e-10 petrol at united servo's

[pcp20us]

Hi All

I have been using the e-10 ethonal fuel at united servo's. It has an octane of 95 so its better than standard unleaded which is 91 octane, i think.

Wonder if anyone has any testing results on using this petrol. I was using premieme unleaded for a while but it didn't seem to make much difference to my fuel economy, maybe cause i have a 94 VR with 250 000 Ks on the clock.

I normally get about 12 kms/100

Cheers

Pete

[Noy]

I got this one, to me it doesnt last long at all. And driving normal to :P

[1991_Vn2nV]

Ethanol fuel returns worse fuel economy because of the way Ethanol burns.

I would NEVER use ethanol fuel in my car. Not only is it not as good for your car as PULP, the fuel economy is worse. Also ethanol mixes with water so you had better hope they never get ANY water in their tanks. It may be 95 octane but in my opinion it is definitely NOT better than standard unleaded.

[J_D]

Ive used the United e10 and havent noticed any difference in fuel consumption (normally 10.5L /100km). The Holden website says its ok to use in Commodores but apparently you should replace all your rubber fuel lines as some of the older rubber hoses didnt work well with ethanol. I stopped using it as I didnt really notice any difference to the way it runs (was hoping it might run better on a 95 octane fuel).

[quiksilv3r]

Ethanol fuel returns worse fuel economy because of the way Ethanol burns.

I would NEVER use ethanol fuel in my car. Not only is it not as good for your car as PULP, the fuel economy is worse. Also ethanol mixes with water so you had better hope they never get ANY water in their tanks. It may be 95 octane but in my opinion it is definitely NOT better than standard unleaded.

You will find some people will return better fuel economy on an ethanol blend than they would with normal ULP or PULP.

I could go on for ages, but I will try to make it as short as I can. Ethanol blends have a higher oxygen density than unleaded, which on an engine that is tuned for regular unleaded or premium will cause the Air/Fuel ratio to lean out (Off the top of my head ULP's oxygen density is about 20, and the ethanol is about 35). This leaning out is a bad thing for most engines, but can be good for some.

I know that XR6 Turbo's return better economy on the E5 or E10 mixes due to their ridiculously rich factory tunes - the leaning out is just enough to put them in a good a/f mix.

The other part is that the 95RON ethanol blends are just 91RON with the added ethanol (which bumps up the octane rating). So fuels like Shell's 101RON is actually just their worthless Optimax with add ethanol. There is a reason a lot of small capacity engines' waranty's are not covered if Shell fuels are used, but that's a different story.

Got to also mention that ethanol is corrosive on it's own, so even though the mixes are only 5% or 10%, there will be a faster rate of deterioration of fuel lines, filters, pumps and whatever the fuel touches. I think if you are willing to maintain your car a lot mroe thoroughly, have a custom tune eprformed, and always make sure the fuel is of good quality then ethanol may be an option. But you will find the same gains with a custom tune on a good PULP with less chance of things letting go due to the ethanol blends.

I will not use ethanol in any of my cars, and I will never let Shell fuel touch the inside of my tank. But hey, if you want that 2c off your fuel by going the ethanol, then it is your choice and nothing I say will change that

[pcp20us]

Cheers Guy for the info


Pete

[jules]

Ethanol blends have a higher oxygen density than unleaded, which on an engine that is tuned for regular unleaded or premium will cause the Air/Fuel ratio to lean out (Off the top of my head ULP's oxygen density is about 20, and the ethanol is about 35). This leaning out is a bad thing for most engines, but can be good for some.

but any modern engine with a lambda (oxygen) sensor will just compensate by putting more fuel in until the mixture returns to the programmed level. it won't run lean, unless the adjustment goes beyond the allowable range. at the E10 level i don't believe that would be the case.

I know that XR6 Turbo's return better economy on the E5 or E10 mixes due to their ridiculously rich factory tunes - the leaning out is just enough to put them in a good a/f mix.

it's hard to believe they run rich tunes. ADR emission requirements are fairly tight and wouldn't allow that, except in certain circumstances under wide open throttle and high revs. unless you drive around flooring it everywhere and running on the redline, you aren't going to notice any improvement in fuel economy by leaning the tune out (which would be readjusted anyway by the PCM).

[Wombat]

That's a question no greeny is willing to answer...manufacturers openly admit that by using E10 fuel, you will use about 5% more fuel...greenies say it is good for the environment...HOW exactly does making your car deliberately use MORE petrol make it good for the environment?
Ask the question and watch them squirm...

Same old same old as the other "clean green dolphin friendly" fuels...hydrogen is talked about all the time, yet it is an energy negative fuel...out of the total energy used to actually produce the stuff, you only get back 70% of that amount in energy as Hydrogen gas.
Ethanol is the same...the machines that harvest it and factories that produce it don't run on ethanol, and it too is an energy negative fuel (requires more energy to produce than the end product contains), so you can't simply say "hey, run the harvesters on ethanol too". South America as quoted all the time, and yes, they have cars that run on 100% ethanol, but they are designed at the factory to use it, and in a country where labour is cheap, cops are vast, and governments are rich, it doesn't really matter what the sums say.
The ONLY "alternative" type of car which would work is the super-expensive prototype Hybrids which have a small petrol engine and exotic battery packs producing performance equalling or exceeding a normal car...of course, not everyone will pay $300,000 for a family car...

Until then, if you want real amazing economy and want to help the environment, buy something with a turbo diesel...they get better overall fuel economy than the stupidly expensive (for it's size) Toyota Prius...

[jules]

ethanol does produce significantly less CO2 than petroleum at the tailpipe.

however the distillation/refining process is inefficient and the gains observed at the tailpipe are mostly negated in this way. from an environmental perspective, it's basically a con.