Okay Warp, which are you? Corn farmer, ethanol producer, gasket salesman? I'm guessing gasket salesman since you're from motor city. Is that why you say "probably won't make a corrosion difference in a recent fuel system"?

Did you even read the article you linked to or simply drool over the high performance headline? Around the middle of the article, it clearly states that ethanol destroys aluminum, rubber gaskets, etc. and requires replacing fuel components with ethanol friendly components. Not to mention increased tendencies towards preignition, perfect for air cooled Harley's. I also like the 25% reduced power per volume you get on corn juice. You're slipping farther into the dark pal.

 

Ethanol (alcohol) does not produce as much energy as gasoline, which is why engines fueled by E10 cannot produce as much horsepower or deliver the same fuel economy as will be deliver by gasoline. Adding 5% more alcohol only makes it worse. Few nonE85 flex fuel vehicles can handle an additional 5% alcohol either. It does affect plastic, rubber and some metals to varying degrees. The corn lobbyists and coward politicians have us using corn derived alcohol when it can and sometimes is made from any form of plant such as switchgrass in Brazil, where they are set up to use biofuels.
Alcohol belongs in Jack Daniels, not in our fuel tanks.
Biofuel is a good idea if done for the right reasons and sold to an informed public, neither of which have occurred in the US in my opinion.
We have so much natural gas and oil we do not need biofuels to be energy independent.

 

The more alcohol in the gas the worse the fuel mileage the more blended fuel we have to buy , the more corn the farmers have to produce, the more water that is used to produce more ethanol. It's not really re-newable in a sense it still goes out the exhaust pipe and the corn is being taken away from livestock driving up meat prices. Oh yea, good for everything in life.

 

This e15 talk is nothing new. Mainly talk as said its hard on any plastic and rubber component in most anything not rated for the alcohol content. Also Alcohol absorbs water further degrading quality and shelf life. Said vehicles I believe made before 1995 obd1 prior are the biggest setback as obd2 can adjust fuel better. Don't matter to me feel my bike as I always have and will run non ethanol premium. In the 2 cages I run e10 as they are daily drivers and get seafoam in gas each oil change. My 88 chevy TBI 350 gets non ethanol 87 as well as all my small engines.

 

I took a look at my Chevy manual for the fuel usage. It is a 2008 siverado, 4.8 liter. 293ci with 285 hp.295tq.
It says it will run on E85 fuel. I get a little better mpg with e10 than I do with none ethanol

Not much difference really.
With my bikes I do my best to use none ethanol fuel. We have plenty that sells it now close by.

 

LOL, as I mentioned, it's an older article, and has some old information compared to what we know now. Corrosion, problems with gaskets etc. was mostly speculation, and hasn't turned out to be much of a problem with E85, in vehicles which were designed to be able to use E10 (which includes most cars sold in the US since 1990). Harleys are approved for E10 back to 1986.

Yes, a greater volume of E85 is required to achieve a stoichiometric fuel/air ratio, so fuel mileage will go down.

Yes, E85 isn't quite as resistant to pre-ignition as race gas. But pre-ignition is seldom a problem. It is detonation that tends to be a problem (they are two different things), and E85 is highly resistant to detonation. And you can make it even much more resistant to both pre-ignition and detonation by running pig-rich at high engine loads. Alcohol can be run at much richer fuel-air ratios than gasoline, before it will start to misfire. (You can read up on the use of alcohol injection to suppress detonation, if you want to know more about this. Its used a lot on supercharged and turbo cars.)

Yes, I live in the Detroit area, close to many of the manufacturer tech centers and the EPA testing lab. No, I'm not any kind of salesman or corn farmer.

And as I already said, I have no interest in the politics of ethanol fuels. E85 just happens to be a great, inexpensive, and easily available race gas. No, you can't just dump E85 in and run it. With the exception of "flex-fuel" vehicles, it requires special tuning to use it.

 

Brazil's ethanol production mostly comes from sugar cane.
Interesting historical fact: The vast majority of slaves were brought to the Americas for sugar cane production, and South America brought over vastly more than the US ever did. (the region that is now the US)

 

As long as Iowa is the first presidential primary state, corn fuel will be forced upon you. I personally did not care one way or the other until I realized that E-10 is what eventually damaged my weed-eater, lawnmower, snow-blower, jet-ski etc fuel systems. It took most of 10 years or more for each to quite. What I find truly incredible is that on eBay I found that you can order new carburetors for weed-eaters etc for about $15, shipping included, from Hong Kong! These carbs. have reset the lifespan of most of my little engines. I now only use pure gasoline in offroad engines.

 

How did you come to the conclusion that E10 caused the damage? Seasonal-use equipment has always been prone to fuel system problems, and this was going on long before there was E10.

However, some of the offroad manufacturers were slow to get on board with ethanol-resistant materials, so I can see how you may have had a problem on older equipment.

 

Well I glad to see your finally stepping up to the truth of your arguments here,,
For E85 to work as a race fuel,, you need to dump 30% more fuel into the compression stroke,,
That's not something that's done with most street bikes and far from any modification anyone is going to do to a stock or even stage1-2-3 modifications for street HD.
I don't know what they do in Michigan, but here in Minn most guy's avoid not just E85 but oxygenated fuels in general in their bikes, snowmobiles, jet ski's, Outboards and other small engines like the plague.
We have non-oxy 93 octane fuel available all over the place.
I'm not sure what marketing literature you been subject too all these years for E85 and ethanol fuels, but it's just a commonly known fact among those that use small engine recreation vehicles here in Minn that ethanol is bad news for long term engine maintenance.
As a matter of fact E85 is not an economically or an environmentally friendly fuel,, sure it all looks good when the final product is used,, but they have been very successful in hiding the production facts.
Corn is planted, harvested, transported with heavy equipment using diesel fuel and it takes 3 gallons of water to make a gallon of E85, aquifers nation wide are being depleted buy Ethanol plants and none would be viable without government subsidies.
The entire E85/Ethanol fallacy/myth is being perpetuated by "Take the Blue Pill" short sighted liberals that are chauffeured in large V8 gas burning Limousines.