Ethanol in petrol

[royhall]

It may be an old debate but Ethanol in petrol is well known to destroy classics like ours.

An observation.
I have just made a trip to the Isle of Man on my old 750F2. This is a bike that is prone to tickover issues, in that sometimes it will and sometimes it stalls. It's been doing that for a long time, with me (and others)blaming the horrible PD carbs. Ran onto reserve in the IOM and filled to the brim over there. Within a few miles I noticed the tickover was steady, strange. And for the duration of the visit it stayed that way. It has now come to my attention that all petrol on the IOM is Ethanol free. I think I see the connection here.

So I went looking for a source of Ethanol free fuel and came up with this.   http://www.groups.tr-register.co.uk/wessex/ethanol-update.html  This site is updated regularly. For my area (the north west) I can use BP Ultimate Super and Esso Super Unleaded and get Ethanol free petrol. There is of course Aspen, but it is difficult to source and expensive.

Any other sources of Ethanol Free petrol?

[philward]

Great info Roy - I'll be changing to super unleaded!

[Bullit]

That was an interesting read Roy. I always ran my old fords on Super, seems like it was the right thing to do.

[royhall]

Supprised you didn't chime in on this one Ash, thought it would be right up your street. Was looking forward to learning something about the subject.

[AshimotoK0]

Supprised you didn't chime in on this one Ash, thought it would be right up your street. Was looking forward to learning something about the subject.

I have a couple of bottles of this stuff from a guy here at work,  who sadly just passed away. It's called Ethanolmate made by Flexolite. He had a Rover P5 and a Rover P6 car (the ones with the 3.5l ex-Buick engine) and used it in those. It's supposed to stabilize ethanol blended fuels.I will have to Google reviews on it but he was no mug !

http://www.classicsmonthly.com/2012/04/17/ethanol-stability-additives-fbhvc-test-results/

Nice one on the super unleaded Roy. In the late 90's I worked for a company who made vacuum pumps and I developed a vapour recovery electronically controlled pumping  system for unleaded petrol vapour recovery because unbeknownst to a lot of folk it contains benzene which is a know carcinogen. The idea was that if you are dispensing fuel at say 50 l/min, you suck back the vapour during filling at the same rate to prevent people breathing in the fumes. It was legislated in Europe to fit vapour recovery systems to unleaded nozzles but you rarely see it on pumps here as I don't believe it's mandatory here, like it was supposed to be. So we replaced lead with a known carcinogen. I think the Americans have a system with bellows over the filling nozzle but the European system has a special pipe in the nozzle that sucks back the vapour. Super unleaded has the most benzine in it.

[royhall]

Nice one Ash, I knew we would all learn something on the subject.

What about Toluene (Methyl-benzine) in super unleaded, used to raise the octane I believe. Greater calorific value than petrol?. Now that's got to be toxic as it's a nasty solvent. Think I can hear the CB melting in the garage. You get rid of the Ethanol and low and behold another bunch of nasties.

Am looking to get the local farm machinery guy to stock Aspen 4T in bulk form (drums). Aspen is really what classics require as is it's so lovely and yummy you could have a bath in it. And they sell premixed 2T for the Stink Wheel boys as well (sorry and girls).

[Harold 400/4]

Has anyone run their bikes on Aspen? Looks to be a pretty expensive option.

[royhall]

If you can find someone to stock Aspen in full size drums it's not too bad on price though still expensive. In 5ltr form it's way too pricey for bikes really meant for lawn mowers etc.

Wasn't really advocating Aspen for general use. I was thinking about running a couple of tanks full through the system about this time of year ready for the over winter lay up. Aspen will survive a 6 month lay up without turning to sludge or degrading, and more importantly without absorbing water that separates in your tank and causes rust. Also the lack of Ethanol saves all the rubber parts etc.

BP Ultimate Super Unleaded for now. But check the above site for your area as it may still contain Ethanol ie the south west.

All may change from 2017 when E10 may become mandatory? If this does happen we may as well just take our classics to the scrap yard.

[shifter]

Regarding running on "BP ultimate",,I restored & owned a TR 4 and always  used ultimate fuel ,founding that it performed with a better MPG and ran a lot better,so being ,have since used it in my bikes, also which brings the tickover a lot lower & smoother on my 550 , being more expensive to buy in the first place , I think you reap it back with a better MPG......

[Spitfire]

Benzene in gasoline is now restricted, from 2011 refiners had to comply with new regulations limiting it to 1%, we had to build a new benzene extraction unit at the refinery where I used to work, I've been retired a while now so I do not know what the current regs are though there was talk of reducing it even further. The info on ethanol will certainly get me to try the BP Ultimate, so thanks for that.

Cheers

Dennis

[royhall]

Regarding running on "BP ultimate",,I restored & owned a TR 4 and always  used ultimate fuel ,founding that it performed with a better MPG and ran a lot better,so being ,have since used it in my bikes, also which brings the tickover a lot lower & smoother on my 550 , being more expensive to buy in the first place , I think you reap it back with a better MPG......

Well put Shifter.

I love those old Triumphs. I had an immaculate TR6 a while back with knock on spoked wheels etc. Wish I hadn't sold it really but no longer had room for it. Added it to the long list of vehicles I should never have sold.

Now I come to think of it, "a while back" is actually 13 years. Where did all that time go?

[MCTID]

With regards to BP fuels.....I worked with a Guy from Lancaster for many years when we worked for London Underground and he made the journey down each week.....he swore by BP as a tank fill gave him another 30 Miles per tankfull and his car always ran without a hitch on their Diesel. Nowadays I try to fill up with BP whenever I can but at least if I fill up at the Supermarkets every other week or so I am keeping a reasonable level of good quality fuel in the tank and my car runs perfectly.

[gtmdriver]

The Flexolite Ethnolmate, along with Frost Ethomix and 3 Millers product are the only ones found to work when tested by the FBHVC.

They prevent oxidation of the ethanol content and also prevent corrosion of the metallic components of older fuel systems. Unfortunately they do nothing to protect the elastomers such as O rings, flexible fuel lines etc. The only thing you can do for these is to use ethanol safe materials such as Teflon, Viton and Nitrile.

[royhall]

Additives are okay in there own way, but you cannot beat leaving out the Ethanol in the first place.

[gtmdriver]

Definitely.

The problem is that it is difficult to keep track of ethanol free fuel as the available data constantly needs updating as more companies fall in to line with the EEC directive to move to E5 then E10.

There is a huge piece of research on biofuel here.

http://www.realclassic.co.uk/techfiles/bioethanol_fuel_study.pdf