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MG MGB Technical - Ethanol Blended Gas

Be advised that the gas available in the 'ethanol' states is causing all types of problems in cars. I went to my engine builder and he showed me carbs and engines which were severely damaged by this gas. Rotted carb diaphrams, holed pistons and mushroomed exhaust valves.

There's something in this gas that we are not being told about. fuel pump problems are also becoming more common.

It also expands at prodigous rates and filling up your car and parking it in the summer causes the gas to overflow out of the gas cap and onto your nice paint work causing paint damage, which happened to me in my MGB and Datsun Roadster.

Caveat Emptor!
Mike MaGee

Our gas in St. Louis has had a 10% ethanol mix for years, it is all that is available here so we have to use it, I have been running my B on it for a year, other MG owners around here have been running it for many years, I have yet to hear of any problems caused by it.

From everything I have read all cars will happily run on anything up to a 15% mix, the problems start happening if you fill up regularly with E85 (85% ethanol mix). Since ethanol is corrosive that would cause problems with fuel lines, fuel pumps, carb diaphrams and possibly even your fuel tank after a while. The burn characteristics of ethanol are also different and vehicles designed to run on it have a sensor that detects ethanol and adjusts the ignition timing to suit. Running a carberrated engine on E85 with no adjustments to the ignition timing could possibly burn holes in your pistons etc.

I looked into the possibility of converting a B to run on E85 a while ago but figured out it wouldn't be worth the hassle, even though it would be possible, however, our 1979 B is getting an engine transplant within the next couple of years and we are looking at E85 compatible engines as possibilities, we would also have to fit a stainless steel gas tank and teflon fuel lines.

I have no problem running my cars on ethanol mix fuel, just remember, ethanol burns a little faster, if your car pings just retard the timing a little. One advantage it does have is a tiny gain in power, my Ranger has 5% more power running on E85 than it does running on regular gas (manufacturers figures).
The Wiz

Answers to some questions: http://autorepair.about.com/cs/generalinfo/a/aa102100a_2.htm

Quote from that page:

"In North Dakota, New Mexico, and Idaho, ethanol proponents have offered a $100 reward to any customer who can document damage from ethanol to his or her car, and so far no one has ever collected."
The Wiz

We still have non-oxygenated gas available here in town. If you check around, the gas stations on the outskirts of town may have it. Here the ethanol mix is locally mandated, so some areas still carry the "good stuff" for classics and lawnmowers.
Jeff Schlemmer

It's not ethanol that ate up you gaskets and seals, it's probably the so called "summer additive" that is blended in fuels in some states. If you buy "branded". Shell, Mobil, BP etc you might not have a problem as the big companies have strict controls on the amount used. If you get too much of this additive it will eat you alive....as it did to my TF fuel pump and carbs. last year.
Colin Stafford

"One advantage it does have is a tiny gain in power, my Ranger has 5% more power running on E85 than it does running on regular gas (manufacturers figures)."

Interesting. Alcohol (any type) has a lower specific heat value (heat output) (BTU/pound) than gasoline. Any type of mixture of ethanol and gasoline should, by definition, have less specific energy output per pound of fuel (you have to burn more of it to get the same energy) than pure gasoline.

I am not sure I buy the manufacturer's claims. 5% is actually significant enough that anyone wanting more power would be dashing out to get ethanol and I do not see that happening.
Richard Smith

Ethanol blended gas was promoted as a way to get away from our dependance from oil and which was heavily promoted by the mid-western/plains states. It is all a lie as the energy to make ethanol, from planting to refining, is a wash, as it requires a great deal of energy to get to the final product. It also absorbs water readily which causes other problems.

I'll have the mechanic who has the corroded and diaphragm melted carb to send me the pics to collect the $100 prize.

Much like 'electric' cars, it's a hoax on the unassuming and somewhat ignorant public eager to believe what our so-called 'knowledgeable' politicians and companies such as Archer Daniels Midland tell you. ADM has been convicted of many price fixing conspiricicies and are about as ethical as . . . Enron, Adeplphia, Tyco, Arthur Anderson, etc.
Mike Magee

Have been using Ethanol blended gas in my Jag, Healey, and MG for many years with no problem. Check for other additives, only use name brand gas , stay away from no name so called cheap!! gasoline.
Kim Rutherford.
K Rutherford

Here in Arizona, either Ethnol or MBTE is blended into the gasoline as a "pollution control" requirement and has been for many years. Ethnol is used part of the year, MBTE the rest of the year. I have not had any problems which could be directly associated with its use. I do buy "brand name" gas. I do not find any power difference between the blends, nor do I notice less power when travelling in areas which did not have the blended gas. I have, however, noticed lower miles per gallon of the blended fuels. Have not been able to document exactly what is lost when a blended fuel is used because of the difficultly in obtaining sufficient non-blended fuel to make a like to like comparison. Les
Les Bengtson

My only experience with the blended fuel in MGs was two separate time I was forced to buy it during long trips in my previous C.(It was in Iowa - that's all they will sell there) More prone to ping and black soot all over the rear of the car. As soon as I filled up again with regular fuel she was a happy MG.

Paul
Paul Briggs

Well, we'll have to get used to it, pollution aside, oil's running out and alcohol is the viable short term alternative. Petrol companies have used it for years to increase octane rating and up to 40% is quite possible. Over here a premium brand in the 60's was Cleveland Discol which used alcohol.

A problem we've is rubber fuel line parts that have been fine for years now start swelling up and weeping. I've just had to change the fuel sender, the rubber seal on the terminal tag was leaking, and the large seal to the tank, ditto. A month later the SU jet were dripping from the float chamber gland seals. Suppliers knew instantly and were able to supply new seals that are fine. This only happened after a few tanks of Texaco from a local garage and I don't doubt formulations vary quite widely.

Here's an interesting article on petrol,

http://www.voc.uk.com/archives/html/petrol.html

Rich

Les,

Please see my earlier post in this thread.

You just might not notice a power decrease per se because the engine will demand the energy it needs from the fuel. You have noticed that the gas mileage is lower. This is the main trade-off. In order to get the same energy you must burn more of it.

As they say "energy cannot be created nor destroyed" and "there ain't no free rides" when it comes to energy.

The energy balance must remain the same (thermodynamic laws).
Richard Smith

Richard, Sorry you misunderstood. I quite agree with your points which are well set out. My example was, rather, an illustration about the difficulty in making a valid comparison when only blended fuels are available.

Rich makes a point about alcohol "extending" the supply of petroleum based fuels. It is valid, but only to a certain point. As you point out, the lower specific heat value of alcohol does not result in a one to one relationship between a gallon of gasoline and a gallon of blended fuel. Thus, we have to pay more to travel the same number of miles with a blended fuel as compared to a pure petroleum based fuel. And, since federal and state taxes are based on a per gallon basis, we wind up not only getting inferior fuel, but we also wind up paying a higher price for it. Various governments, however, do turn a profit when blended fuels are introduced. Les
Les Bengtson

Les - There was a NASA (IIRC) study a few years ago that showed how much fuel it took to create a given quantity of ethanol. As a fuel, it is a net energy hog - i.e., it took more fuel to make it than fuel it produced. The conclusion was that our ethanol mandates are really a vast subsidy for Archer Daniels Midland.

So it's even less than what you point out.

Things could be worse, we could be funding hydrogen research in aluminum cars . . . oops we're already going down that road.
John Z

The big problem with ethanol is that as well as being soluble in petrol it is also water soluble and V.V. This is just as well for more important applications (cheers) but bad news when you think about all those service station petrol storage tanks with a large heel of 20 plus year old water in the bottom of them. How did it get there?, all petrol is a little 'wet' when it is manufactured, infact will often need to be 'settled' after blending and must pass an appearance test at 20 degrees C. This implies that most petrol batches would fail at zero degrees (not always the case by the way, just often enough) If you want to check this put a sample of petrol in the fridge and watch it go cloudy as it gets too cold for the water to stay in solution. Aside from the fact that this is water and not good for your car in itself, this water will not be clean and will contain a variety of motor unfriendly solutes. Worse than that these preferentially water soluble solutes may become concentrated in the heel over the years, many of which will be carried over into the petrol with the ethanol. The ethanol acts as a kind of bridge.
Now in theory your filter should filter most of this out;).
Change your fuel filter more often steer clear of old petrol stations that don't regularly dewater their tanks.

I doubt that ethanol is going to disolve your gasgets on its own, you could check this for yourself by putting a sample into, say, a glass of nice Australian Cab' Sav', (Penfolds bin 407 is a bit of a personal favourite). You will then need to dispose of the rest the bottle, a bit of a sacrifice I know but remember it's in the cause of science!.
I do know that toluene certainly will disolve gasgets if they are the older style of material. Toluene is routinely added to premium petrol to get the octane up and the refinery blenders may be having trouble meeting octane targets and slugging in some tolly.
Not a problem for modern cars, big problem for old classics.
Peter

Interesting, thanks Peter, I'll drop the gaskets in before dinner when the good lady's not looking :-) From my motorcycle days I remember the methanol runners needed to remove plastic and rubber parts. What you say about Toluene is true, like alcohol it can, and is, used in large doses, up to 30% easily, to raise octane. It may indeed be the cause of the gasket problem as it has occured simply with a change to unleaded fuel so we don't know which part of the fuel is the culprit. If people want to check theirs it's easiest to see on the later fuel tank senders. The live terminal is sealed with a black rubber washer. This is sharp edged and only a little larger than the plastic bush when new. If affected it swells out and round. It may drip or leak at a rate that evaporates before it drips, giving that great aroma when you open the garage door but not being easily noticed. Rich.

Rich

Extending Peter's interesting point about Toluene, I know from speaking with Midel in Sydney, their SU rebuilds allow for current technology seals as a precaution against deteriarion/leaking from unleaded fuel.

I recall discussion of a couple of years ago on this BBS on the topic of unleaded fuel depreciating solder on carb floats. Don't remember the outcome but seem to recall that one of the regular contributors was doing experiments to discover what fuels where affecting different solder types. I wonder, does anyone have an update on those experiments/discussions?

Regards
Roger
Roger T

I'm a loyal Sunoco customer, mostly because it's got a tad higher octane rating.

In a recent chat with the chap who runs the local station, he sells Sunoco Racing fuel, which if I recal is about 110 or fourteen.
It's also about $6 a gallon.

Sometime this summer I'll go for a half tank just to see what it's like.

There's a fellow who ran a flight service operation at the local airport using airport transfers sevenoaks and I will be getting a tank full of aviation gas -- 105 octane with a low lead rating -- (they couldn't make "lead free" because of all the old airplane engines).

Fer some reason, I just don't like anything else bus gasoline -- no ethanol, no MBTE -- in my carbs. I'm getting too old fashioned and getting pretty sick and tired of having to follow all these new laws and regulations being shoved down our throats.
glg

Ok guys, a little ethanol / we are running out of oil discussion/opinion piece here.

Just to establish some bona fides, I work for one of the largest petroleum industry engineering and construction companies in the world. My job requires that I know what is going on with oil production and ethanol production. I subscribe to several industry journals that track both oil and ethanol products.

1) Ethanol can improve power if the carbs are richened up and the timing is advanced. Because ethanol cools when vaporized, it has a good knock resistance effect. Ethanol does have less specific heat than gasoline and therefore you need to burn more to get more power. The cars that are able to take advantage of this are computer controlled with knock sensors. They can automatically adjust the fuel injection and engine timing to maximize the power. We can do the same with our MG's if we tune for the ethanol, but there is probably not any measurable gain unless done with a rolling road tune to simulate real operating conditions.

2) Ethanol per se is not "corrosive" to modern rubber products. Older rubber products may swell and decompose, but we are talking original equipment material for this to happen. It is also tough to tell if the ethanol was the culprit with older rubber products, or if it was just the last component that was able to attack parts that were already breaking down. Ethanol does like to pick up water and 100% pure ethanol is not a chemically stable solution. Ethanol will grab water out of the air until it is 95% ethanol and 5% water. That is the chemically stable form of ethanol. Therefore, any ethanol added to gasoline is going to pull a 5% drag of water with it (i.e., a 10% ethanol/gasoline solution is really 90% gasoline, 9.5% ethanol, and 0.5% water).

3) Ethanol promoters like to push ethanol as being bio-friendly. This is a subject that is highly debatable, especially when you consider that most ethanol is produced in the U.S. from corn or other grain products. These crops require large amounts of fertilizers and pesticides that do damage to the enviroment and are produced from oil feed stocks (the ethanol people don't like to publicize that part). Run off from the fields promotes algae growth in streams and lakes, killing native fish stocks. In addition, ethanol production facilities are not regulated to the same environmental standards as oil refiners are, and anyone who lives near an ethanol production facility can tell you how bad it smells.

4) Gasoline as produced from major U.S. refineries has no water in it. As part of the refining process, all water has to be removed from gasoline feed stock or it kills some of the catalysts that are used to make low sulfur gasoline. Where water is picked up is either at the refinery storage tanks or at the gas station storage tanks. These tanks have vents from the tanks to open air and the vents "breathe" as the temperature changes during the course of a day. This is how air is sucked into the tank and the water vapor condenses out. It is almost impossible to keep water out of the gasoline we put in our tanks, but as long as the gas station has a constant replenishment of product and the appropriate type of tank feed system, the amount pumped into a vehicle gas tank is minimal (i.e., measured in parts per milliion). Our car gas tanks are also vented, and that is where most of the water comes from, especially if your car is not a daily driver.

5) Contrary to popular statements by environmentalists, politicians, etc.; the world is not running out of oil. What it is running out of is CHEAP oil (and even $50/BBL is still relatively cheap when looked at in historical perspective). New finds are being discovered daily and the Saudis have stopped exploration in the Empty Quarter since they have at least a 50 year supply on known fields outside the Empty Quarter. Canada now has the 2nd largest proven oil reserves outside of Saudi Arabia, although it is 95% tar sands. The Canadian tar sand fields alone are good for about 50 years of world consumption, they just have to get the stuff out of the ground (which they know how to do economically) and transported. Another little known fact is that with current cost effective technologies, only about 40% of the capacity of a field can be drawn out. There is still plenty more where the original stuff came from, the economics just have to make it feasible to go and get it. 30 years ago, politicians were predicting that we would run out of oil in 25 years. They are still saying the same thing, but there are proven reserves for at least 150 years, based on predicted consumption rates. That doesn't mean we should not be conservation minded and push for alternative energy sources, but rather go about it in a method that is not akin to the "sky is falling" syndrome.

6) In the U.S., a significant amount of the daily oil usage is not for transportation usage, but rather for petrochemical feedstocks. When you think about all the synthetic fibers, plastics, fertilizers, pesticides, paints, etc. that are produced on a daily basis in the U.S. and world wide, you realize that the portion that is used for gasoline is not a major driver. Even if we find alternative energy sources, the world economy is going to still be oil driven due to this other usage.

7) So why the big push for Ethanol? The U.S. agri-business political action machine is behind this all the way. The agri-business companies are subsidized to grow the corn, they are subsidized to produce and refine the ethanol, and they get a mandated market share. This isn't small family farmers who are benefitting from this, this is large corporations on the same scale as a major oil company. By promoting ethanol as bio-friendly and renewable, they sell the green concept to people. What they don't tell everyone is how energy intensive it is to grow the crops and produce the ethanol, and how much damage the whole process really does to the environment. One industry magazine has estimated that if the ethanol industry has to make their plants as operationally and environmentally safe as oil refineries, then 80% may shut down since it would not be economically feasible.

I guess my point, and two cents worth here, is that there is no free lunch when it comes to transportation fuels, but on the other hand, the situation is not as bad as some would have us think it is. Conservation is good, but it should be done in a manner that is not driven by false pretenses from a vested interest.
Ron Kluwe

Avgas won't do you a bit of good unless you've got a very high compression engine, such as an aircraft or racing car engine. Avgas is usually just light alkylate with tetraethyl lead and some dye added to it. Very expensive to make and kind on high compression engines. High comp’ engines generate more power because they generate a more efficient explosion (put simply the fuel and oxygen molecules are squashed closer together can chemically react more quickly and evenly, ie aso why turbo/super charging work). The problem is that if you compress any explosive material, it can and will explode before you want it to (well before the top of the piston stroke) and cause knock. Higher octane fuels wait for the spark plug to set them off. Octane rating is effectively a measure of this disposition to "pre ignite".
Avgas certainly won’t hurt a low compression engine like an automobile engine, but it won’t help it either, other than the lead lubricating the valves. As long as you are not using a catalytic converter on your exhaust that is. If you are the TEL will chemically deactivate your catalyst.
Regular petrol is a blend of whatever the refinery can put in it to maximize profit and still meet a variety of regulations. Can be straight run petrol off the distillation towers, catalytically cracked material (called stabilized gasoline), reformate, pentane, some butane (in winter) and diesel or light heating oil if they have an over supply of any of these. Or they can make more money by selling it as petrol. These components are made into various storage tanks about the refinery and then “Blended” as batches into blend tanks as per economic dictates. The various components can have quite a lot of water in them despite various coalescers in the system, mostly from the middle distillate streams though.

The alkylate by itself usually has an octane rating of around 96 Research rating and the TEL pushes that up to around 106 (aviation rating) which is about 110 MON (Motor rating, which is tested under more severe conditions than RON). For reference regular unleaded is around 91 RON and 82 MON. Premium 95 RON, roughly 85 MON. Super premium, "optimax" 98 RON. The last two usually have toluene in them.
Peter

Ron,

Thanks for that. A knowledgable opinion is rare when discussing political hot topics.

Edd Weninger

Ron,

Thanks for the info. I've been out of the oil field loop for about 6 years now.

Who do you happen to work for? I spent 21 years with J. Ray McDermott in the offshore construction industry.
Richard Smith

Ron....great information indeed...thank you.
My on road experience with my 3 cars;
78 MGB/85 Saab Turbo/99 Land Rover Disco.
"Winter Gas" sold in metro New York Oct-April....ALL my cars use about 15% more fuel than the summer mix available between Apr-Octish and I rarely drive short distances any time of the year.
It's most obvious with the Rover of course...no matter what I do even on long winter trips...14mpg is it...in summer...17mpg is easily obtainable and that's with the AC on! My Saab Turbo...30mpg summer...(gotta love that car at 282K)and 26mpg winter.
The B with a weber is giving around 25-26mpg overall...still room for improvment but I do notice it's VERY sensitive to tune to get the best out of it.
I think we all know that our petrol is VERY different from our parents petrol. My sense is that ethanol mixes burn cleaner but as staed above we use more of it for whatever BHP output we are acheiving. Bottom line of course is that despite the whining, petrol is STILL VERY CHEAP here in the USA compared to what I paid as a new driver in 1980 in Britain.
P J KELLY

Richard;

Fluor Corp. coming up on 25 years now.
Ron Kluwe

Ron,

Thought it might be Fluor from your location. Once upon a time (1976), I worked for Fluor Drilling Services (long since deceased as a subsidiary of Fluor Corp).
Richard Smith

This thread was discussed between 22/05/2005 and 08/06/2005

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