Hey does anyone here have a problem with the ten percent ethanol mixture lowering thier gas mileage? My stepdad is getting fifty less miles out of a tank in his toyota previa van. thats about 5 miles per gallon less than he gets on regular mixture gas.

 

No, I'm getting pretty much the same mileage as before. If there is a difference, it's a very small one.

 

He should get lower gas mileage as ethanol does not have the same energy value as does gasoline. You can't change the laws of physics no matter what the politicians say.

 

Ahhhha,

Welcome to the real world............

 

I ran 10% ethanol in my LTD when I lived in Illinois and I didn't see much of a difference. That doesn't mean it didn't change a little though, but if it did, it wasn't enough to notice. Now the soaring gas prices, that is something I am noticing

 

10% ethanol correlates to about 3% less energy, so at 30 mpg, you would lose about 1 mpg...the cooler air of winter has a far greater (negative) effect.

Jason

 

With the same type of driving and filling it up at the same pump, I dropped 1-2 mpg with my 89 Ford Wagon. I gave up along time ago trying to keep track of my truck.

 

I second that, if he is loseing 5 mpg he's got other problems.

 

we should be using methanol not ethanol, methanol is right behind gasoline in energy
and it can be made from alot better sources then corn and food crops. Of course
so can ethanol be made from cellulose which means corn cobs instead of corn or
just about any thing made of cellusoic fibers since cellulose is a sugar it can be
fermented it just is a bit more involved. Methanol can be burnt at a leaner ratio and
not have any of the issues that ethanol does at standard ratios and just by having
a leaner burn you will save fuel and reduce pollution.
Of course they could be making synthetic gasoline from coal and getting the plants
up and running to make that at marketable rates but NO let's use something that will
raise the prices of everything and not really save anything when you really look at it.
using 10% syngas will have no reasonable difference from 100% gas or even 100%
syngas wouldn't since it is gasoline, I am sure I am pi$$ing off some farmers in the
corn belt but get off the subsidies if you can't make money without it there is more
wrong then just the fuel situation!! Not to mention ethanol is pretty slim margin on
the energy going in to that coming out and I would rather eat that corn and use it
to fuel the pedals on my bicycle, that is energy conversion.

 

Methanol is little different than ethanol from a specific energy standpoint (methanol actually has even less energy per unit than ethanol). Methanol is also more corrosive. Only benefit methanol has in terms of performance is a much lower heat of vaporization....you'd ice over your intake pumping that stuff into your engine.

 

You also lose the same percentage in power as MPG.

 

Not to mention MUCH more toxic, as both a liquid and a vapor.

Cellulosic ethanol is an alternative to pyrolized cellulose (methanol) but the technology is still being developed,....er, refined.

Has anyone on here wondered why if alcohol (both types) has such a high octane rating,... what are they blending into gasoline to keep the R/M ratings down @ 87, 91 whatever?
The fact that alcohols (in general) have a lower specific gravity and stoichiometric ratio has something to do with mileage. Just look at the size of the jets in an alcohol carb.

Computer controlled engines should be able to take advantage of higher octane by advancing the timing and increasing effiency if it were just that the ethanol was added to pre-blend type gasoline.

We've had this crap here in the Northeast for years.

I'm no expert but I'd like to know.

 

"
Computer controlled engines should be able to take advantage of higher octane by advancing the timing and increasing effiency if it were just that the ethanol was added to pre-blend type gasoline."

You lost me here. What does octane have to do with efficiency? Efficiency of combustion? Efficiency of mileage?

 

Knock sensor, timing advance and fuel charge delivered by the injectors.

You could have higher peak pressure without detonation.

I think.....

 

How are you icing your intake? The injectors pump the fuel darn near on top of the valve!! Have you ever experimented with running a motor on various fuel? Switching
from on type of fuel back to back on the same day with the same motor and roughly
the same condition? I have run motors on everything that is flammable, From alcohols
to paint thinners of all types, gasoline/alcohol diesel or kerosene mixes, coleman fuel
You name it I put it into a a number of engines just to see what I could get a motor
to run on.
Gasoline is TOXIC, antifreeze is seriously toxic stuff and the thing is you would even
enjoy drinking it all the while your organs are shutting down, YUM!! Ethanol is toxic
just ask any alcoholic. Actually for methanol poisoning, ethanol is the antidote!!
The octane problem asked above is because a too high octane in the wrong motor
ends up with fuel being unburnt and being exhausted or leaked down into the oil and
too slow of a burn and the piston too far into the down stroke to make any power,
For most street cars you want the fuel to burn almost instantly as the spark lights it
a high cetane number makes more power in just about every motor unless it is pre
igniting way before the piston is near tdc and forcing it down while it is still on the up
stroke. Go get a crap motorcycle, Some different size jets, maybe even a high pressur
pump and a bunch of different flammable liquids and start experimenting not reading
from wikipedia or some other source. Don't forget it is not a liquid we are burning it
is a vapor that is getting combusted and with proper atomization just about anything
can be burnt. Even get an extra two heads for the motorcycle and get one head
milled down to alter the squish band and compression and with the other open it up
so it has hand start compression and see how one fuel reacts just to a compression
change. You need to do this back to back and ride it and take notes and even video
it (which I wish they had digi cameras when I did this) Check into bio gasification
or wood alcohol there are people in europe driving around with trailers or their trunks
stuffed with gasifiers and driving for free, Most of europe during the world wars when
crude based fuel was scarce most everything was running on it. I am working on one
and plan on scaling it up, there are still bookoo amounts of trees that fell from the
hurricanes laying in the woods behind my house that I have fuel for a long time.
Fema made a book on how to construct a gasifier to fuel your generator during storms
and when fuel is scarce, and there isn't much that needs to be done to the motor itself
and the major component to wood gas is methanol!!