasoline.

...and ethanol DOES burn cleaner.

The video has a lot of information on producing it efficiently that's outside of my pay-grade, they seem to think it can be made efficiently... where my experience in producing ethanol is that you have to burn a whole lot more fuel to make it than what you get out of it. I suppose a full scale production would have higher efficiency, though.

Thank you again for sharing this video!

I didn't read all of the posts so this might be a repeat of info.

For me the gaskets started to leak because ethanol dried them out (in older non Flex Fuel rated cars). Cost me a 2004 Crown Vic when the head gaskets leaked coolant into the cylinders, and twisted a piston rod into a pretzel. Broke my heart even more.

Same thing started to happen to my 2001 F250. Started hearing what sounded like a pressure cooker relief valve going off every 2-3 seconds

Found out about Sta-Bil which solubizes water back into the gasoline from some local Florida mariners.

Also found out about AT-250 which reconditions gaskets.

Old horse is back to normal and working like a champ.

Your Friend Jenkinswasher