E15 Officially Approved

adampetrasek

EPA officially approves E15 for sale in U.S.

I have to admit. I know very little about all this BioFuel, E10, E15 and how it has been making its way into the gas pumps i might be using. But i really want to learn more.

What are some educated thoughts about using E10 or E15 fuel in our cars? Good? Bad? Why?

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MattP725

I know that any of these ethanol blended fuels really foul up any non-sophisticated engines (basically ones without computer based control). Heard a lot about boats being severely damaged and as the article says, those using smaller engines are also concerned.

It also doesn't seem to save much in the way of prices... I feel like it is more of a gimmick to subsidize and support the farmers. Just my 2 cents. If given the choice, I certainly won't use it.

bdavis89

It's ethanol mixed with the petroleum, which is made from corn I think. It's less explosive than fossil fuels, so it's bad for performance cars. Less explosive means less power produced in the engine. (I think)

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jaycz

That sucks!

10splaya22

Its better for boosted cars or cars with high compression engines since it resists detonation better. Hence the reason why cars running lots of boost need to run race fuel or e85 and are able to make more power. Yes if you don't have the high compression or boost you will lose mileage due to the lower energy content in the higher ethanol fuels.

370Z Purist

E85 is effective because it is largely ethanol, and has an octane number greater than octane itself, so yeah, anti-detonation qualities are good.

Unfortunately, for the regular joe (or anyone who runs pump fuel), 15% ethanol fuels will probably mean we pay the same price for less gasoline and more grain alcohol/moonshine in our fuel, lower fuel economy, while maintaining mildly better emissions at the loss of power.

In other words, this is terrible news and I would go with pure gasoline if it were still to be found.

I'm sure a professional tuner could figure out a way to change engine characteristics to make more use of the high octane numbers, but unless someone figures out an effective compression ratio updated to use E15 (perhaps a 11.5 or a 12 to 1) to preserve the literature value of crank horsepower, the next generations of Zs might have a lower power output merely due to the change in fuel. If only we have something like SkyActiv... that **** is crazy. 14:1?

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-Phil

"Since one of my brake light bulbs just went out, the forum told me that my piston rings are about to blow."

bdavis89

So let me get this straight, as you two seem to know what you're talking about. Ethanol is actually higher octane/more powerful, but it resists detonation more than regular gasoline? Therefore you need a higher compression ratio to make it explode properly/usable?

I'm guessing our engines aren't high compression enough for ethanol to be better for it, but for high compression engines ethanol is actually better?

p.s. Please pardon my ignorance

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Shamu

Yes higher ethonal content if octane rating is higher is a good thing for high compression or blown motors. The downside will be worse fuel economy as you need to spray more ethonal to get same AFR. Our cars won't benefit from e15.

If you converted to turbo setup and ran injectors and tune for e85 you'd have one fast car but for most of us average drivers it's not good when they start putting more ethonol in our gas. Worse mileage is about all we get.

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Grant

adampetrasek

Thanks everyone for this information. Very Enlightening. Guess I'll be doing my best to find gas stations that don't mix ethanol into gas. If that's even possible.

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MaDMaXX

You can normally find gas stations that sell real fuel, use http://pure-gas.org/ to find them, but they're quite expensive.

E15 is bad, i can't believe it made it through E85 works because it's mostly ethanol, it resists detonation way more, but you use tons of it to get the power so it's not for road cars.

Also, ethanol, resists det more, contains way less power than regular gas.

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bdavis89

Another question. I've been doing some research and looking around, and those stations that do have Ethanol free pumps only seem to have 89 octane. I'm guessing this cannot be used in our cars?

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JimJimmy

When we look at gas, 87, 89, 91 etc. Isn't that the Octane level? And if I remember correctly doesn't the higher octane levels mean more compression as well?

If again, I remember correctly, by putting 91 or 90 anything fuel in a car that was made for 87 gas, it does nothing to increase power etc?

cdoxp800

Octane rating or octane the number is a standard measure of the performance of a motor or aviation fuel. The higher the octane number, the more compression the fuel can withstand before detonating. In broad terms, fuels with a higher octane rating are used in high-compression engines that generally have higher performance. The number is a resistance to detonation.

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corbin09

Anybody have an idea what an octane booster like Toulene would do with E10 or E15?

adampetrasek

According to pure-gas.org i would have to drive about 600 miles round trip to get to the closest gas station that sells E0 gas. Some how i don't think that's going to work out too well.

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