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ORIGINAL: daveopam

Nice thing here in the big town of Elk City, the gas pumps are labeled to show which ones have ethenol and which ones are all gas.

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ORIGINAL: Truckracer

One thing is very clear whenever one of these discussions come up. Some parts of the country have problems with fuels, some do not! It doesn't seem to matter whether the fuels contain ethanol or not .... problem fuels are problem fuels. I feel lucky to live in a part of our country where these problems seem to be at a minimum.

We all know that modern gasoline formulas are a mix (cocktail) of many different compounds .... any MSDS sheet will show up to 35 different hydrocarbon products that can be mixed to be called gasoline. It does seem that adding ethanol to the cocktail increases the problems, especially if the formula is already one prone to problems.

Here in my area, all of our fuels come by pipeline from refiners in Texas and Oklahoma. These fuels seem to have few problems. It would be curious to trace the problem fuels back to their refiner and maybe a pattern could be established. Florida and other states in the SE seem to be especially hard hit by fuel problems. Northern states, not so much.

Just some thoughts, not a solution. But if a guy knew the fuels in his area were especially bad for small engines and their carbs he could use alternate fuels and possibly ward off some aggravation. For the people that continue to point the finger at ethanol as the sole source of the problem .... good luck as it just ain't so.

One last thing ..... gas formulated for mixing with ethanol at the end point will usually have a different formula than gas mixed to be marketed as is. Could this be a contributing factor to fuel problems?

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ORIGINAL: Jezmo

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ORIGINAL: blakeketcham

Hi, I found a trick that was in Model airplane news or Model aviation, Can't remember, but it works. Use a 5 gal can and get 4 gal of 89 or 93 Gasoline, whatever you use and put 1 gallon of WATER in with it. Shake it up a lot or if if you prefer put half these quantities in to make shaking easier. shake it a long time, this will attach the Ethanol to the water and separate from the Gas. Let it sit 8 hours minimum or just do the next step the next day. The water will sink to the bottom as will the Ethanol .After all this, pour slowly or better yet, siphon off 3.5 gal and leave the rest for waste. the resulting fuel will be free of Ethanol. I put a tap on the bottom of my shake can and pour from the bottom tap into a clear cup until there is no water as it sinks in the cup with fuel and is quite noticeable. Any Pilots will understand as you must remove water from the tanks in wings and such the same way. I remember reading a article about South American RC flying and what they have to do because there fuel is worse. hope this helps. Blake K

Someone showed me that if you put the fuel in a clear "fuel proof" container, to mix it, you can siphon off every last drop of the water from the bottom and waste NO fuel at all. Again, I'm not going to admit to doing that but I do know it works. I also know that the resulting gasoline doesn't damage diaphragms. It does drop the octane by approximately 1.5 to 2 points so if you start with 93 octane you should wind up with at least 91 which is more than enough for most of our little sparkers.