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ethanol vs. non-ethanol gasoline

4K views 20 replies 11 participants last post by  Capt. Gary Randall 
#1 ·
to start, I am an authorized OMC (Evinrude) Mechanic. Or, I was 15 years ago, but everywhere I worked was so unethical, I had to find a new line of work after 4-5 years working at a few different marinas... (this SHOULD explain why I own a sailboat, not a motorboat, but I digress! lol)

ANYWAY... I just got back from a 4-day sailing trip with my 12-year old daughter. I have a little 5-hp outboard Mariner on my 24' trailer sailor. Before I left, I filled the tank with 92-octane NON-ethanol gasoline (like I always do). After we arrived at our destination, I had to re-fuel and the ONLY fuel I could get was 10% ethanol gasoline. I didn't think anything of it since it was the same octane...

My tank was 99% EMPTY when I refueled. As soon as the 10% ethanol gas made it thru the fuel line, I lost power, performance and speed. I had always heard ethanol gas was bad. Previously, I had noticed a SIGNIFICANT increase in fuel mileage in my truck when using NON-ethanol gas, but I thought is was “circumstantial” – although it was “circumstantial” enough that I keep using NON-ethanol gasoline...

I plan on testing the outboard with non-ethanol gasoline latter this week...

ANYONE else notice a HUGE significance in performance between ethanol and NON-ethanol gasoline?
 
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#2 ·
ANYONE else notice a HUGE significance in performance between ethanol and NON-ethanol gasoline?
Oh yes. So much so that people who haven't experienced it think I'm exaggerating when I tell them the hell it's caused me. (We're talking 2-strokes, obviously.)

I chased phantom issues on a Johnson 60hp for most of a summer. (I'm a recovering stinkboater.) All summer long the story of my life was that the motor would run fine in the driveway and then have me floating dead down the river as soon as I got a mile from the launch. My best friend was a good battery because I'd lose count of how many times I had to restart the motor to get back. It would go like this: hard start... OVER REV...settle...engage fwd gear...run shortly...sputter...die. (repeat / repeat / repeat / repeat)

Had to be the fuel filter, then it had to be the mix, then it had to be a crack in the hose / bad bulb, then it had to be a coil, then it had to be the harness, then it had to be.... What it actually turned out to be was the ethanol fuel. And by God, don't let it sit in a gas tank for a few weeks before you run it. The ethanol evaporates and the chemistry goes completely to pot.

Ethanol fuel is da debbil!
 
#3 ·
This is a known issue with E10 gas. You get about 10% less bang for the buck with E10 gasoline than E0, or 100% gas. Your old outboard is probably more sensitive to the E10 than my old flat head Atomic 4 is.
Even in a car designed for ethanol you have to burn more fuel to go from point A to B with E10 than plain, pure gasoline. This is only one of the reasons why the whole corn ethanol in gasoline thing is a boondoggle for some farming groups and oil companies at our expense.
 
#4 ·
It's not all bad. Alcohol fuel has less BTU's (energy) than gasoline but it has advantages too. It has an essentially unlimited octane level so you can run G.O.D.'s compression levels and make up for the lower energy level of alcohol.

It burns extremely cleanly as well - fewer pollution add-ons needed and engine internals stay cleaner.

This doesn't help when it causes problems in an existing engine but it's not "bad fuel", it simply has its own requirements, just as unleaded gas does compared to leaded - ask anyone with an old 11:1 CR muscle car if you're too young to have experienced that changeover. :D

There's a reason why some of the top racing classes, particularly drag racing, use alcohol fuel.
 
#5 ·
No doubt alcohol fuel has it's place. Just not as a 10% additive to already-crappy pump gas. John Force isn't running E10. The other component that makes alcohol racing fuel so wonderful is that "nitro" prefix in front of the methane, and then the nice little methanol as a finish.

John B is right on. Today's "race gas" for bracket cars was known as regular when I was a kid. I have to admit, it is quite amazing the amount of power engineers have managed to squeeze out of the near-water we buy today at the pump. But for folks like me running 2-strokes that honestly qualify as antiques, modern pump gas was never part of the original design spec.

And I am not a fan of turning our food supply into fuel. But that's off-topic and I'll drop it.
 
#9 ·
John Force isn't running E10. The other component that makes alcohol racing fuel so wonderful is that "nitro" prefix in front of the methane, and then the nice little methanol as a finish.
I wasn't referring to the nitro classes, only the alky classes. Nitro is a whole different thing. I won't even mention hydrazine. ;)
 
#6 ·
My experience: 10% ethanol fuel + 9.8 Hp Tohatsu outboard = Constant problems and repairs. Specifically, the idle jet would clog. Not fun to fix, but I got good at it. When we finally got far enough south to get non-ethanol fuel, the problem stopped. After that, I went out of my way to get non-ethanol fuel. I found that it was available at small airports in states (e.g. Maryland) where you couldn't get it anywhere else.
 
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#7 ·
I hate to drop names but I have been running stabil marine formula ethanol treatment and have been relatively happy. When the last gas station i could find in my area that had no ethanol replaced their tanks I had no choice. All of the small engines in my life were giving me significant problems, even the 4 cycle ones. Since I started running the addative my problems have gone away. Or at least the ones associated with the ethanol. I dont think I got any power back they just started running a little smoother and would still go back to straight gas if I could find a reliable source. Dam tree huggers.
 
#11 ·
Isn't most gasoline sold at marinas ethanol free?

Ethanol has two serious issues. First, its a solvent, so it can't sit long in your system without it trying to dissolve something. Second, it is hygroscopic, and will absorb water out of the atmosphere if left to sit (like boats often do).

In my opinion, it is a total scam perpetrated by big Agri-business. It is sold as a method to become energy independent, but it does not reduce the amount of oil burned at all. It keeps farm employees working anyway, but not productively.

Trust me on this. While several ethanol plants have shut recently, due to high corn prices, those in the ethanol business are there to make huge returns on their investment. I know one personally. They aren't tree huggers though they sing that tune for the press. The unspoken truth about all of our alternative energy initiatives is that capitalists latch on to the emotional environmental zelots and get crazy things funded and laws passed. It can be done so much more efficiently. Warren Buffet doesn't just toss money at problems, he analyzes and places good bets. Our alt energy companies make fortunes, while society gets little but "feel good" in return. If you think this sounds "republican", think again. (sorry for the political bent, its just a fact where they go for the money)

Back to the thread, it seems that isobutanol may be a much better way to go.
 
#13 · (Edited)
Isn't most gasoline sold at marinas ethanol free?

No.
Ethanol has two serious issues. First, its a solvent, so it can't sit long in your system without it trying to dissolve something. Second, it is hygroscopic, and will absorb water out of the atmosphere if left to sit (like boats often do).

In my opinion, it is a total scam perpetrated by big Agri-business. It is sold as a method to become energy independent, but it does not reduce the amount of oil burned at all. It keeps farm employees working anyway, but not productively.

Oh yeah. Listen to Al Gore come clean:
U.S. corn ethanol was not a good policy: Gore | Reuters.
See notes in color above.

Also we have skipped--or perhaps just talked around--the issue of enleanment. e10 requires a different mixture than gasoline; cars adjust for this but outboards cannot. Some loose power from running too lean, others burn plugs (my Merc).

I've added filters close to the carb; that helps.

Also consider vent filters on tanks:
Sail Delmarva: Gasoline and Fuel Tank Vent Filters

And some tidbits here:
http://sail-delmarva.blogspot.com/2010/04/epa-memo-on-e-10-and-phase-separation.html

Ethanol is also quite corrosive if it separates, and aluminum makes a nice sludge:
http://sail-delmarva.blogspot.com/2012/05/gasoline-additive-corrosion-testing.html
In this case we used traces of salt to accelerate things, but later we reduced and then eliminated the salt; the details changed and it took longer, but the story was similar.

Why does this not happen in cars? The useage and the fuel system design are VERY different. IF you placed and autoimotive system in a boat it would run well... but violate a large number of safety rules, mostly centered around having a presurized inboard tank.
 
#12 · (Edited)
Obama and his key advisor David Axelrod knew this....and they also knew winning the Iowa Caucus was key to beating Hillary and getting the Whitehouse...Check his record on ethanol voting and the rest of his involvement...say 2003-present...Get the rich corn farmers on board and winning the rest of Iowa is easy...but this is "just politics as usual"..but I also agree that using alcohol for food or fuel is wrong...when it clearly belongs in a low ball glass.:D

But seriously, this deal has literally made people starve by driving up the price of rice..no one's planting rice because corn's so valuable...and it's wrong. But before it's time to take this to a new thread...I'll say... look what it did to JR's liver for chrissakes...? Your aunt's gall bladder? How are our own ethanol filters doing?:) oops..off topic again....but some humor was due because this topics a real sore spot with me. Every 2-cycle engine in the country is affected and every hose and gasket. It hurts the little guy.
 
#16 · (Edited)
Anyone know if BOAT/US is doing anything on the anti-ethanol front that would matter?
I'm currently in Cape Coral,FL and there's 80,000 registered boats in Lee/Collier counties alone...bet there's 8 million lawnmowers and weed-eaters! If all the landscapers in South Florida united it would be on par with the teamsters,UAW and teachers unions combined...!
 
#19 ·
While touting the ability to run higher compression ratios on alcohol is a valid point, it has no place in this discussion. Did anyone here build their engines? Is there a practical, easy way to increase compression on these engines? Cost? If you start at the ground and build an engine with ethanol in mind, yeah, you can take advantage of the octane rating, but with 10% there's not enough alcohol to bump up the octane level to cover the lean-out condition that it causes. So, in the heat the engine rattles and loses power. Build an engine with 15:1 compression and you can use pure alcohol, but not even premium pump gas. The only viable option is to use a turbo with active electronic fuel management. That ain't cheap or particularly easy, and tends to be aimed at automotive 4-cycle applications.
 
#20 ·
I was merely countering the statement that alky is "bad fuel". It's actually quite good, just different. My wife's blown Jag and my old, hot rodded Trans Am both loved 10% E-gas. The Jag dialed in a noticeable amount of advance and the T/A stopped pinging on it.
 
#21 ·
Ethanol does not mix very well with two cycle motor oil. It also leaves a powdery substance in the bottom of the bowl on your carburetor. Causing your motor to run in a lean condition at the mid and high-speed jet a two cycle engine when it runs lean on gas it runs lean on lubricating oil which will alternately cause some premature scoring of the cylinders and bearing failure.
Regular non ethanol gasoline is available at a lot of places in the Florida area. especially close to the waterfront.
 
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