need an opinion as to whether gasoline with 10% ethanol is safe for carbureted engines. i would plan on only using no more than 5 gallons per fillup(with these high prices, i never let mine get too far off full) any thoughts would be appreciated. engine is a 350-4
I did a bit of ethanol testing in college when I was getting my engineering degree and have run a carburetered car on 85% ethanol without major modifications. Using 10% ethanol fuel shouldn't hurt a thing, but if you allready have a lean condition or detonation problems due to a lean condition it'll only make things worse because ethanol has less btu's per gallon than straight gas. ten percent shouldn't require a jet change unless your looking for max performance or it is cold out and your car allready runs lean. A good rule of thumb if you live in the midwest and would like to try e-85 rather than race fuel is to up the jetting by 25% and then mess with your timing a little. I wouldn't recommend running e-85 in a car with a carter or rochester carb as I'm not positive it won't hurt the seals, if you get the alchohol accelerator pump diaphram and the blue gaskets for a holley you won't have any problems. 10% ethanol you can run in anything and won't have a problem
thats some great info on the E85. I've always run stuff with 10% ethanol without any problems but was wondering what it would take to run the E85 in "non approved" cars. I put it in my late model daily driver at $1.62/gal last week...much better than the $2.25/gal for 87 octane.
just remember with E-85 usually you will get 20-25% WORSE gas mileage because of the btu per gallon factor, but when you compare it to $4.25+ a gallon for race gas and I can pull the car straight up to a pump and put it in rather than having to fill it out of cans its becomes a more atractive alternative. But it sure dosen't smell as good! cheers and remember when you re jet a carb for e-85 you actually have to calculate the square inches of the hole size in the jet rather than just going up 25% in jet number. I'd hate to see someone get pissed at me for not explaining that!!!!
For many years, and perhaps even now, GM stated in the owners manual that up to 10% ethanol, or 5% methanol was acceptable. I think the Methanol needed a "cosolvent" but I have no idea what that is. I've used nothing but 10% ethanol (around here, that's pronounced "Ett-nol) for near twenty years. A long time ago, ('78-79) Methanol caused a lot of problems. Gas stations had lots of crap in the underground tanks, and folks had lots of crap in the car's gas tank. Methanol cleared a lot of that crap...right into the car's fuel filter or carb.
yea, methanol is a much more aggressive chemical than ethanol, it even attacks a lot of metals, I wouldn't run that in anything without a fuel system built specifically for it.
