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HighPlains -> RE: ethanol (1/5/2013 4:59 AM)
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Yeah, been using E10 for a really long time in multiple cars and pickups with zero problems. Also in small Honda engines and Kawasaki 4 wheeler and all run great. Triple A would not be my first choice of info. They are there to scare people, that is how they sell their product. Normal regular gas has about 114,000 BTU E10 has about 112,000 BTU E15 has about 109,000 BTU of energy per gallon. Diesel fuel has about 130,000 BTU of energy. Why does the BTU matter? Well consider the difference between gas and diesel fueled vehicles. All things being equal, a diesel powered vehicle gets about 30% more mileage per gallon of fuel. But the fuel only accounts for 14% more energy than gasoline. So why does the vehicle get more mpg with diesel? It's the compression ratio of a diesel engine vs the low compression of a gasoline engine. The higher compression an engine operates at, the higher the thermal efficiency. With 87 octane gas, you are limited to very poor compression ratio to avoid knocking. An engine that is set-up for flex-fuel is a very poor idea, because it could easily operate at 12 to 1 compression, but because it also must run on 87 octane, it is limited to about 9 to 1. So you are really not using E85 to it's best advantange. Finally about the so called "phasing". Sounds like BS to me. For some reason it doesn't happen with E10 which is close to the same, and strangely it also doesn't happen with E85 which is nearly all ethanol. A strange thing about E10. If you take 9 gallons of gasoline and add 1 gallon of ethanol, how many gallons of E10 have you made? If you say 10 gallons, you are incorrect. It only makes about 9 1/2 gallons, which is why E10 has over 98% of the energy content of regular gasoline.
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