You ready to park your GS?

[earlfor]

Since 1997, other than times I have been on a trip and have had no choice, I have not put ethanol gas in a bike.

 

[Spyder]

We have a gas station chain around here that sells what they call "Regular 88" for 2001 and newer vehicles... don't really know why they call it 88, as it is 15% ethanol... I ran it in my 2002 BMW for about a year, and I am convinced it did some "slow" damage. I won't run it in anything anymore. I will say, that my car did run very well, and smooth on it... I don't believe this will become our only fuel choice. Would cost both the public, and the government way too much money...

 

[wymple]

Oh, what a bunch of drama queens. I've run nothing but ethanol in everything for decades without issue. Clear back to my 82 GS1100 in the 80's, to my current GS850, and my 84 Cal2 and 84 650C Guzzis. Throw in 2 Viragos, a Kaw 440 twin, a Yamaha 550 Maxim, and more. Hasn't hurt a darn thing. I grew up on cars & stuff from the 50's and 60's and rotten fuel lines & failing pump diaphragms were common as cat crap, way more so than now. My old 2 stroke dirt and street bikes were fuel line problematic in the late 60's. Ethanol has been blamed for every breakdown possible since it's debut, as if this stuff never happened before. The only caveat I see is that I don't let it sit for 4 months at a time.

 

[Guest]

We have a gas station chain around here that sells what they call "Regular 88" for 2001 and newer vehicles... don't really know why they call it 88, as it is 15% ethanol... I ran it in my 2002 BMW for about a year, and I am convinced it did some "slow" damage. I won't run it in anything anymore. I will say, that my car did run very well, and smooth on it... I don't believe this will become our only fuel choice. Would cost both the public, and the government way too much money...

its 88 octane as opposed to the 87 octane regular E10 that’s available nationwide.

 

[bwringer]

Oh, what a bunch of drama queens. I've run nothing but ethanol in everything for decades without issue. Clear back to my 82 GS1100 in the 80's, to my current GS850, and my 84 Cal2 and 84 650C Guzzis. Throw in 2 Viragos, a Kaw 440 twin, a Yamaha 550 Maxim, and more. Hasn't hurt a darn thing. I grew up on cars & stuff from the 50's and 60's and rotten fuel lines & failing pump diaphragms were common as cat crap, way more so than now. My old 2 stroke dirt and street bikes were fuel line problematic in the late 60's. Ethanol has been blamed for every breakdown possible since it's debut, as if this stuff never happened before. The only caveat I see is that I don't let it sit for 4 months at a time.

Thanks! That's pretty much the slightly impolite version of what I was going to post. Fuel systems have been failing since the beginning of internal combustion but somehow ethanol gets every bit of the blame for every failure now. Our fathers and grandfathers had to clean corrosion and nasty green gas out of neglected carburetors just as much or more than we did.

Hysteria does no good here. The facts are bad enough.

Yes, E15 is a Very Bad Thing for many reasons, and yes, one of those reasons is that fuel systems are designed around E10 and increasing the percentage of alcohol will damage many materials.

Another reason is that it's abysmally stupid to dilute gasoline with ethanol, and increasing the percentage is 1.5x as stupid. Growing food crops to generate ethanol is beyond insane (and subsidizing this production is doubling down on the insanity). And spending the energy to harvest and process the raw materials is a net negative, which is even more insaner.

That said, I'm not blind to the benefits; it is true that oxygenating fuel can be a good thing for minimizing NOx emissions, and ethanol is about the cheapest way to get there. It's a complex topic and it's hard to tell whether the improvement in other kinds of emissions is worth the cost in other ways, or the increase in net carbon emissions when you consider all the diesel and other fuels involved in growing, harvesting, and processing.

There are places where ethanol fuels can make sense; in Brazil, they use waste products (leftover sugar cane) rather than food crops to make ethanol fuel for vehicles designed to use it, and the climate is generally warm enough they skip many of the issues we'd have with increased ethanol use in most of the US.



Anyway, back to the GS world: ride the damn thing at least every month or so and you'll never have a problem, ethanol or no. Let it sit for months, and you'll have all sorts of problems, ethanol or no. And it's simply not realistic to expect 40 year old rubber and plastic to hold up to gasoline with or without ethanol.

If you need an excuse to ride, sure, blame it on E10. If your carbs get all mucked up, the blame is squarely on neglect, not ethanol.

I haven't seen the inside of my GS850's carbs in at least 10 years. I ride it a lot, and if I can't, I drain the carbs. Regular exercise has also kept the gas tank pristine inside.

 

[Gorminrider]

Hah ha,wymple! yeah-I've never worried.

BUT,per Brazil there's always a catch..apart from less mileage per volume , there's maybe some nasty air pollution consequences:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel#Air_pollution

Still, it might be possible to convert our engines to solely alcohol, if it came to it..our engines are at least fairly high compression and maybe could tootle along with just some bigger jets ...it'd make one heck of a thread figuring out what's best!

 

[Vrian_Sinth]

Oh, what a bunch of drama queens. I've run nothing but ethanol in everything for decades without issue. Clear back to my 82 GS1100 in the 80's, to my current GS850, and my 84 Cal2 and 84 650C Guzzis. Throw in 2 Viragos, a Kaw 440 twin, a Yamaha 550 Maxim, and more. Hasn't hurt a darn thing. I grew up on cars & stuff from the 50's and 60's and rotten fuel lines & failing pump diaphragms were common as cat crap, way more so than now. My old 2 stroke dirt and street bikes were fuel line problematic in the late 60's. Ethanol has been blamed for every breakdown possible since it's debut, as if this stuff never happened before. The only caveat I see is that I don't let it sit for 4 months at a time.

Ethanol is fine if you don't let your bike sit. I did and had to do a carb rebuild. Cleaned out all the corn goop. And for 15 to 20 cents more a gallon, I don't mind using Ethanol free.

 

[BigD_83]

I use a chemical abbreviated as DMP (dimethoxypropane) in the lab. DMP and water become acetone, which may or may not be great in terms of combustion, but at least there wouldn't be water sitting in the tank. Below is an abstract from a paper looking at acetone-gasoline combustion:

In this study, new blended fuels were formed by adding 3–10 vol. % of acetone into a regular gasoline. According to the best of the author's knowledge, it is the first time that the influence of acetone blends has been studied in a gasoline-fueled engine. The blended fuels were tested for their energy efficiencies and pollutant emissions using SI (spark-ignition) engine with single-cylinder and 4-stroke. Experimental results showed that the AC3 (3 vol.% acetone + 97 vol.% gasoline) blended fuel has an advantage over the neat gasoline in exhaust gases temperature, in-cylinder pressure, brakepower, torque and volumetric efficiency by about 0.8%, 2.3%, 1.3%, 0.45% and 0.9%, respectively. As the acetone content increases in the blends, as the engine performance improved where the best performance obtained in this study at the blended fuel of AC10. In particular, exhaust gases temperature, in-cylinder pressure, brake power, torque and volumetric efficiency increase by about 5%, 10.5%, 5.2%, 2.1% and 3.2%, respectively, compared to neat gasoline. In addition, the use of acetone with gasoline fuel reduces exhaust emissions averagely by about 43% for carbon monoxide, 32% for carbon dioxide and 33% for the unburnt hydrocarbons. The enhanced engine performance and pollutant emissions are attributed to the higher oxygen content, slight leaning effect, lower knock tendency and high flame speedsof acetone, compared to the neat gasoline. Finally the mechanism of acetone combustion in gasoline-fueled engines is proposed in this work; two main pathways for acetone combustion are highlighted; furthermore, the CO, CO2 and UHC (unburnt hydrocarbons) mechanisms of formation and oxidation are acknowledged. Such acetone mechanism is employed for further understanding acetone combustion in spark-ignition engines.

 

[GS1150Pilot]

I use a chemical abbreviated as DMP (dimethoxypropane) in the lab. DMP and water become acetone, which may or may not be great in terms of combustion, but at least there wouldn't be water sitting in the tank. Below is an abstract from a paper looking at acetone-gasoline combustion:

In this study, new blended fuels were formed by adding 3–10 vol. % of acetone into a regular gasoline. According to the best of the author's knowledge, it is the first time that the influence of acetone blends has been studied in a gasoline-fueled engine. The blended fuels were tested for their energy efficiencies and pollutant emissions using SI (spark-ignition) engine with single-cylinder and 4-stroke. Experimental results showed that the AC3 (3 vol.% acetone + 97 vol.% gasoline) blended fuel has an advantage over the neat gasoline in exhaust gases temperature, in-cylinder pressure, brakepower, torque and volumetric efficiency by about 0.8%, 2.3%, 1.3%, 0.45% and 0.9%, respectively. As the acetone content increases in the blends, as the engine performance improved where the best performance obtained in this study at the blended fuel of AC10. In particular, exhaust gases temperature, in-cylinder pressure, brake power, torque and volumetric efficiency increase by about 5%, 10.5%, 5.2%, 2.1% and 3.2%, respectively, compared to neat gasoline. In addition, the use of acetone with gasoline fuel reduces exhaust emissions averagely by about 43% for carbon monoxide, 32% for carbon dioxide and 33% for the unburnt hydrocarbons. The enhanced engine performance and pollutant emissions are attributed to the higher oxygen content, slight leaning effect, lower knock tendency and high flame speedsof acetone, compared to the neat gasoline. Finally the mechanism of acetone combustion in gasoline-fueled engines is proposed in this work; two main pathways for acetone combustion are highlighted; furthermore, the CO, CO2 and UHC (unburnt hydrocarbons) mechanisms of formation and oxidation are acknowledged. Such acetone mechanism is employed for further understanding acetone combustion in spark-ignition engines.

That is interesting stuff.

 

[Hayabuser]

100LL Avgas is available at your closest airfield. Bring a gas can and fill it up.

 

[Rob S.]

100LL Avgas is available at your closest airfield. Bring a gas can and fill it up.

That would be JFK International Airport. Anyone have a bullet-proof vest I can borrow?

 

[Hayabuser]

That would be JFK International Airport. Anyone have a bullet-proof vest I can borrow?

:lol:

OK, I should have said your closest small airfield.

 

[red1100]

This whole ethanol free debate has been going on between my buddy and me for years. He goes to the local ethanol free place for his old cars and is adamant about it.I go to the cheapest ARCO regular I can find for my GS,wife’s grand caravan,our 40,51,53Buicks, and 52 Ford pickup.Never a problem. Went to my wife’s moms airport in Battleground Washington for a fill up of av gas 4 times in a row last summer on the GS and it made no difference. Runs the same as ARCO. My friend and I still debate it but just for fun I told him on the GS last fillup I cut the ARCO with a gallon of lighter fluid. Much ado about nothing.

 

[Grimly]

The ethanol situation isn't as bad here, but the Swedes, Germans et al seem to be affected by it much more.
According to the charts shown there's a fair of bit of ethanol in the Irish market, but unless it's being sneaked into the petrol under my nose, I'm not aware of it.
I have a notion (but could be wrong) that pump fuel could contain 5% or so of ethanol without being labelled at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethanol_fuel_by_country&section=4#Europe

 

[bobgroger]

This whole ethanol free debate has been going on between my buddy and me for years. He goes to the local ethanol free place for his old cars and is adamant about it.I go to the cheapest ARCO regular I can find for my GS,wife’s grand caravan,our 40,51,53Buicks, and 52 Ford pickup.Never a problem. Went to my wife’s moms airport in Battleground Washington for a fill up of av gas 4 times in a row last summer on the GS and it made no difference. Runs the same as ARCO. My friend and I still debate it but just for fun I told him on the GS last fillup I cut the ARCO with a gallon of lighter fluid. Much ado about nothing.

It's not about how it runs. It's about what happens when it is parked for a while, the ethanol has a chance to absorb water, and the resulting corrosion. Ethanol gas runs fine, and really doesn't cause damage in modern FI vehicles because they have corrosion resistant materials.

 

[Guest]

Update in my area, some stations are changing out pumps where they offer Diesel, 15% ethanol and the 10% ethanol now.

 

[Gorminrider]

It's not about how it runs. It's about what happens when it is parked for a while, the ethanol has a chance to absorb water, and the resulting corrosion. Ethanol gas runs fine, and really doesn't cause damage in modern FI vehicles because they have corrosion resistant materials.

?...which is worse than the water alone settling to the bottom of the tank and carb bowls as it used to do? (Hands up, those who've seen gas tanks rusted out in the lowest place.)
I don't expect an ethanol/water slurry to be much "better" but I can't guess it's worse without some evidence.

 

[KEITH KRAUSE]

The EPA fvck's up everything they get involved with. I was reminded of that just recently when I bought a new gas can. Now this.
Thank goodness I have a non-ethanol pump just 2 miles away. 91 octane too! Costs $4.20/gal (southern Utah) but I'm happy to have the choice. I wouldn't want to fill up my '95 Blazer at that price.

 

[earlfor]

It's not about how it runs. It's about what happens when it is parked for a while, the ethanol has a chance to absorb water, and the resulting corrosion. Ethanol gas runs fine, and really doesn't cause damage in modern FI vehicles because they have corrosion resistant materials.

Alcohol has 300 times the affinity for water that gasoline has. I'll leave everyone to decide for their self if that's a good thing for a motorcycle.