Fuel Non ethanol Gas

kyrsyan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
After continually seeing stuff online but not being able to find supporting documentation I decided to try an experiment with my van. Yup I went big. The van is almost 15 years old and I need it to keep running for a long time yet.

I waited until the tank was almost empty, which is nerve wracking for me. Then I filled with non ethanol gas.

There were some immediate changes. My check engine light went out. The engine itself had a lot more power. And the gas mileage improved. That mileage improvement was almost enough to cover the difference in price between ethanol and non ethanol gas!

Over the course of the next while a few more improvements occurred. A knocking which had been driving me wild went away. There was an exhaust sound that no mechanic could find that went away. And the engine became quiet. And more powerful. (Did I mention power?)

When I started there was an odor to my exhaust that had us worried that I was burning oil. That went away. Any and all "smoking" from the exhaust disappeared.

Then I made the mistake of almost running out of gas while out the other day. Long story but not normal for me. So I stopped and put in 2 gallons of ethanol gas to get us home.

All of the stuff came back almost immediately. My nerves were shot by the time we got home. I get a bad reaction to knocking noises in my engine due to some really bad things that happened because of knocking noises in an engine just over a year ago. (That engine went bye bye in a really bad way.) Really, really, really bad stress reaction. And to suddenly have all the random noises return, and so quickly, just triggered bad things.

So today we go out again and I'm stressing as soon as I turn the van on and hear everything. So first stop is the gas station to refill the tank completely with non ethanol fuel. I was figuring that it was going to take most of the tank running through before the noise and stuff went away again. I am incredibly grateful that all it took was about 10 minutes of running on the good stuff.

I am definitely going to work hard on making sure I don't ever have to do that again!

Anyways, if you are running an older vehicle you might find it worth your while to run the experiment yourself. I really am amazed at the changes in my vehicle since I've done it.
 

The Mountain

Here since the beginning
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There are probably adjustments you could make to the fuel/engine computer that would solve those issues. It's likely that your engine is set to the ragged edge of combustion in a primitive effort to minimize emissions ie very lean mixture and distorted spark timing. The ethanol retards the combustion process in the cylinder enough that your fuel charge is still burning with the exhaust valve open.
 

kyrsyan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I have no idea how to adjust the computer or if it's ever been done in the past. The vehicle was a fleet vehicle when it left the factory until it became someone's person vehicle and then finally mine. The engine has about 120,000 less miles on it than the rest of the vehicle.

Regardless the non ethanol gas works well so I'll be sticking with it. The vehicle is 14 years old, it was never designed for ethanol gas.
 

Orion Commander

Veteran Member
AAA ran a story when E-85 cam out that the price needs to be no more the 75% of regular because it gets 75% of the fuel milelage. I run E-10 here but when out of state and reg is the same as or less I notic I get a little better mileage.
 

kyrsyan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
E-85 is as hard to find here as non ethanol. And I wouldn't be willing to try it at all. But I know of some folks who have done things so that their cars run more efficiently on it. I'm not enough of a car geek though so I have no clue where to even start those type of changes to my van or truck. I'd rather just pay the extra for the non ethanol.
 

kyrsyan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
http://pure-gas.org/

A listing of non ethanol dealers

It's actually pretty inaccurate for around here. They depend on the general public to update it. I've discovered that a lot of those gas stations folded with the severe price changes the last couple of years. I've located two for sure. And then I know that some of the Marathon chain gas stations have non ethanol available. I may end up exploring to figure out which ones some day but not so far.

One unpleasant surprise, which may or may not have been do to the fuel change was that within a few months I had to replace the fuel pump. Other than that she is running okay and I haven't made the mistake of putting ethanol gas in her again.
 
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