Ethanol

HI there - are you making your own bio diesel or are you buying it ?

I have just started to make it and have just added 30 litres to 1/2 tank of dino diesel in my nissan st 4.2 litre turbo -- i have noticed a power loss- but will expect this to improve soon .

Boc

Ethanol by itself is highly corrosive which holden found out quickly when they exported commodores to ethanol countries and had to change all the fuel lines in export vehicles.
Overseas they run much higher levels (40% and up)
We are told that at a 10% mix it will not affect fuel lines or engine longevity.
You do what ever your heart tells you. Probably wont do anything and if it did would take so long at a 10% level that you will probably have got rid of the car by then.

me myself , i look at it this way. If i took some battery acid and poured it into a glass at what I said was an exceptable level that wont hurt you would you drink 8 litres of it a day??

just my opinion and opinions do vary. :-)

Ethanol can damage some big end bearings and some types of plastic/rubber/neoprene hose, o-rings etc. Don't know what % is required to do this but there is well documented evidence as to why you should not use it if the vehicle has not been built to take it.

The 'soft' metal is attacked by methanol, it looks like little worm tracks on the surface leaving eroded patches. This can be avoided by using a differnt chemistry for the big end wearing surface material. The big ends as used in some south american manufactured vehicles have taken care of this for many years.

the use of ethanol is a political sop to growers who through outdated farming practices are unable to remain profitable..............you need to use more to get the same bang in the cylinder - it is corrosive (as above) and does nothing for any environmental concerns...........at the supposed discount offered at the pump you are wasting your money and will end up spending on repairs and/or a new engine. rgds

I think a 92 EB would be in the realm of possible damage but beyond that I see no way to benefit from Ethanol currently.

Its no cheaper considering the loss of range even as E10. To go further you would need a cheap soucre of the stuff and unlike bio-diesel this doesn't seem on the horizon for a while.

Unlike gas which has a lot going for it in that car.

Robin Miller

Why would you use Ethanol ?

Its most often dearer the unleaded , has less range , and supposedly less power.

Why on earth would you pay more for something with reduced benefits and "potential" damage ?

In some countries alcohol is a cheap by-product of other industries. eg milk powder, sugar cane etc. In South America alcohol products are commonly used as fuel extenders. The burnt products from alcohol is almost entirely water so it does have some green effect.

After you have taken almost all of the solids out of milk to make milk powder the left over contains lactose (milk sugar) which is then converted into alcohol and could be used as motor fuel extender. In fact I would take a guess that a large proportion of the vodka that you buy over the counter locally is made from imported essence flavour mixed with locally produced alcohol where the alcohol comes from milk as described above.

g sus,
If ethanol does that to metal bearings I'm gonna have to stop drinking the stuff