ToyRolla

So I heard on the radio that some gas stations will start carrying pump ethanol based fuel this May(?!)

Basically, what concerns me is the mentioning of gel forming from the mixture of dinosaur gas and ethanol. What also concerns me is the octane level because my car requires premium. I already assume its going to cost more.

Does anyone have any more info on this transition or on pump ethanol?

tecnic1

pure ethanol is ~115 octane.
I don't know what mixture they are planning to use here, but in Brazil, who believe it or not, is the world leader in ethanol use as motor fuel, the standard is 85% ethanol.
It will burn fine in place of premium.
On a side note, Brazil, thanks largely to their ethanol use, is a net exporter of energy, as opposed to the US, who is obiviously a huge importer of energy, which determines our foreign policy more then any other factor.
Brazil's ethanol program was started in the 1970's as a result of the energy crisis. We are 30 years late on this

Fabrik8

Ok, I don't know what type of ethanol blend you're talking about for VA, I'm asuming it's probably not E85. We have 10% ethanol blend (as opposed to 85% for E85) at a lot of gas stations here in CO. If you're talking about E85, you won't be able to use it in your car unless it's a flex fuel vehicle, which means the ECU can automatically compensate for the very different fuel blend.
If you're talking about 5% or 10% blends, your car will have no problem. 10% is about the practical limit that most normal ECUs and O2 sensors can compensate for. As far as octane, the ethanol is about 122 octane (in pure form) but is blended with shit octane gas so that the blend comes out to normal octane levels. So 90% 85.5 octane gas and 10% 120 octane ethanol comes out to be a 89 octane blend. Ethanol does have the nice advantage of having a high latent heat of vaporization, so it really cools the intake charge nicely, just like methanol does (methanol injection, etc.) The price for ethanol blend around here is the same as standard gas, I don't use it in my car but my girlfriend uses it in hers.. It's really all about emissions though.

Honestly, if I could convert my car to run pure ethanol, which is just replacing some seals and retuning, I would get pure ethanol from the next town (biodiesel and pure ethanol station) over and have cheap 122 octane fuel. Thanks granola eating hippies! It's very similar to running pure methanol but without the horrible methanol aluminum corrosion. IRL is switching to pure ethanol for the 2008 season..

I'm not sure what you're talking about with the gel forming, you may be thinking of biodiesel? Ethanol blends don't gel as far as I know..

tecnic1

Waaaaaayyyy OT....but are you in Ft. Collins?
Yeah If it was avaliable, I would set my car up to run E85 alll day

Fabrik8

Yeah, I'm in fort collins..