MG-Cars.net

Welcome to our resource for MG Car Information.

Recommendations

Parts

MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG MGA - bio-ethanol in an MG

I know a car has to be modified to run off of e85, but I also heard that MG engines are pretty sturdy, so what would happen if just poured e85 into my tank and drove with it? If this would really screw up my car, how hard would it be to modify it?

Just curious. Gas is getting expensive these days and ethanol is cheaper.
Darian Henderson

A few things to consider.
Corrosion - Alcohol is highly hygroscopic and will pull moisture from the air and thereby rust things like steel lines.
Chemical Compatibility - The seals and diaphragms can't degenerate when switched from gas to alky.
Not answers, just more questions.
Doug
D Sjostrom

Your fuel tank, fuel lines and carbs would start to dissolve, your car would refuse to start because E85 needs a much richer mixture than gas.

The Wiz

You would have to re-jet the carbe for more fuel flow. You would have to install teflon lined fuel hoses. You would probably have to fabricate new alcohol resistant elastomer seals for the float chamber mounting, and use teflon O-rings for the main jet seals. You would likely have to toss out the Lucas fuel pump, as the rubber diaphragm would not survive high alcohol fuel, maybe substitute one of the electronic pumps that has no internal rubber parts.

If you drive it regularly (all year round) flushing fuel through the system regularly, it probably would not have problems with water condensation or corrosion of a steel fuel tank or steel lines or any metal parts in the carburetors. If you store it for 6 months per year in an unheated space with temperature fluctuations, it likely would have condensation and corrosion problems. It could also be difficult to start in cold weather.

The real ringer is that alcohol has less energy content than gasoline, so you might expect it to use as much as 50% more fuel running on E85, which largely wipes out any price difference for the fuel. In the near future (if not already) you may expect various forms of fuel to be priced competitively on the basis of energy content, so 100 miles worth or E85 might cost about the same as 100 miles worth of 10% gasohol. Following that, there is no fuel cost savings in the exchange, so you may need a different reason to make the conversion.
Barney Gaylord

Barney has it again..

Also, Ethanol is subsidized by the state and national government. It is partially paid for by your tax dollars. If we all started running more then the 10% that most fuel has in it around the Country, we would need to rebuild almost all cars, it would end up costing us more and corn prices keep going up because of it too. This in turn has driven up the cost of grain for livestock and even just food and other products. These are known facts and I can only hope that people are not looking at this as a political statement.

Also, there is other upcoming products not grown from corn that might end up producing slightly more energy with less costs... But it still looks like crude oil and even Shale are still the energy winners in the foreseeable future.

This is only food for thought, hopefully I am not backing myself into a corner here.

-BMC.
BMC Brian McCullough

Just put a $1000 set of special injectors in a Mazda (Ford) pick up truck. Truck had run just fine on 10% alcohol mix for years until the customer discovered that his truck was E-85 approved. Six months of E-85 ruined the E-85 specific injectors. He went back to 10% alky 90% gas. Alcohol is a Bad Idea for a motor vehicle.
The increased cost to beef producers here in Colorado for feed has put some out of business. All caused by our stupid government stepping in and screwing up the market through subsidies to some corn users.
As long as supply and demand and not government taxes and interference determine what we use we will be better off.
R J Brown

Hello again.

I have other reasons than price as well. One is that this fuel is 105 octane, and my crossflow head was designed for 100 octane.

About the jets, couldn't I leave the choke out a little?

Thanks,

Darian
Darian Henderson

The short answer here is to worry about getting the car to run good on commonly available gas. You'll be saving yourself a big headache.
Tom

Did your cross-flow head raise the compression? If not why would it require more octane? Octane need is generally a direct relationship to compression ratio.
100LL aviation gas is easy to get and now around $3.00. A pilot friend has access, but it really is not legal for road use as the proper taxes are not paid. Off road use only "racing" fuels are also available. Check with your local drag racers.
Our fuel systems are NOT compatible with alcohol. Even the 10% stuff should be avoided if possible.
R J Brown

RJ, It is kinda hard to avoid the 10% stuff here in Illinois. It's been so for years. That being said, I have never had a 10% "gasahol" related failure on my current or previous MGA.

Darian, When reading about the "octane rating" required for the crossflow head, be aware that the US uses a different method than the UK. Most likely, if your head is British-made, it was spec'ed using RON only. The US gas pumps use "RON + MON" / 2. The difference between the RON and MON can be as high as 12 points. This means that the RON is around 5-6 points higher than the pump rating. You may not be as far from your octane goal as you may think. 100 RON would be the equivalent to ~94 or 95 octane here in the states.

Do some research before you take what I say as fact.

Chuck

Chuck Schaefer

The difference between RON and US spec octane can be even more, since the test figures are done differently and some engines respond differently - result is that the effective response of the engine calling for 100RON may be perfectly fine on 92 US. Unless the HRG head has been cut a lot or HC pistons fitted, it should work just dandy on 92 or even less. I have the original literature from Derrington - the most standard CR was 9.3 for 1622, and that will work fine on 91US. Nearly all British engines calling for 100RON do.

And ethanol is a horrid scam, for all the reasons stated above - Can you say ADM or Cargill? Or Exxon, et al?
FRM
FR Millmore

OK, you guys talked me out of it. It sounded nice, but it probably is too much work to make it work right.
Darian Henderson

This is not written in advocacy of E-85, but my curiosity is piqued by the possible scenario that E-85 might become the only fuel available in some places. I attended an expo dealing with this yesterday and picked up a bit of information that might be useful.

First, from a guy representing a coop that sold E-85. He definitely agreed that E-85 would be a VERY bad choice for any vehicle built at least before 1980 (I suspect that was an arsbitrary date) - for the same reasons as articulated above - susceptibility of soft steel to corrosion. He also confessed to an effieciency loss on the order of 10-15% compared to conventional fuel.

Second, however, was from a guy displaying a 1939 Farmall tractor that he had run for 5-6 years on 100% ethanol with a lubricating additive - something in the neighborhood of 2 ounces per gallon. He was not able (or willing?) to tell me anything more about the nature of the additive lubricant.

At least in the form I've heard this and am passing it on, it is extremely unscientific. I'm not taking a position on it, and certainly this information is insufficient basis to draw any conclusions anyway. However, if such an additive lubricant exists and does what it is claimed to do, it might turn out that our cars could be run on it without damage in situations where there is no alternative.

Is there an expert among us, or one who knows of experts who can confirm/deny this just for our information?

Allen
Allen Bachelder

Never gonna happen. There is simply not enough land to grow that much ethanol, and at the extremely questionable conversion rates, little energy (oil & gas) saving. Food prices are already going up, hitting the poor especially badly.

Corrosion is primarily an issue with soft aluminum/zinc parts, not steel. Alcohol eats the bejeezus out of them. Additives may help, but who knows - you can't believe anything these thieves tell you.

Disintegration of polymers is the biggest issue with low levels of alcohol - over 10%; for E85 or 100% it will eat many things - that's the big difference in E85 cars.

Energy value sucks, as others have stated.

Vote the buggers out!

FRM
FR Millmore

Some time last year I went thru some calculations using Illinois' corn crop as a basis. From the DMV I used the number of autos in the state, from the Ill Farm bureau I used the total state crop of corn. From the US dept of transporatation I found the average miles per year per passenger vehicle. I think I estimated some average MPG then adjusted it by 15% for the reduced energy level of E-85 Then using the internet I found that a state-of-the-art conversion plant can produce up to 3 gals of alcohol per bushel. For this, I assumed that 100% of the stste's corn crop went to making alcohol, a number that cannot be acheived.

Using all the published data available, I found that Illinois can produce enough alcohol to fuel all of it's passenger cars. But not enough for the trucks and commercial vehicles in the state.

I know that alcohol can be made from other crops and that this is a simplified example. While this was an exercise in math, it showed me that E-85 is not the final answer. It will only reduce our dependency on foreign oil only a slight amount.

I seem to remember in the 70's in 80's that many of the Fords sold in the US were ready for alcohol to meet Brazil's 100% alcohol motor fuel.

Chuck

Chuck Schaefer

Our 48 Ford 8n tractor has a compression ratio of 6 to 1,a 30's vintage Farmall I would think would be about the same.I think they will run on just about anything not to mention E85. Add some upper cylinder oil,like marvel and you'd be fine. Getting our MG's to be able to use it,is not worth it.Get yourself a 55 gal drum of gas and store it so you too can have an "On the Beach" John Osborne moment.
gary starr

So - somebody else in the world remembers "On The Beach". That movie has haunted me for about 50 years.

' Think I'll get two 55-gallon drums!
Allen
Allen Bachelder

Allen. I have not been able to find raw research data, nor what protocols were used in various tests, on the use of alcohol and petroleum/alcohol blended fuels. The various evaluations all seem to agree that there is some form of fuel efficiency loss. Beyond that, they vary widely in their estimates of how much that loss is. The highest loss was a study by the EPA which noted that the alcohol fuel provided one half the gas mileage that pure petroleum fuel produced during their testing.

A long time ago, something over 20 years now, I finished up my Master's Degree in Public Administration, a field I was working in at the time. One major emphasis in the program was the use of "the systems model". By that they meant that nothing happens in isolation and that when you make a change in some part of the system it will have an effect through out the system. Thus, we were trained to both look at the problem, how the problem affected the entire system, and how any "solution" to the perceived problem would change both the problem and the system. Sometimes, the change to correct a minor problem can have a significant effect, sometimes negative, on the system as a whole.

Please allow me to look at this "problem" from a systems perspective.

The cost of a new automobile, in terms of pollution, is not just the emissions the vehicle will produce during is use life. Rather, it is the cost of the pollution produced to mine the raw materials used in its construction, the cost of transporting those materials to some form of processing center for refining, the cost of transporting the refined materials to a plant which will produce the various parts, the cost of transporting the various parts to a plant which will produce the vehicle, the cost of operating all of the various plants involved, then, the cost of transporting the vehicle to the point of sale.

The newest vehicles have a significantly lower pollution signature, in general, than an older car. But, the associated pollution costs of producing the new vehicle tend to negate this difference for many hundreds of thousands of miles of road use.

Thus, the total environmental costs of a new car will exceed the current environmental costs of operating a well maintained old car for a very long time. Add to this that modern cars are not as well built as older cars and require more frequent replacements of things like radiators. I am using 20+ year old radiators in my MGs. The radiator in my younger daughter's Miata has an average life span of seven years before replacement. The requirement to manufacture the raw materials for a new radiator, transport them, manufacture the radiator, ship it to the mechanic, drive to the mechanic's, and drive back to one's home have to be factored in on the debit side of "the pollution created" by the use of a vehicle.

How bad are the old B series engines, from a pollution stand point? A week ago, yesterday, I took a 79B though the Arizona emissions testing station. A car I purchased seven years ago and have been focusing on for the last 14 months. The car has a modern in-line cat, which results in no performance loss, and an air pump--which does little of value. The car tested as passing before we installed the pump.

The emissions testing is done at idle and under loaded conditions with the following results:

Idle--CO 0.00% HC 34 PPM
Loaded--CO 0.00% HC 35 PPM

This is with a properly maintained, but never rebuilt (to my knowledge--we have been using it as a spare engine for eight years now) engine.

It is going to take a very long time, with these values, before this car begins to show more pollution, from a systems context, than a brand new car would.

Drive, enjoy, and keep the engine well maintained. You are doing your bit for the environment.

Les
Les Bengtson

Les,

I like your thinking. I have previously considered the likelihood that the pollution produced in the manufacture of new cars may be greater than the cars will produce in a service lifetime.

So often, as I USE my B/GT, I think "Isn't this great! There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can go wrong with this car that is not worth fixing". Barring an extensive fire or major accident, we have ideal service vehicles. Zero depreciation, modest initial cost, modest insurance costs, no financing and attendant interest charges, modest parts costs (have you bought a brake rotor for a modern car - lately?), excellent reliability - far exceeding the myths, 30 mpg, and great road service on the rare occasions it's needed from true enthusiasts who care. I could go on and on. Oh, and did I mention fun, commaraderie, and this BBS group...

I realize this post should probably be on the MGB list, but a lot of A owners also have Bs and know how practical they are for modern driving. For that matter, I know more than a few A owners who do USE their cars - at least seasonally. The only issues are preservation of the car - not reliability.

FWIW,
Allen
Allen Bachelder

The price of steaks has gone through the roof! Why? Government subsidies to produce ethanol fuel from corn leave cattle ranchers paying premium prices for the dwindling stocks of feed corn that's left. I'd rather burn gasoline and enjoy a nice T-bone every now and then than pay higher taxes for the honor of paying higher prices for lower mileage fuel and less beef for food.
David Breneman

This thread was discussed between 25/04/2007 and 01/05/2007

MG MGA index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGA BBS is active now.