earlwb

Actually there is M85 gasoline that uses methanol instead of ethanol like E85 gasoline has in it. The Chinese and Europeans use it to some extent and there are some M85 gas pumps out west in California, Oregon and maybe Washington State too. it might have started popping up in other places as well. Using methanol is less harmful to the environment than using ethanol.
ref http://www.altfuels.org/backgrnd/altftype/m85.html

hsukaria

What I read was methanol was more likely to leach into the soil and water. I think that was the reasoning for the industry going ethanol over methanol. Just saying what I read. May not be correct.

Sport_Pilot

I believe that was MTBE or something like that. I believe it can be made from methanol but it is not the same chemical.

The reason ethanol is so big is that the farmers and agriculture midling companies are pushing ethanol real hard.

hsukaria

Maybe that was it, MTBE I was thinking about.

I tell you what, cattle/pork/chicken farmers hate the ethanol fiasco. It caused the price of feed to skyrocket. That translates to higher meat prices for the consumers too. That plus the fact that ethanol requires extensive use of fresh water to process it. Heck, in many parts of the world, fresh water is more expensive than gas. Just sell the water and get gas in return for a better price.

earlwb

Well it does impact the environment as the huge amount of farming involved in growing corn to make ethanol with causes a lot of problems. Then there is the water needed for growing the crops, fertilizers to help with growing, then pesticides to keep the insects in check. Then as mentioned transportation and processing go in there too. Plus as already mentioned the costs for corn skyrocketed too.

Of course it now has me a bit curious as to what happens if you run the engine using M85. I wonder if anyone out west might have a chance to have a go at it. I would assume nothing would happen, it would run the same. It might idle better though as methanol might have a bit of a reaction with the glow plug element. But I don't thank that there isn't enough methanol in the M85 fuel to really affect anything.

hsukaria

yeah, but you can drink ethanol, but not methanol.

Sport_Pilot

M85 is 85% methanol. It would make a good glow fuel. It would be better in cars as well because water will only mix up to a certain percentage with gas and ethanol mix, I believe it will mix to any amount with methanol and gas mix. It is the reason the fuel deicers use methanol.

captinjohn

Some cars have been made to use Flex fuel. Not sure what year they started making them. Is E85 a flexfuel?

hsukaria

Yep, E85 is the reason car makers made the Flex fuel powertrains. Mostly the type of gaskets, tubing, etc... to be immune to degradation from Ethanol. The engine controls calibration also had to accomodate the differing BTUs in the fuel. But I don't know if the Flex fuel cars of the past few years were designed to work with M85 as well, or if M85 is different enough from E85 that it would require design changes.

By the way, all modern cars are supposed handle M15 (15% ethanol, 85% gas). But I believe to use E85 long-term, you have to have a Flex fuel car. I personally would never pay extra for a Flex fuel vehicle, unless all you have around is E85 and no other choice. If you end up buying a Flex fuel vehicle, you can still run regular M15 in it without problems.

Sport_Pilot

M85 is likely to cost less than gasoline, but use 1.7 times the fuel, but would be cheaper to operate than E85. I would think M85 would also be more powerful than E85, though I am not sure how much the gas degrades the power..

hsukaria

I think the biggest interest for us is not the M85 use in vehicles, but in our hobby engines. That could be a big benefit if all our existing glow engines could just use M85 with a possible change of only the glowplug. That may seem feasible, but what about the lack of nitromethane?

earlwb

Yes, that was what I was curious about, was whether M85 works OK in the GX40 engine or not.
I didn't see anyone selling M15, M70 or M85 here in Texas yet. There might be someone but not that I located so far.
Now I could probably fabricate some myself. Find some non-ethanol gasoline somewhere and add methanol and oil to it.
But there isn't a place nearby that sells gasoline without methanol in it where I live. The locator apps online are in error at this time'

hsukaria

I'm not worried about the GX-40 because it is already setup to run gas, even if it has a bit of ethanol in it. I don't see a benefit of running gas with added methanol over pure gas, maybe over gas with ethanol in it though. I am more interested in M85 for existing glow engines that were designed to run on methanol and nitro. I wonder if having 15% gas in methanol would be a good substitute for nitromethane?

aspeed

Around here the M85 is not available. The E85 is very hard to find, and they are not allowed to sell it in a gas can. Only directly into a vehicle gas tank. I think the gas in the M85 would degrade performance, rather than enhance it like nitro. At least for models. I could be wrong.

Sport_Pilot

You have to add oil, so why not some nitro?

Sport_Pilot

You are correct, and the fuel would be more expensive than methanol due to tax. But some cannot find methanol to mix fuel. However their is one benefit from the gas. The engine would use less fuel. Unless you add more nitro to make up the loss of power, but then you may have detonation issues.

aspeed

Right now we are about $5.15 a US gallon for regular gas. I have not found small quantities of methanol for less than $10 a gallon. Add the $8 for Klotz, and it gets pretty steep. I don't like to buy 5 gallons pails of methanol because it absorbs moisture and goes bad. I just buy my fuel from Ritches brew in Toledo for $13 a US gallon. (keep the price there please) Some guys are using the Ethanol 85, but it needs onboard glow for a proper idle. No reason nitro could not be added. That could help the onboard glow issue.

hsukaria

My whole perspective was being able to buy the M85 and oil easily from local gas station(s). Getting nitro is just as hard or harder than buying glow fuel for most of us.

Sport_Pilot

Don't buy small quantities. Get a 5 Gallon can and go to a race track or racing fuel company and have them fill it for you. About $3 plus or minus a bit.

earlwb

Methanol (or glow fuel for that matter) stores really well. You can store it for years and years. I went over 20 years with about 1/2 a gallon of 20% nitro glow fuel too. The jug was only 1/2 full all that time. Anyway some groups of people would buy glow fuel in 55 gallon drums and dole it out as their group needed it. The methanol tends to be more resistant to some moisture in it (not a lot though) before it degrades performance. So if you are storing it well and not leaving the fuel container open long, then it isn't a problem.

hsukaria

Yeah, I had a gallon of glow fuel sit for 11 years and it was just fine.

CafeenMan

Until recently I'd never heard of gasoline going bad. Now that I'm flying my first gas engines I'm hearing about preservation additives because I'm reading threads about gas engines, fuel mixes etc.

But I've had lawn mowers and such and had gas cans with fuel in them for years and never had any problems so I've been taking that kind of talk with a grain of salt.

I've recently purchased a few gas cans. I bought a NATO 10 liter can that was expensive but very nice because every plastic can I've ever owned never sealed right and where ever that can was smelled like gasoline.

I also purchased a NATO 20 liter can that was supposed to be my master dispenser (no oil mix in it) that I would dispense to other cans that had different mixes. That was an expensive can as well.

Unfortunately it was misrepresented and I'm really pissed about it. It came from Hong Kong so I'm not sending it back. First, it's low quality. The lid is bent in a little bit. Second, it's thinner metal than the first one I bought. The cap is cheap metal and was slightly corroded on the inside when I received it. Lastly, it's not the 20 liters it's advertised as. It's only 10 liters. The box says 10 and the can itself says 10 but Amazon still shows it as 20.

This is the one:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I bought it because as I said, I wanted something to dispense from and it's low profile so it won't tip over when I'm driving around. I have a normal car so I don't have jerry can racks on it to mount a regular jerry can.

================

This is the nice one that was advertised as 10 and I'm not sorry I bought it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I ended up buying a 20 liter plastic gas can locally.

So basically the idea is that I'll need different mixes for different engines. For example I'll need the castor oil mix for my Norvel. I'll need 32:1 for DLE engines being broken in. I'll need 50:1 for broken in engines.

I have 1/2 gallon cans that I'll probably use for Norvel mix since it hardly uses any fuel but I may just use a one gallon jug. I'll see what's most practical when I get the engine in service.

By the way, I'm making a fuel tote that's really cool. I'll start a new post to describe it.

CafeenMan

My new fuel tote. I'm going to do a thread on it but I'm doing a quick description of it here.

Basically it's double ended with inserts.

I have a plastic jerry can that's I think 3 liters I got in Germany. Man do I wish I had a half dozen of them. I have searched for them online and can't find them anywhere. There's nothing descriptive on the jug to make the search easier.

I have round metal quart cans. They're like the pre-mix gasoline you can buy. Then I have the standar plastic gallon jugs. I also have metal gallon cans. I have metal 1/2 gallon cans. They're like metal gallon cans (rectangular) but smaller.

So the way my fuel tote works is that each end gets a pair of removable inserts that go in and are held in place with a pair of thumbscrews each. So eight thumb screws hold them all in place. I made one pair for each that hold the following:

(2) 1/2 Gallon Cans
(3) Round Quart Cans
(1) Gallon Can
(1) 3 Liter Jerry Can

Then I made two pairs for gallon jugs because that's what I most commonly take to the field. Heli fuel and whatever airplane fuel.

The three quart cans will have different flavors of 1/2A fuel or diesel fuel or whatever I only need a small quantity of.

No matter what I'll probably still have to carry loose jugs.

I left 3" of space in the middle where I'll have a tray that slides out that will hold two pumps and a 3-cell LiFe battery plus extra fuel tube (gas and glow).

The caddy is 18" long. The bottom is 1/4" aluminum rods so that fuel that runs down doesn't eat away the finish as it has on field boxes I've built in the past that I finished with poly.

I'm building a separate box that will be 24v and do nothing but be a power supply and carry my chargers and starters.

I won't have a field box any more. I'll be carrying the same tool box I've always carried so basically what was my field box is now being split into two boxes. That's primarily because I need more battery because I'm doing more charging and needed more mAh for my field battery.

earlwb

Gasoline used to last longer. But more recently in the last 10 to 15 years or so, they started mixing in chemicals that had higher volatility. The new chemicals will evaporate faster or degrade and break down into other substances faster. So what happens is the gasoline starts to degrade and become less combustible as time goes on. Eventually you can't get it to ignite inside of the engine from the spark plug.

Now then the older type of more simple gasolines will still store much better though. They sell this stuff in quart cans at many stores like Lowe's, Home Depot, Ace Hardware even, maybe even Wal Mart now too. Some hobby shops sell it as well.They do sell it as pre-mix with 40:1 or 50:1 oil ratios. Some hobby shops will sell the three gallon or 5 gallon containers of it as well.

CafeenMan

What about pure gasoline (ethanol free)? The reason I was buying the larger gas cans is because there's a place a ways from where I live that sells it so my plan was when my gas mixes were getting low was to drive down there with all my cans, pour it into my car and then fill all the cans with the ethanol free and drive home.

Then I would mix all it and when the mixes get low fill from the master can. Then when it all gets low again repeat. But given how much I fly I might only have to do that every three years.