Hi all,

Driving round a judsoned 40hp 1200 and every time I go to fill up I see E94 petrol and wonder, "is that gonna be ok to use?" Up until now I've been using 95 or 98 PULP.

What's the story? Is the octane high enough? What about tuning for this fuel?

Ta

E94? wow thats new.

It must be a 94% ethanol 6% petrol mix?

octane will be very high but less fuel density thus have you fuel delivery changed to suit.

From the Federated Chamber of Automotive Industries website:
"
REASONS WHY ETHANOL BLENDED PETROL IS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR USE IN SOME OLDER VEHICLES

Introduction

The following information outlines the key reasons why vehicle manufacturers do not recommend the use of any ethanol/petrol blended fuels in vehicles made before 1986. This information is also applicable to post-1986 vehicles listed as unsuitable to use ethanol blended petrol.

Ethanol has a number of important chemical and physical properties that need to be considered in a vehicle's design.

Carburettor Equipped Engines

Vehicles made before 1986 vehicles were predominantly equipped with carburettors and steel fuel tanks.

The use of ethanol blended petrol in engines impacts the air/fuel ratio because of the additional oxygen molecules within the ethanol's chemical structure.

Vehicles with carburettor fuel systems may experience hot fuel handling concerns. This is because the vapour pressure of fuel with ethanol will be greater (if the base fuel is not chemically adjusted) and probability of vapour lock or hot restartability problems will be increased.

As a solvent, ethanol attacks both the metallic and rubber based fuels lines, and other fuel system components.

Ethanol also has an affinity to water that can result in corrosion of fuel tanks and fuel lines. Rust resulting from this corrosion can ultimately block the fuel supply rendering the engine inoperable. Water in the fuel system can also result in the engine hesitating and running roughly.

[...]
"

Also

"
More recently, E85, a blend of up to 85% ethanol and 15% unleaded petrol, is available from a growing number of fuel suppliers.

At this stage, very few cars on Australian roads are capable of operating on E85. These include Saab’s 9-3 and 9-5 Bio power models, Dodge Avenger 2.7L V6, Dodge Journey 2.7L V6 people mover, Chrysler Sebring 2.7 V6 (sedan and convertible) and Holden Commodore VE Series II flex-fuel vehicles (with 3.0L V6 or 6.0L V8 engine).
"

In short, E94 would be completely unsuitable for your car.


hth

Ta, thanks.

funny that^ ford model T ran fine on ethanol, its made to run on it

Amazing what oil companies make us believe.

All but few (which is me lol) of the EFI tuning guys on another forum I am on for EFI stuff run ethanol which is fine with few minor changes. The problems start when using methanol really.



But I wouldn't bother for a beetle or even a daily driver as there isn't enough fuel stations yet. And as for the beetle I wouldn't bother with that because its got carbs. Ethanol really shows its benefits on EFI especially with forced induction.

my2c anyway

a mate of mine runs his type 3 on it

why would you bother using the low octane stuff?????????

How did Brazilian VWs cope? They have been running on ethanol for years there so what's the secret? BTW on my cab ( factory fuel injected) the sticker inside the fuel flap says to use 91 octane fuel.

corrosion? never actually seen proof of this thought everyone seems to say it does. found this on wiki which was interesting.

"High alcohol fuel blends are reputed to cause corrosion of aluminum fuel system components. However, studies indicate that the addition of water to the high alcohol fuel blends helps prevent corrosion. This is shown in SAE paper 2005-01-3708 Appendix 1.2 where gasoline/alcohol blends of E50, nP50,IP50 nB50, IB50 were tested on steel, copper, nickel, zinc, tin and three types of aluminum. The tests showed that when the water content was increased from 2000ppm to 1%, corrosion was no longer evident except some materials showed discolouration."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel 

there is stuff all info on E94 but it appears its a hydrous ethanol. 94% pure ethanol 6 % h2o ???



Then I found this to support that.

"E100 is pure ethanol fuel. Straight hydrous ethanol as an automotive fuel has been widely used in Brazil since the late 1970s for neat ethanol vehicles[78][120] and more recently for flexible-fuel vehicles.[121][122] The ethanol fuel used in Brazil is distilled close to the azeotrope mixtureof 95.63% ethanol and 4.37% water (by weight) which is approximately 3.5% water by volume.[123] The azeotrope is the highest concentration of ethanol that can be achieved by distillation. The maximum water concentration according to the ANP specification is 4.9 vol.% (approximately 6.1 weight%) [124] The E nomenclature is not adopted in Brazil, but hydrated ethanol can be tagged as E100, meaning it does not have any gasoline, because the water content is not an additive, but rather a residue from the distillation process. However, straight hydrous ethanol is also called E95 by some authors.[125][126]"


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_ethanol_fuel_mixtures#ED95 

been spoken about in this thread too

http://volkaholics.net/index.php?topic=217.0 

I run my offroad buggy on E85, 1600cc, N/A, with carbies. Loves it... We also have a 356 Speedster Replica with EFI that runs it N/A. I see a lot of cars come through work to be tuned on e85, sure, the Turbo cars benefit the most, but an N/A car setup properly can benefit too.

Unless the car gets used on a regular basis, E85 needs to be drained and 98 or something run through the system. The E85 will turn to a jelly and block jets/pumps etc if its not done this way, when it comes to race cars, we use fuel cells without the foam filling because the e85 can eat away at the foam putting it through pumps and lines.

I run Liberty E85 in my buggy, and the 356 Is tuned to Caltex. I have run the Caltex through the buggy, but it didn't perform nearly as well as the Liberty. If the e94 performs better than the e85, I'll be changing over...