2% Ethanol mandatory in NSW (September)

[Wand Weaver]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/NATIONAL/NSW-to-mandate-ethanol-in-petrol/2007/05/11/1178390531377.html

I've got a new VW, which VW Australia have said will run satisfactorily on ethanol blended fuel up to 10%, and so am not unduly worried at this at all.

However, I'm not quite so sure how older cars like the Mk1 and Mk2 Golf are going to cope with the ethanol - this may be of Watercooled interest

[brackie]

tiny %age

I reckon 2% won't cause too many problems.

[WABIT]

prob not.. just having you car sit there, for a couple of weeks and have the ethanol rust your head because it is a huge rust helper

wabit

[brackie]

Ethanol and other additives to petrol

I think that this web-sourced article is referring to much larger %ages than 2%, however....

"Fuel ethers and ethanol are more effective octane components since they deliver higher octane numbers than aromatics and therefore require less volume to deliver the same amount of octane. However, ethanol cannot be utilised without difficulties by the refiners in petrol because of its high water solubility, which effectively prevents its use in the distribution system for petrol. Ethanol has also a high, non-ideal blending vapour pressure which tends to knock off some other, light, low-boiling hydrocarbons from the gasoline blend in order to meet the volatility regulations. Technically, and because of its higher cost, ethanol is not really a viable alternative."

Source: http://www.efoa.org/oxygen.html#4 on 14th May 2007

There's plenty of info on the 'net. Just do a search.

This has the makings of an interesting and ongoing thread so I'm moving it to "Fuels and Lubricants". Dutchaussie....Are you ready to comment??

[gpk_gti]

so,my understanding was ethanol condenses more water and makes engines rust,basically. am i miss understanding?

[static1800]

yep, ive seen a head that was rusted out from ethanol not pretty. This is how i had it explained to me from an engine re-conditioner, remember school science getting water from metho? thats the same with ethanol. It also has a different mixture compared to normal fuel, so on a carbied car the air fuel mix can go right out and the engine can lean right out and... well you know what happens then. I really don't want to touch the stuff.

On newer cars you shouldn't have any issues though as the ecu will handle a lot of those problems except it rusting your head!

[brackie]

Properties of ethanol

Ethanol is water-soluble and hygroscopic. In other words it dilutes in water and attracts and absorbs any free water or water vapour around it. This probably wouldn't be a problem in a closed fuel system in a car, however it's a bit of a worry in a servo's tanks as they are vented.

2% is 20mL in a litre and this isn't much ethanol by proportion (imagine 4 teaspoons) so I personally can't see much potential for disaster. However as the proportion increases so does the risk.

If my memory serves me correctly Brazil had 100% ethanol Beetles. Obviously the whole fuel system was redesigned to cope with the fuel, however if again my memory serves me correctly there were so many problems that they gave it up.

[syncro]

If my memory serves me correctly Brazil had 100% ethanol Beetles. Obviously the whole fuel system was redesigned to cope with the fuel, however if again my memory serves me correctly there were so many problems that they gave it up.

They reintroduced it across the VW range with special engines.
The ECU cannot adjust by itself for ethanol, so the mixture will be wrong.

We will now cut down many hectares of forest to grow crops for ethanol production. I hate half wit greenies

[sydneymk1]

i had no problems over an15k year

i had a mk1 1.8 which i ran as my daily driver did about 15k that year and always filled up with 10% ethonal never had any problems his is only a small time scale though

[swiss7]

Brackie: They didn't give it up.. the project was started in 1973 after the big oil-crash with sky-rocketing prices. Over the mid-80s and early 90s popularity in E100 cars dropped significantly due to very low oil prices. However, these cars have been resurected in the past few years for two reasons: a) increasing oil prices, and b) because most new cars sold now are dual-fuel (as in E100 and gasoline). In fact, 55% of transport in Brazil is now using fossil-fuel alternatives.


Syncro: With increasing petrol prices, current grain-crops in Australia can provide a minimum of 10% of our fuel usage in Ethanol at approximately 80c per litre. This just means that we've got to reduce our grain exports. Of course there are issues of fuel vs food security if Ethanol production is increased, which is why alot of research is going into alternative crops and biofuel production techniques (mainly Lignocellulosis). Alternative crops (or in fact, feedstocks) which may soon power our cars include waste from households, forestry, farming (crops & animal), etc..

Australia is actually a long way behind most 1st world countries (including the US surprisingly). But its mainly in Europe where the big movers are. Check out Saab's E85 compatible cars which account for a large percentage of the new car market in Sweden.

Anyways.. enough aimless rambling..
Damien

[mollins]

2% is nothing

I use E10 confidently in my mk1 1.8... i would be more worried about mixture issues than rust seeing as the watercooled heads are alloy, and that amount of water (once atomised with the fuel) is negligable compared to natural humidity or driving in the rain. Some of the new Saab engines are built to run on E85, and im not aware of any corrosion issues that have had to be addressed in the design of these.

syncro, i hope to see more ethanol generated from waste derived feedstocks (waste paper, corn stubble, green waste) rather than dedicated crops. I have a friend who is working on a plant being built in WA which hopes to do this.

[gldgti]

lets keep the discussion intelligent guys - i don't think arguments about rusting heads (i've never seen a steel or cast iron vw head) really holds up. plus, the chemical nature of alcohols is generally non-detrimental to aluminium alloys.

i too have run E10 in my 1.6 mk1 and havn't had any problems, other than reduced fuel economy (though e10 is damn cheap).

hooray for waste derived fuels!!!

[The_Hawk]

i too have run E10 in my 1.6 mk1 and havn't had any problems, other than reduced fuel economy (though e10 is damn cheap).

Whats the E10 like to run with? What's it's octane rating? Whats it's power like compared to 98 Premium?