Is ethanol free that much of a difference...
 

So I was just curious does ethanol free gas make a difference on your car. Is it also worth the extra 10 cent from name brand gas (shell, chevron, etc.) that has ethanol in it.

I go for Chevron bcoz of the Techron. That stuff works.

It's worth it to me. I get roughly 2-3 more MPG with ethanol free gas than the 10%E junk. At $2.85 for 93, it works out that I save money by using ethanol free.

I haven't ever noticed a power difference though, only MPG.

Ethanol hurts mileage.
E85, if your car is converted to run it, burns VERY clean and allows for a lot more compression.

A converted E85 car will make around 15-20% more power than it's counterpart (provided you take advantage of the extra compression on the table) and get 2-3mpg less (depending on gear ratios, etc.). This is just an observation of mine looking at the Z06 guys who have converted to run it.

what brands don't have 10% ethanol?

From where I live, we can choose ethanol free gas (which cost about 20% more than E10 due to local tax). The gas mileage is noticeably better when filling up with ethanol free gas.

+1
I worked at gas stations 20-25 years ago and there was 10% in the gas at that time.

+1 as well.

Maybe its a State thing, but I have never noticed any places advertising that they had ethanol free gas. If they did exist, I'd love to know about it.

this is coo:
Ethanol-free gas stations in the U.S. and Canada

Thanks for that. I'm gonna give it a shot.

no hope for us in long island new york, not a single station.

If you can buy ethanol free, do it. Ethanol reeks havoc on rubber in the fuel system and from my experience as a mechanic since it came out, causes way more harm than good. All the political non-sense aside, ethanol free > e85 or 10%.

Crap. I just checked the two stations listed on that site and there were notes on both that the gas tested with alcohol in it. I thinks there's a whole lot of lying going on at stations that say they have pure gas.

I could have swore there was a new law that said all station have to have 10% ethanol fuel, but Im not be 100% sure.

I guess I am lucky....I have at least 5 places within 15 miles that sell 100% gas

So why have ethanol at all if it reduces a car's MPG? Wouldn't that just cause people to have to fill up more thus defeating the whole purpose of reducing emissions?

Seems like just a very big shell game.

Go ask the "TREE HUGGERS" one reason is so we can use your grains to make ethanol.......and therefore make food prices go thru the roof......and ethanol is put to a much better use if it is for drinking.......lol...dont you think?

The only place near me is ten miles away. It is an out of the way boat sales, tackle etc., right on the water. I guess older boats have older engines that need pure gas(?).

Ethanol, aside from the obvious saving of petroleum, replaced MTBT as a "drying agent" in gas. The MTBT was added because gas and water don't mix. As a result in cold climates water would accumulate in the gas lines and freeze when the car was parked. Of course the car wouldn't start until the gas line thawed.

MTBT was found to be highly toxic and since it, like ethanol, made up 10% of motor fuel, if a gas station's storage tanks leaked into the ground, the ground water was polluted with this highly toxic chemical. Ethanol replaced MTBT since it also will combine with water. Ethanol is grain alcohol and not as toxic (unless you have one too many).

Years ago, MTBT was only added to fuel in my part of New York, I lived in the City, from November to March. During the other months the gas was pure.

Lots of politics are involved in ethanol. Ethanol is made primarily from corn in the US. Corn farmers spend a lot of money promoting its use as a gas additive/replacement.

Bottom line is that ethanol is useful during cold weather to prevent water from accumulating in the gas line. The water is not harmful to the engine in small quantities. Some say it actually improves performance. I dont' know. Here in Washington our winters are pretty mild. Also, our Z's have a closed loop fuel system so it is less likely that condensation (from the walls of the gas tank) will form. Keeping your tank full in winter is an effective way to avoid this problem.

In any case, if you have a cold winter, it's probably a good idea to have some fuel additive to absorb water and prevent the possibility of gas line freeze. Ethanol is as good as any other. But in warmer places the only reason to add ethanol is political.

It's MTBE not MTBT. It wasn't so much that MTBE is highly toxic, but that it's water soluble, so when underground storage tanks leak gasoline/MTBE, the MTBE reaches underground drinking water sources (aka groundwater) much faster than the more toxic gasoline. When MTBE was first added to gasoline in California I remember there were some issues with it dissolving gas lines in older vehicles.

pffft. Calgary.., what do YOU know about gasoline?


lol

so what? do you just ask your gas station? :yo u got ethanol in your gas?:

most of the pumps around here actually have a sticker that says contains up to 10 percent ********.

the chevron near the airport doesnt have the sticker, so i assume its ethanol free. maybe i should ask

I work at a gas station and I have no clue how much ethanol is in the gas. I would guess its the same as most other stations though since we get it from the same suppliers.

Generally you will only find pure gasoline in rural areas and areas that have a lot of boating. My family has a summer home in northern Wisconsin and all the gas up there is pure. I'm not sure if this is because it's in the middle of nowhere or because there are tons of lakes/boats around there?

In general, finding ethanol-free gas in your area has nothing to do with stations wanting to carry it. Fuel blends are set by law and stations have to carry the blend of fuel that is specified for an area. A possible exception would be if they were a specialty station, like a marina or race track.

There is no inherent power advantage to running pure gasoline as long as you use the right amount of fuel. If you had been running your car on pure gas for a long time and switched right over to E10, you might pick up some power temporarily due to the engine leaning out. This of course assumes that your car is running fairly rich for safety. But as soon as you start driving and your O2 sensor picks up the lean condition, the ECU will start writing positive fuel trims and pretty soon you'll be right back to where you started.

E85 is different because it should be substantially higher octane than E10 or pure gasoline. If you had a boosted car, you could turn up the boost or if you were forced to run very retarded timing (which I'm assuming is the case with the Z06), you could pick up significant power. I was once tuning a boosted Celica and initially picked up over 50 whp at 17psi just by increasing timing.

Ethanol contains 2/3 the energy per unit volume when compared to normal gasoline.
A gallon of ethanol has the same energy as about 2/3 a gallon of gas.
So if you use %10 Ethanol gas then your effectively only getting 90% gas + 10%*2/3 =96.6%

And your MPG will go from for example 25MPG to 25*96.66% = 24.166MPG small but noticeable.

But that's if they don't cheat and give you a little more then just 10% ethanol.
If there's no label "E10" there should be no ethanol in the gas.