Cycle World article on E85 gas

[jabcb]

July 2013 issue.

Per page 26 article:
E85 should not be used in motorcycles, school buses, delivery trucks, boats, snowmobiles, lawn mowers, chainsaws, and cars older that 2001.
Was later changed to exclude cars older than 2008.

The UN asked the US to suspend the use of corn to power cars because its driving up the price of food.

Per page 46 article:
Flex fuel vehicles that can use E85 get to play games with the CAFE standards.

Audi may have purchased Ducati to improve their "Euro-CAFE" numbers.

EPA combined mileage numbers for the 2013 Chevy Suburban are 17mpg on gas & 13 mpg on E85.

Am surprised by the Chevy Suburban numbers.
EPA Gas & E85 mileage numbers are listed here:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/PowerSea ... owLimit=10

Oops. was wrong about this.
With E85 you use less gasoline but spend a good bit more.

[H2RICK]

Thanks for the info, jabcb. I'll definitely be buying a copy of that issue.

E85 should not be used in motorcycles, school buses, delivery trucks, boats, snowmobiles, lawn mowers, chainsaws, and cars older that 2001. Was later changed to exclude cars older than 2008.

Lovely.. ...NOT !!! Of course I think that many of us have already realized this through bitter experience(s) with E10, E15 and E-less-than-85. E85 is just more of the same.....only LOTS worse.
I go out of my way NOT to use any ethanol fuels in ANYTHING I own.
How about the rest of you ???

[Bloop2]

My old bikes get ethanol free super, along with my lawnmower, blower, trimmer and all the other gas powered gadgets I have to look after my place, be it a two stroke or 4 stroke. There's a Yamaha, Toro, Stihl, Lawn Boy, Walker Mowers etc dealer close by, they have told me several times that their biggest workload is cleaning the crap out of the carbs from ethanol based fuels. My cars and the Vstrom run on the regular stuff, no problems with it.

[jabcb]

There's a Yamaha, Toro, Stihl, Lawn Boy, Walker Mowers etc dealer close by, they have told me several times that their biggest workload is cleaning the crap out of the carbs from ethanol based fuels.

That happened to the carb on my snow blower. Now use stabil in the lawnmower & snowblower.

[Craig380]

In the UK there's some uncertainty about ethanol levels in pump fuel. The fuel standards say that it should be no more than 10%, but some classic owners are already reporting problems with tank liners flaking, glassfibre tanks dissolving etc.

Personally I use premium fuels (97 or 98 octane), as I understand it has no ethanol in as yet, and the extra cost at the pump makes no real difference with the mileage I do.

[ArticusMax]

Just found this article on the internet: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-da ... eid=YAHOOB

Thanks for the info, jabcb. I'll definitely be buying a copy of that issue.

E85 should not be used in motorcycles, school buses, delivery trucks, boats, snowmobiles, lawn mowers, chainsaws, and cars older that 2001. Was later changed to exclude cars older than 2008.

Lovely.. ...NOT !!! Of course I think that many of us have already realized this through bitter experience(s) with E10, E15 and E-less-than-85. E85 is just more of the same.....only LOTS worse.
I go out of my way NOT to use any ethanol fuels in ANYTHING I own.
How about the rest of you ???

[H2RICK]

Interesting article, Art. That guy certainly has his facts sorted out. Unfortunately I'm sure his article has gotten little play in the mainstream media in the US as it flies in the face of the perceived wisdom of the greenhouse gas crowd.....who have huge influence with the (mostly) left wing media in the US.

OK....I believe we can all agree that ethanol sucks bigtime....at least in "small engines" "motorcycles" and "light duty vehicles older than 2008". Now how can we stop this insidious crap from getting in our tanks ??......other than running premium in our bikes.......which is not an option money-wise for many folks....
We in Canada are being sideswiped by US laws concerning energy independence AND by the efforts of the ethanol/corn farming lobby AND the tree huggers. Thankfully we only have to deal with the ethanol lobby in Canada although there are bound to be Canadian farmers involved in that lobbying effort to some extent. We certainly have no worries concerning energy independence but the tree huggers are certainly driving this to some extent.
How can we stop this madness ???

[Alan H]

If we all committed suicide, and stopped buying anything at all, that would teach 'them' a lesson.

Except for one small flaw in my plan.............

[T350guy]

Recently I had an argument on this subject with a friend who just happens to grow Corn for the Ethanol plant.
Not enough money in food he says and he fully supports Ethanol..
Bike shops even report bikes with rubber in the carbs , fuel petcocks etc parts are dissolving.
I'm worried about my Crank seals in my 2 strokes.

[H2RICK]

I'm worried about my Crank seals in my 2 strokes.

We should ALL be worried about ANY parts in our bikes exposed to ethanol, however........

crank seals should be the last thing on your/my list of worries, really. What with the oil from the injection system coating everything in the crank chambers, the crank seals should last a good long time.....barring, of course, gas-flooded crank chambers that are allowed to sit....and sit....with ethanol-doped gas in them. THEN you might have a problem.
It seems the biggest problem with ethanol is its effects on petcock elastomers, carb elastomers AND carb fuel passages.
Another board I hang out on has members posting more and more about how normal immersion carb cleaners cannot get rid of ethanol-caused "fuzz" in the fuel passages. This fuzz
is caused by the ethanol/water combination (ethanol is hygroscopic) attacking the die cast zinc alloy of the carb bodies. The fuzz builds and builds and then when there's enough of it, pieces of it break off from vibration and then clog up the small orifices in the carb body. Apparently the only solution is ultrasonic cleaning of the carbs......and even then the process can occasionally be unsuccessful. It seems that the actual cleaning agent used in the ultrasonic bath is critical.
I know very little about the ins and outs of ultrasonic cleaning so maybe some of you guys with more knowledge in this area can chime in.

[tz375]

Just found this article on the internet: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-da ... eid=YAHOOB

That's not an article, it's a political lobbying piece on behalf of the oil industry. It also regurgitates common opinions and vague generalities and few relevant facts.

The one fact that no one seems to discuss is that ethanol is primarily in gas as detonation inhibitor. Remember we used to use TEL (lead) until someone worked out that wasn't too good for our kids. That was replaced with nice clean MTBE which turned out to be even worse. Then they changed to ethanol which has a lower heating value than gasoline but has less detrimental effects on the environment.

Even some race gas is blended with ethanol for the same reason. That lower heating value means than some bikes should be jetted slightly richer.

Because ethanol can stand higher compression/more boost, it is well suited to high power vehicles and E85 makes more power than straight gas on a vehicle suitably set up to run on it. That really means turbo cars with adjustable boost and decent adjustable ECUs.

Ethanol does have some nasty side effects - as does the chemical soup it's added to. Well to wheel GREET analysis shows that it's not much, if any better than gasoline for reducing CO2 emissions, so that's a bit of a bust. It is a renewable fuel and that's a good start, but it's really just a transitional fuel. That means it should be replaced if/when new technologies become mature. Bio fuels are still expensive to produce and most don't offer much of an improvement in emissions and energy consumption, but unless governments provide Research funding, we'll just keep doing what we're doing until we run out.

Natural Gas is fuel that's getting a lot of attention but it's expensive to run in a vehicle because of transportation and storage and conversion costs.

For sure the creep in alcohol content from 10 to 15% is a potential problem on low use and older vehicles that we need to be aware of, but why anyone is talking about E85 for mainstream bikes is beyond me. It's not economical to produce and it requires extensive vehicle modification. Equally relevant is the fact that we don't grown enough corn to make a whole lot of E85. It's just not an issue for us to get excited about. IMHO. YMMV

[jabcb]

Don't forget the minor little issue that the use of E15 may void the warranties for most of the cars currently on the road.

Another minor issue is that US-grown corn is an important source of food for the world.
By law, 40% of our corn is used to make biofuel.
Last year the United Nations asked the US to curtail ethanol production because of its impact on the corn-for-food market.

[tz375]

I can't afford any vehicle with a warranty.

Corn used for ethanol is different to corn used to feed humans, but it does use the same resources - land, water etc.

I agree 100% about excessive use of corn and ethanol. It's not all bad, but maybe should be dialed back and that isn't happening anytime soon. The recent farm bill debacle was a good example of how that one is working out.