Lawmakers weigh limit on ethanol in gas | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram If Gas gets a boost of ethanol to 15%, will this have a major effect on the Prius? Are there any additives that can be used to compensate?
Compensate for what exactly? The BTUs per gallon of the fuel will go down a bit (from 110,200 to 108,300, down 1.7%), but I am not given to understand that engine components will suffer at that level (someone correct me if I am wrong). Don't buy E-10 unless it is less than 1.7% more expensive. Don't buy E-0 unless it is less than 5% more expensive. Otherwise do.
I used to own a Mazda B3000 pickup that said FlexFuel on it. I was told it could handle up to 85% ethanol, so there must be some different components to handle Ethanol fuel. It's like back in the early days when they switched from leaded to unleaded gas, and some cars required leaded gas.
I think this is being brought up primarily by the labels near our fuel fillers that tell us not to fuel with E15 or anything higher in ethanol.
My understand that the problems is with seals and that alcohol degrades them. Were there any cars which required leaded fuel? I thought that there were just cars which required unleaded fuel (hence the smaller nozzle and fill tube). I used unleaded in my car built before such restrictions with never a problem in that regard. It could, of course, be that no cars required either, and the 'requirement' was just a legal means of getting the lead out of production in a palatable way to consumers.
I don't have a clear picture how E15 would work. Some newer cars are certified for E15 so if there was separate pump for E15, then they could get it. Presumably E15 could be used in a Prius without too much trouble, but we'd need to official guidance from Toyota. Smaller engines like boats and things have been having more serious problems with the ethanol.
well, they sell lead substitute for older cars. I think it helps provide a better seal with valves in older cars, back in the 70's.
The main benefit of lead was it boosted octane. So when lead was removed, the refineries had to push harder to make the octane without lead. The lead "poisons" the catalytic converters used since 198x. So lead and sulfur were both removed to allow the catalytic converters to work well on the exhuast.
Toyota's official guidance is not to use it. The cars were not tested with it, and they don't really want to go through the expense. Materials that can handle higher levels of alcohol, can easily be used, but we have no idea if Toyota used them, or which cars they used them in. Most stations only have E10 and premium pumps, it likely would go into the E10 pumps, which may be bad for many cars. I've got to say, if you have a car older than 1976, it likely is a big polluter, and you can ad boosters to the tank. We don't need sulfur in our diesel nor lead in our gasoline. That is different than adding more ethanol that may damage the fuel system.
It makes no sense why they want to add more Ethanol to gas. I'd rather they raise the price of gas a bit to get people to cut back, then reduce the life span of our vehicles.
But that would make sense. This is politics. Republicans and Democrats want to win iowa when they run for president. Bush and congress enacted a huge ethanol mandate to help in the farm states. Instead of repealing it and declaring victory - oil use is down, the mandate sets fixed amounts each year, we have congress and the president keeping the law on the books. The epa is forced to try and force americans to use as much ethanol as congress wanted, and seems to think car destruction is the best path. I think the whole thing can be killed with congress acting like adults, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Guest opinion: EPA should dump E15, ethanol mandate
OK well that figures: my first car was 74 Maverick. I did not see my classic car friend tonite, I was going to ask him what fuels they use on the cars that used to use leaded fuels.
Friends with classic cars use premium, then add a booster when they fill up. My old roomate rebuilt a 64 and a half mustang, the rebuild of the engine made it compatible with e10.
