We have had several customers come in saying that with E10 fuel they are getting 100 - 200km less per tank!
As stated earlier, Ethanol absorbs moisture, its this mix that causes problems with rubber components, if you eliminate the moisture in your tank (we recommend interject fuel treatment) you eliminate the problems caused by the ethanol. But you still get poor economy.
We have seen soo many cars come in running rough and cutting out, all caused by E10, not to mention the fuel pumps (electric) that have died!
We recommend premium fuel for all cars.
I have been running a 1916cc in a beetle for 12 years on premium fuel with no addatives for well over 100,000km no problems!
Cheers, Brendon
Also I beg to differ on the type 3 being better on economy. dam mine took 4 tanks to get from bondi to kyneton in victoria.
but then again the motor was totaled by the time I got back. so much for low k motors driven by old ladies 🙁
70,000km original engine wasted 😬😢
oh well plan to tos it anyways for EFI turbo.
Never trust "a little old lady" as well as many engine re-conditioners!!! The good VW engine is the one you build yourself if you want reliability! That way you know what goes into it and the labour costs are really low! I trusted Repco in 1968 to grind the big end journals for me after I'd ground the mains to near max design limit on 0.010" first under only to find they had given me near 0.002" built in wear before I run it! They seemed a bit shocked at the sight of a micrometer being produced before paying. Got a good discount and they still had to grind to next size.
Hope the EFI goes well for you.
DH
Yeah I got the log. It did 44k miles from 71 to 85 then another 2k miles since then. also i did the 900km trip from bondi that killed it. drank like 5L of oil on the trip alone. now it smokes like a chimney, knocks and now starting with pre ignition. plugs are drenched in oil 🙁
71 notchback,
Past owner of, 70 NB, 73 SB and 72 FB TLE
VWs that get laid up for long periods of time (ie not many km over many years), tend to suffer corrosion on the insides of the cylinder walls. The steel cylinders get a fine coating of rust on the insides from sitting; more on the top and sides than the bottom (from sitting flat of course). Then, after a few years, you start it and the rust gets scraped away by the rings. This ruins them, and you get oil passing them by and into the combustion chamber, where the oil clogs your plugs. The rust particles stay in the oil (unless you change it), and get circulated all through the whole engine since VWs don't have an oil filter. I bet if you do a compression check, it will be down on all cylinders.
For engines / cars in storage, the usual procedure is to turn the motor over every few weeks to put a thin film of oil on the cylinders. But you can't help it if a previous owner doesn't do that.
95-octane 'Premium' is what we should all be using in stock air-cooled VWs (although Shell doesn't seem to sell 95). Yes it's more expensive than 91 or E10, but that's the price of owning a VW and looking after it properly. 98-octane 'Ultra-premium' is fine (and sometimes necessary) for modified, high-compression VWs, but is not necessary on stock-spec engines.
Yes Phil, to add to that, I recently rebuilt a stock 2 liter that had sat for 10 years, it broke two valve springs they were so rusty, the first got replaced, the second was after a further 100 km and caused the piston to hit the valve which lunched the engine. The internal wear was unbelievable and the sludge was like grinding paste even after a recent service by a 'reputable' vw specialist....
Matt Berry Motorsports...air cooled advice, repairs and mods Ph 0408 704 662
OFF-ROAD,CIRCUIT,DRAG,STREET,ENDURANCE
Yes Matt, those are the sorts of things we don't normally think about. An engine that 'sits' for years will have some valve springs sitting under non-stop compression, some not. They won't have 'aged' equally. Some valves will be sitting open, letting air/moisture into the combustion chamber and corroding the seats, others will be closed or nearly so. Some of the pushrods will sit with compression strain on them, some won't. Most of the cam lobes will be out in the open, rusting, while one small section will be riding against the lifter. The oil sits in the bottom of the crankcase and slowly turns to sludge. The last oil drains out of the bearings and oil lines. On rainy days like last week the cold moist air in your garage will eventually find its way into a closed crankcase, given enough time, and settle into the oil.
Then, months or years later, we go and start it!
I sometimes wonder how they manage cars in auto museums to stop them from deteriorating. I guess many of them just never run again. But the ones that are 'active' would have to be started and run on a regular basis to minimise these problems. That's what they do at the Bowden collection, for example.
Back onto ethanol - another reason why you should avoid E10 in old VWs is because ethanol absorbs water (as we've said). Old VWs have steel fuel tanks - they will corrode because the fuel has water in it, which it absorbs out of the air. Modern cars have plastic fuel tanks, which eliminates that problem at least.
Modern Brazilian VWs are designed to run on Ethanol, up to E100, but are especially built for it with the correct fuel system components for that fuel. They even have engine computers that adjust for different E concentrations for E10-E100.
the corrosion happens mainly when you get phase separation in low % Ethanol fuels. ie E10. But once you get to 70% or more water will not effect parts, metal and phase separation wont occur.
one of the best advantages of ethanol is its cheap.
E85 for example costs 35 cents per L.
71 notchback,
Past owner of, 70 NB, 73 SB and 72 FB TLE
That explains why ages ago when i went to the wreckers i saw hyundais with plastic fuel tanks. PLASTIC! GAH!
You can get paint/inside fuel tank coating kits from memory, can't ya?
How could u phase out unleaded. what retards.
They should have a pump that pumps out pure unleaded, and a tank under ground with pure ethanol. And if you want to save teh dosh by going ethanol, the pump sucks up a percentage from both and mixes it throguh the nozzle on the spot.
Yes one day we will have to face changing to different fuel as one day oil will run out.
best match seems to be ethanol, plus you can run comp ratios upto 20:1 👍
after all its best suited for race/performance engines.
71 notchback,
Past owner of, 70 NB, 73 SB and 72 FB TLE
Phil74Camper wrote:Yes Matt, those are the sorts of things we don't normally think about. An engine that 'sits' for years will have some valve springs sitting under non-stop compression, some not. They won't have 'aged' equally. Some valves will be sitting open, letting air/moisture into the combustion chamber and corroding the seats, others will be closed or nearly so. Some of the pushrods will sit with compression strain on them, some won't. Most of the cam lobes will be out in the open, rusting, while one small section will be riding against the lifter. The oil sits in the bottom of the crankcase and slowly turns to sludge. The last oil drains out of the bearings and oil lines. On rainy days like last week the cold moist air in your garage will eventually find its way into a closed crankcase, given enough time, and settle into the oil.
Then, months or years later, we go and start it!
Trick is to turn them over regularly
Ive still got a few good vw engines under the house that i turn by hand every few weeks
My 1776 hasnt run for over a year but i know i could bolt it in the bug tomoro and drive to cairns no worries.
That spare engine of mine thats in my hibernating bug vid on youtube that fired up after 3 years, same deal, its now a daily driver in a mates splitty. He's happy as a pig in shit with it
68AutoBugBeetle Restorer - Experience over 138\% - YIKES --
bajachris88 wrote:So what prep work is required to run ethanol comfortably? Right rubber fuel lines, and simply jetting?
stock valve train all dandy to suit it?
Well... i spose it beats LPG...
You need to run two stroke oil in the ethanol fuel Chris. IMHO
to lubricate the valve guides..
and You can have diaphram problems in Your carburetor
when the ethanol attacks them...
also the fuel pump diaphrams..
it can also cause rust in fuel tanks...
ethanol is bad news...
Local Shell servo is telling people to use 95 or 98 premium petrol in 4 stroke lawn mowers...
so, I won't be using any ethanol in My cars.... again..
If its causing so much trouble...
Why must NSW people have to put up with it...????
Maybe We will have to move up to Queensland with Chris...lol
LEE
I WILL NEVER USE ETHANOL AGAIN..
DITTO 50 TIMES...
- Helping keep Air Cooled VWs on the road - location: SCONE in the Upper Hunter Valley - Northern NSW 320 kms NNW of SYDNEY---
ian.mezz wrote:yeah the smaller old petrol stations cant keep E10 because their in ground fuel tankS are to old,🤪🤪🤪🤪
that may explain why I've seen many country service stations being dug up and closed for a while.. then reopen...??
I haven't checked the local Shell servo to see if they still have normal unleaded...??
it was dug up and closed a few weeks ago...
LEE
yeah its a great cleaner and the petrol station dont want to clean all the rust and stuff out of there big tanks as it stuff em🤪🤪🤪
But its ok for you car😂😂
😂🤪😂🤪😂
car forums. where a lot of peoples good intentions end up taking a good old car off the road forever never ever to see the road again. 🥲
After all this talk about E10, coincidentally, there is an article about a Beetle running on E85 in the April edition of UltraVW which I got at the newsagent this week.
Owned by Tomi Seppala it's a 1952 model that was running a 2720cc engine.
I quote:
“To convert a conventional spark-ignition engine vehicle to run on Bioethanol requires the adjustment of the ignition timing, and possibly the fitting of a larger fuel tank due to the fuel's low energy density. Fuel lines should also be changed for correctly rated material as alcohol fuels degrade certain types of rubber (and accelerates the corrosion of some metals).”
The article also suggests that on E85 you use about 50% more fuel on a 'per mile' basis.
But.... apparently with bioethanol you can have a much higher compression ratio, so this particular gentleman was able to up his HP by somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20%. Although it doesn't offer much in the way of direct info, the article suggests that E85 is a 'cooler burning' fuel.
Apparently that wasn't enough for Tomi, because now he's moving to a new engine with 2724cc and a 11.9:1 compression ratio. And just in case you were wondering, he is running EFI.
Think I'll stick with my 98RON unleaded though.
Cheers
Craig
1969 Beetle - June
1974 L Bug - Gwendolyn
2002 Bora V6 4Motion - Anita
