Ethanol??? blend

Can I run my beetle on a mixture of petrol and ethanol or would it run to lean?

Bert

Excellent question Lindsay. I can't answer your question but I am investigating the same issue. Especially when they say petrol is going to $1.80 a litre soon. The following link has technical discussion on making ethanol with a section on modifying your air cooled volkswagen this link though is to an outline of a book that is available on the topic.

Regards,
Shaun
http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com

Remember, blending your own fuel at home in Aus is a federal offense - read: Don't tell anyone you're doing it.

What about LPG. Is it hard to convert your aircooled to a LPG system? I was considering it for my 76 kombi.

converting to gas is possible on aircooled, but as far as ive heard is not a good option as they usualy stuff something up. here is a link to some ethanol info
http://www.renewableenergypartners.org/ethanol.html

lpg is quite possible as long as you can heat up the converter that changes the liquid into a gas before it hits the carby, the other thing is of course lpg has an octane rating of about 110 a far cry from unleaded 91 so it would be possible to build an aircooled motor to run exclusively on lpg ie higher compression and maybe a small boost turbo option.
in my opinion a much better project than trying to convert an old motor design to run on ethanol with the inherent problems of jetting old carbies plus fuel economy etc, which by the way no one in the media talks about since most modern cars with their efi and computer sensors can adjust more easily to the ethanol /petrol mix.

NONE of this is cost-effective... Said another way, you are wasting your time and $ doing any more than thinking about it!

[ Edited on 9-8-2006 by VWCOOL ]

VWCOOL wrote:NONE of this is cost-effective... Said another way, you are wasting your time and $ doing any more than thinking about it!

[ Edited on 9-8-2006 by VWCOOL ]

Why not?

If you can buy commercial grade ethanol it costs more than petrol; lpg conversion will take about 5 years to get back the costs


Just use E10 (ethanol blended) fuel, if it makes you feel good!

What he said, prolly take longer than 5 years as the cost of conversion of aircooled for a gas certificate would be horrendous,far more than standard watercooled stuff

what about that new 100 octane stuff that BP is floggin that has 5% ethanol. Can i use that in my kombi?

or is ethanol a no no?

we are repairing a 911 engine at work that is f@#ked due to that ethanol shit you wanna take the gamble for a couple of bucks per tank ,keep your aircooled in the garage and drive it on weekends filled with premium,or you too could be up for new barrels ,pistons and heads,
that shit should be banned!
our engine machinist is currently installing lpg to his beetle ute,will be interesting to see how this goes.

I personally won't use E10, and the VW's get premium fuel. My choice, my decision and I'm happy with it.

If you want to use E10 or get a gas conversion, just do it. It is your choice, and if you feel you may save $4000 in fuel by using E10, it would be cheaper than a new engine. Just do it!