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Are There Any Ways To Mitigate Gasohol Effects On Engines


steelepulse

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You need to replace all parts not tolerant to Ethanol, I guess your goal is E10 tolerance as E20 may not be available from BMW/Bosch

Fuel cap, fuel pump in tank, hoses, all rubber and plastic parts until fuel reaches combustion chamber

I believe there is no engine damaged by E10, on the contrary E10 may keep combustion chamber cleaner

Resent postings in BIke forum explains what to do

The danger of running Ethanol without modding, is the melted plastic and rubber parts ends up in engines combustion chamber and can cause major damage

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Thanks kbb. Has there been any data/evidence about when normal rubber starts to break down due to gasohol use such as " after 3000 litres" or "after 1.5 years" etc.?

I have had two gasohol damaged vehicles

2004 Honda VTX 1800cc bike. I can not know the fuel being used before I got it secondhand in 2007 with 10k km on it. Worked fine for months, then by accident I filled up with E10, and it ran for less than 3 days/100km before engine problems arose. Picked fuelsystem/injection apart, parts damaged. Sparkplugs black from melted parts, glazed black. Impossible to repair sparkplugs, not avilable in LOS, so new from Singapore. Dont want to think about how valves and pistons would have looked like if I havent stopped running engine

2005? Honda Phantom 200, friends bike. I was to start it up after 6 months in store, 12 months/few km old. Did not run well. Fuel hose and other stuff melted, spark plug black glaced. Garage said gasohol. Owner couldnt say what fuel had been used

Subaru was last official import car to LOS adapting to E10, 2007 as I recall, but I doubt they will reveal any info.

First try is to leave you gas filler cap (and prefereably one fuel hose) in gasohol for a couple of days and check what happens with rubber gasket/rubber. If these very inexpensive parts cant handle Ethanol, its not likely the rest of fuel line can, as a car maker will usually have only one supplier for fuelsystem

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Got VW GTI, been advised by the dealers to only use V-Power 95. Which as of now has the same %ethanol as gasohol 95 :blink:!!!! There must be something in the V-Power that helps with the corroding effect? I hope anyway. Havn't really dared trying gasohol 95 yet. Might not be worth the cost of fixing the engine :whistling:.

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Got VW GTI, been advised by the dealers to only use V-Power 95. Which as of now has the same %ethanol as gasohol 95 :blink:!!!! There must be something in the V-Power that helps with the corroding effect? I hope anyway. Havn't really dared trying gasohol 95 yet. Might not be worth the cost of fixing the engine :whistling:.

Only few months back V-Power 95 contained no Ethanol, then it was 6% Ehanol and now its 10% Ethanol, same as Gasohol E10. There is no reason to believe V-Power dissolves plastic and rubber more slowly than gasohol. Besides my bike was damaged by, yes one tank of Shell fuel E10.

VW has 4 decades of Ethanol experience in Brasil, and it may be possible they spec all their production with Ethanol tolerant parts

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The only reason VW recommends V-Power is for octane and additive package.

VW states that lower octanes are usable. The computer will compensate. VW says you will experience less power at lower octane. This is because of less timing advance.

Additive package is important for any vehicle. You will experience harmful deposits on engines and fuel systems with cheap additive packages. In the US that means using Top Tier gas:

http://www.toptiergas.com/

This is an update of the old BMW Unlimited Mileage Test. In Thailand, the closest you can get are Caltex, Shell, and Esso. Other quality brands would be the next choice. Bargain basement fuels only in an emergency. PTT's website claims to use a Top Tier chemical in their blend, but when gas prices shot up again, I tried just a few months because Caltex doesn't have Gasohol 91 (at least here), but I had deposits on my spark plugs with PTT very quickly.

For general gasohol theory, alcohol in the car has three primary effects.

First is destruction of rubber components in the fuel system that are not alcohol resistant. Rumor has it that recently manufactured carburetor rebuild kits are made with alcohol-resistant materials, but if you don't know what you have, and don't want to rebuild your carbs soon, avoid using alcohol. Fuel injected cars built after 1998 are supposed to be gasohol capable, but read your owner's manual to be sure.

Second is changing the stoichiometric point. So if you have dialed in your carbs for a certain fuel mixture, it is no longer valid for

gasohol. If you have fuel injection, the computer will compensate for it via emissions feedback.

The third is changing the spark propagation properties, which has consequences for the ideal timing setting. I read an article in a muscle car magazine that is not immediately at my fingertips which discussed the specific recommended changes to factory timing spec. If you have electronic ignition, your computer runs for maximum advance without detonation, so it should be okay.

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Fuel injected cars built after 1998 are supposed to be gasohol capable, but read your owner's manual to be sure.

Partly correct for some US market cars

However for cars in LOS, there are not many Ethanol/gasohol compatible before 2005, and thats for E10 max. E20 compability started late 2007/early 2008.

Most European imports (Bosch injection) seem to be ok after 2008, E10 only

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