[chiphead]

Engine is 69 400 with 62 heads, summit 2802, stock compression. Locally I can get 90 octane pure gas or 93 octane E10. Which gas should I be using?
Red horse braided fuel line, cheap speed master fuel pump and QF 750 carb. Car is driven almost weekly, so the gas will get burned.

[Navy Horn 16]

It probably won't know the difference between the 90 and the E10.

[Schurkey]

If you're using the fuel, E10 is my preferred fuel. Terrible Farm, environmental, Food, and Corporate "Government Policy"...but perfectly adequate fuel.

If the fuel was being stored, or sat unused in the vehicle, my choice might be different. Although, I've had surprisingly little trouble with E10 for the 45 years I've been using it.

E15 and higher concentrations of Ethanol voids all sorts of warranties, and seems to be the next Government Policy Mistake. But then, there's plenty of those to go around. And stay the hell away from "Blender Pumps" which are their own disaster ESPECIALLY if you're filling a small tank--such as a motorcycle or portable container.

[Kenth]

Never knew E10 been around for 45 years in the US?

[mchell]

https://clf.jhsph.edu/viewpoints/eth...ow-we-got-here

I don't go hunting for fuel and run the highest octane I need that's available at the pump .... usually end up at wally world because it's always the cheapest available.

Wonder where things will be in 20 years?

[RocktimusPryme]

Other than sitting for a long time, which I have had some problems with, I think people dramatically overstate the need to find ethanol free fuel.

It's almost like CrossFit. Just some cult that people in the car world cant wait to tell you about how they drive out of their way and pay extra to buy fuel with no ethanol in it for their old car.

Very few engines in our 60's and 70s cars haven't been rebuilt at some point between then and now. Most more than once. They were all built with the idea of octanes in mind in the 87-93 range. If the fuel is going to be burnt, and not sit. Just get whatever is available. I do run 93 in mine, but I could probably run 87. It was built for California 91 octane.

[tstroud]

I work in maintenance for a fuel distribution company that deals in propane, gas and diesel fuels. Occasionally we have to open the tanks for various reasons and the straight gasoline tanks usually have some rust in the bottom that needs cleaned up while the E10 tanks are always so clean that the steel looks brand new and you can still read the printing on the steel plate from the steel mill.
I would think that the same thing happens in a small gas tank on a smaller scale.
Surely by now most fuel pumps and carburetors should have materials in them that can handle E10.
That being said, I still run straight gasoline in my motorcycles and small engines. I run E10 In my cars.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[carbking]

For the short term, whichever doesn't knock/ping in your engine and is cheapest.

For the long term (decades?), I have tossed quite a few carburetor bodies from the 1930's, 1940's, and 1950's because of alcohol in the fuels. If one looks at the floor of the bowl on these units, one finds pits. After a long enough time, the pits become holes.

Jon

[Schurkey]

Originally Posted by Kenth

Never knew E10 been around for 45 years in the US?

Showed up in my area (Seasonally Frozen Wastelands, heavily rural/agricultural) in the late 1970s/early 1980s.

I was buying it in my home-town at a certain gas station when I'd drive home from trade-school on the weekends. I'm thinking '79--'80 school year. The first six months or so, they sold 5% Methanol in the gasoline. After that, it was 10% Ethanol. It was advertised as "Gasohol", not M05 or E10 in those days.

The first few years of alcohol-enhanced gasoline had many folks reporting problems--the alcohol "cleaned-out" the underground tanks at the gas stations, leading to folks having problems with sediment and water in the vehicle fuel tank. I remember taking gasoline samples from customer vehicles to check for phase separation (indication of water contamination) in the 1980s. This largely went away with the EPA requiring double-wall underground tanks that had built-in moisture sensors.

I had an uncle that got a contaminated tank of fuel in the Denver area where he lived. He needed several fuel filters (and should have had the tank flushed/cleaned, but didn't) when he visited relatives out-of-state. This was...2010, maybe. A fairly long time ago.

Depending on where you lived in the USA, "Gasohol" or E10 has been around for a generation.

Again--terrible Government Policy on several levels, but adequate fuel if not water-contaminated, or used to disperse Toxic Waste that would otherwise require costly disposal. Really. I remember a newspaper article from somewhere on the east coast of the USA, someone got caught dumping industrial waste into the gasoline, figuring that it'd be burned and sent through a catalytic converter--"harmlessly" and CHEAPLY getting rid of what would have needed a full-on HazMat response otherwise. Instead of paying big bucks to get rid of it, they sold it at a profit to unsuspecting gas-station customers.

And the way some folks have problems with E10 makes me think that there's more than alcohol in those fuels. The alcohol is getting blamed for the results of toxic industrial sludge that's being mixed with the gasoline to illegally dispose of it.

But I'm not a chemical or petroleum engineer; and I have no first-person experience EXCEPT that my vehicles--carbureted via Rochester, Holley, Keihin, Mikuni, injected via TBI or individual port injectors, small-engine, whatever--have had REMARKABLY few problems using E10 as my fuel of choice for decades.

I did get a contaminated load of fuel in my boat--after filling the tanks at a marina gas station in the middle of nowhere. I blame the marina and their underground tanks right next to the lake, not the gasoline itself.

I had the foam in the gas tank of my portable generator turn to jelly when it was stored with fuel in it. I blame the manufacturer for putting crappy foam in the tank, and me for storing the generator with fuel in it.

I had the O-rings on a Holley needle-and-seat assembly leak like crazy; I blame shiity rubber O-rings that cold-flowed and lost seal with the float bowl. Once I switched those O-rings to Viton material, there's been no problem since.

Numerous small-engines--weed whackers, leaf blowers, etc. have had the fuel hoses harden and crack, and the same with primer bulbs on snow blowers. It happens so often that the hardware and "Home Improvement" stores sell "kits" with lengths of that small tubing in various diameters. But I think that's more the result of crappy Chinese "rubber" or plastic than a direct result of E10.

That's all I can think of now.

[carbking]

Originally Posted by Schurkey

Depending on where you lived in the USA, "Gasohol" or E10 has been around for a generation.

Try more than a century!

In the early days, it was just called alcohol, it was not dignified with its own name.

Seems like every other generation has to learn that the folks at MADD know what they are talking about - gasoline and alcohol don't mix!

And think about that "gasoline conditioner" that folks used to put in the tank to control condensation in the winter (gee, if one can per tank is good, 6 cans ought to be 6 times better!)

Jon

[Schurkey]

My dear sweet elderly mother was putting E10 into her '77 Nova. I'd still find bottles of "gas line antifreeze", empty, in the garage. I could not convince her that a lil' bitty bottle of alcohol made any difference when the gasoline was already being sold with 10% alcohol already in it.

I didn't know that gasoline was sold commercially with 10% alcohol, a hundred-plus years ago.

Don't get me started on MADD, or SADD. Self-righteous extremists.

[carbking]

Schurkey - most of it was straight alcohol. Carburetors were nickel-plated brass.

Jon

[Schurkey]

Originally Posted by carbking

Schurkey - most of it was straight alcohol. Carburetors were nickel-plated brass.

Jon

OK, that makes lots more sense to me.

They also used alcohol as radiator anti-freeze, primarily during and prior to WWII, as best I remember from the Family Stories I heard as a kid.

Which is why "Permanent" (ethylene glycol) anti-freeze was such a big deal--the alcohol anti-freeze had to be drained at the end of winter. 'Course, lots of folks merely drained the radiator/cooling system and "put the car up" (on blocks of wood so the tires didn't flat-spot) in the winter, and let the horse(s) plod the snow.

[Ram Air IV Jack]

Numerous small-engines--weed whackers, leaf blowers, etc. have had the fuel hoses harden and crack, and the same with primer bulbs on snow blowers. It happens so often that the hardware and "Home Improvement" stores sell "kits" with lengths of that small tubing in various diameters. But I think that's more the result of crappy Chinese "rubber" or plastic than a direct result of E10.

That's all I can think of now.[/QUOTE]

Our small engine shop where I work sees this a lot but the mechanics claim leaving that gas in the machine for months is the problem. It has been pointed out here that leaving that alcohol gas in a piece of equipment after the season is over leads to carb and other failures because the gas turns into "apple jelly". Then everything needs to be cleaned out/replaced. So many people leave this gas in their equipment that it keeps the small engine shop in business!!!

[ZeGermanHam]

Regarding E10 vs. straight gas w/out any ethanol and boiling point, I was very surprised to see what a difference using straight gas made in my brother's 461ci. On E10, you could hear the fuel boiling in the carb after shutting the engine off and he had difficulty with hot starts. After he switched to straight gas, the problem went a way. No more sound of fuel boiling, no more difficulty with hot starts. Night & day difference.

[Skip Fix]

I will say maybe the timing was coincidental but I had S. steel braided line for 10 years on my TA when I was running race gas. 1 year with a new pump gas motor and E-10 it literally leaked like a sieve! dripping out of the entire 10' length! It has PTFE on it now.

[tjs72lemans]

Not only the boiling of the fuel in the carb, but the chalky residue left in the carb caused me to use non-ethanol fuel. Unfortunately, premium fuel is the only non-ethanol I can find here in my area. But, the extra expense now is better than the extra expensive fixing things later.