Ethanol

question, does ethanol and vw engine = happy saga? I figured that it would probably burn out the valves because of the slow burn and valve still open, what else would it do? anyone know?

You talking 100% or 10%??

There is a "green" servo that sells 10% Ethanol on Vic Road West Ryde, Sydney

I fill up there when i have the chance.

IF anything - i reckon my dub goes better on that stuff than 95

there wa a post a while ago i think, in brazil or mexico they have been running dubs with minor mods on 100% ethanol with minor mods for several years from what was said last time

what Bizarre said,
because I trust his advice no matter what, I decided to start filling up at West Ryde, immeduately noticed that it ran smoother & seemed to have slightly more pull, & less unburnt fuel smell on overun, I now don't fill up anywhere else if I can help it, that is with the beetle

Bizarre wrote:You talking 100% or 10%??

There is a "green" servo that sells 10% Ethanol on Vic Road West Ryde, Sydney

I fill up there when i have the chance.

IF anything - i reckon my dub goes better on that stuff than 95

What model do you drive, fuel injection? I am talking 10% dont sell 100% in Australia do they? So ethanol cant burn out valves?

He drives carbie L Bug

I drive 1600SP

yeah brasil has all kinds of weird fuel, they dont even sell petrol i dont think?

they have like alcohol .etc

Anthony

yep got a United near my work so i use the 95 ron stuff, 3c a litre cheaper than ulp doesnt seem to hurt my bus so far😵‍💫

baybuscamperkid wrote:there wa a post a while ago i think, in brazil or mexico they have been running dubs with minor mods on 100% ethanol with minor mods for several years from what was said last time

awesome I want to run my bug on 100% ethanol. no more fossil fuels!

keep an eye on your rubber fuel lines. ethanol is basically alcohol we ran alcohol in two stroke road racing bikes way back in the 70's needed big carbies and big big jets was called shell A in those days we weren't interested in mpg or kpg for that application.

I have been running My other cars [Mitsubishis} on Bogas which has a maximum of 10% ethanol... for many years
It used to be much lower than that...
without any ill effects....
I just read where a New ethanol plant has just opened somewhere and BP will be selling E10 with 10% ethanol..
I remember reading on here a couple of years ago that VW users were using Bogas with great results...
engines were running cooler etc...

But I have also read on another site that says to use ethanol in a Beetle, Your should have larger jets in the carburetors as the engine will be running lean....
Whether this was with just 10% or less, I'm not sure...

Today tonight tested some fuel stations in Sydney when ethanol was in the news a while back, and Bogas only had a few per cent Ethanol.... less than 5%..
But some of the independant stations had as much as 20% ethanol... I don't think ethanol is taxed {yet}...
I think all fuel in the US has ethanol to get rid of the surplus wheat....[or another grain]...

I don't think E10 is going to make much difference to our hoses etc...

If We had 100% alcohol in Our tanks, some people wouldn't be just sniffing it....
They would be drinking it... lol...

Lee

[ Edited on 20-7-2006 by 68AutoBug ]

awesome I want to run my bug on 100% ethanol. no more fossil fuels!

You can but the cost of the fuel is prohibitive when you consider you require roughly TWICE the amount of fuel to get the same bang.

Alcohol measures roughly half the British Thermal Units of petrol and therefore you require twice the flow to get it to run. It follows you get half the fuel economy.
Stoich (correct air/fuel ratio) for petrol is around 14:1 for petrol and around 7:1 for metho.
As mentioned previously, there is an issue with compatability with fuel system components.
Youll go insane in winter with carby and manifold icing but youll love the smell!
However, fuel economy is abysmal.
In my old 2 stroke racing bikes when we were allowed to use metho, the main jet changed from around a 1.65mm to 3.5mm. Remember, you need to double the FLOW rate of the jet, not its size!
The engine would actually run with no main jet fitted at all!

There is roughly a 5 to 8% increase in horsepower if you dont change anything in the engine apart from the jetting.
A nice feature of metho is that the engine will tolerate a very wide range of mixtures with few ill effects. You can run it rich to the point of "4 stroking" and it will still make good power and lean it off to within an inch if its valves lives and the high octane rating will take care of that.
Methos' octane rating is something in the vicinity of .....sheeeitt...I cant remember now......... anyway its pretty high........around 150 seems to ring bells but dont quote me here.
You can run far higher compression ratios and advanced ignition timing and plunder more horsepower from usiing it but the fact remains that economy is woeful and you cant buy it from a roadside station yet!!

Have fun.
L8tr
E

[ Edited on 20/7/06 by tassupervee ]

My 97 Mazda 626 (no laughing please!) runs much better on the E10 fuel available here in QLD. On testing it appears to get about 40kms more off a tank of this than regular ULP.

hmmm sounds like I am wrong about those valves....but if your getting less bang for buck, why have alcohol dragster etc? What i mean is, i thought alcohol in the engine would increase power, does it?

so let me get this right... so far i've heard that ethanol is good, great, and better... and the only people who are whining about it ruining their engines are BMW drivers.... hmmm!!

sounds like the petrol companies are scared of the big bad ethanol beast... hate for competition to exist in their happy little monopoly 🤪

You get less bang for your buck, but in racing terms they dont care about bucks. Throw 400% more bucks at it to get 20% more power (made up figures). Who cares.

Is it worth it? Nup. Even if you make some savings in the hip pocket, E10 fuels are still ripping you off more than petrol (and LPG too for that matter). Why are e10's always a couple of cents below petrol? Stands to reason that every time petrol goes up, e10 should only go up 90% of that increase. It doesnt, its still just a couple of cents cheaper.

You can put the e10 in your car and it may run a little leaner but survive. Your car was running a little richer than needed, you've just pulled it back a little. What happens if you pick up e10 that has closer to the 20%???? Uh oh. You can run e10 in an EFI with O2 sensor no problems, but just know that at least some of your savings are being chewed up by the computer pumping more fuel in to maintain the mixtures.

I would happily change my fuel hoses and gaskets over to run on bio fuel if it was economical to do it. But we all know that it is going to cost more per km because once it is the popular fuel, it too will be taxed, and with the extra volumes required, we'll get shafted.