Ethanol and Outboards

[CarlF]

I ran across this video of what happens to E10 gas in a vented tank (in minutes). Vented tanks, ever smaller carb jets, corrosion prone aluminum parts, long fuel storage, humid environment ...No wonder dinghy engines have troubles with E10 gas.

How Ethanol Gas Attracts Water from the Air - Demonstration - YouTube

Yikes!

Carl

[SkiprJohn]

That was very good. Hope folks pay attention to this.
kind regards,

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by CarlF

I ran across this video of what happens to E10 gas in a vented tank (in minutes). Vented tanks, ever smaller carb jets, corrosion prone aluminum parts, long fuel storage, humid environment ...No wonder dinghy engines have troubles with E10 gas.

Yikes!

Carl

A cheap carnival trick based upon obvious physics and a bit of subterfuge. A bit of good salesmanship for his business, but he should be ashamed. He's probably selling a water-absorbing chemical, which the OEMs are very unhappy with (some have been shown to cause engine damage).

1. The solubility of ethanol in gasoline is strong function of temperature; see this EPA document, but there are other sources.
http://epa.gov/oms/regs/fuels/rfg/waterphs.pdf

2. The air cools the gas, causing the water to fall out of solution. The descending currents are more cold than water. Also note the condensation on the glass; not water from the air, but gasoline condensing on the cooled glass, coming from the gasoline vapors on the warm side. Obviously you could blow air on glass all day and make no drops. Note they are on the inside, but there are NONE on the outside.

Your gas tank is not going to cool from air blowing inside that tank. No way. Neither is the carb. That is clearly a false test.

3. I suspect he pre-saturated the gas with water. He may have done this on purpose. He may have used old gas (it looks old) from tanks, which is probably saturated.

So he has lied (though he may honestly not know how he did) and watchers may be hoodwinked. I hate this sort of bad-science video. While separation is surely possible, his model has no validity.

For your own home test, take a quart mason jar (no plastic lids--the gas will go through the plastic), add a lid with a 1/16" hole to simulate a tank with a vent, and wait a season. It won't separate. If you use a larger hole or no lid it may separate. The gas will evaporate down to nothing, losing ethanol first, and the water will then drop. But the gas must evaporate to the point (at least 50%) where the gas is clearly bad already. This is why carbs are more vulnerable and should be run dry... not the carnival trick.

Please, don't take my word for this; try it yourself.

[perchance]

Running the carb dry is the best advice.

[sabray]

So I did that ran the carb dry. After a year of use I found this yellow cake stuff on the walls of the fuel lines and the carb. I gave up on outboards and row my dink

[Factor]

If you use alcohol in your motor, well good luck to you, its highly corrosive. Indeed on E10 pumps in Australia, at least in my part of it, there are signs on the pumps indicating it should not be used on marine engines.

[perchance]

If you are going to run alcohol in your outboard amke sure you use the good stuff. Glenn Fidich comes to mind.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Factor

If you use alcohol in your motor, well good luck to you, its highly corrosive. Indeed on E10 pumps in Australia, at least in my part of it, there are signs on the pumps indicating it should not be used on marine engines.

Actually, some of the fuel additives are VERY effective against corrosion.
Sail Delmarva: Gasoline Additive Corrosion Testing
And some of them made it worse (including a few big brands).

The other reality is that keeping the gas dry and keeping the salt out are critical.

It's funny, how variable outboard experiences are. The first one I had was a pain, but it was old. sort of dependable, but sometimes hard to start after an absence. The 2nd 2-stroke was an iron horse; I NEVER did anything right, and it never coughed. My most resent responds to good fuel care with reliability, and poor fuel care with sputtering. My main engies (also outboards) are the same; they purr with good fuel care and sputter with poor care.

So many variables. The way I figure it, learning small engine care is as much a sailing skill in this age as sail trim(). Or it seems so, some days. It would be nice to use no-ethanol gas, but in most of the US--perhaps someday all of it--there is no reasonable option. But good care (mostly keeping a full tank and preventing filler / vent leaks) is generally enough. It works for cars.

[Blue Stocking]

Heres a riddle:
Farmers get paid by Gov. to not grow corn.
Those who do grow, push up market price because of shortage. Seen the price of Corn Flakes lately?
Fuel makers buy up large percentage of crop to make Ethanol, a process which is very energy consumptive in itself.
Ethanol is added to fuel, which lowers calorific output, so you burn more,--and buy more.
Damaged seals and parts result, and higher maintainance bills get passed to you.

How many times did you get scr**ed in the foregoing?

[thinwater]

A little drift from e-10 to politics:

Al Gore, November 22, 2010:

"One of the reasons I made that mistake [over ethanol] is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president" in 2000.

This article, via MSN and Reuters, pretty well sums it up.
Al Gore's mea culpa for corn ethanol support - US news - Environment - msnbc.com
Our former Vice President comes clean, admits he supported ethanol solely to get votes, and that it was based upon no science. And yet we can't wake up. The simple public believes ethanol is green, and talking down green is to defile the scared.

MODERATION NOTE:
Guys.. just a reminder that politics is taboo......

Discussions about politics, weaponry and religion are permitted only in association with the topic of this forum and will be closed or removed if they become disruptive.

The above post is germane to ethanol in fuel and as such is within the rules; PLEASE refrain from political discourse outside of same
George (capngeo)

[Noname]

Originally Posted by thinwater

A little drift from e-10 to politics:

Al Gore, November 22, 2010:

"One of the reasons I made that mistake [over ethanol] is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president" in 2000.

This article, via MSN and Reuters, pretty well sums it up.
Al Gore's mea culpa for corn ethanol support - US news - Environment - msnbc.com
Our former Vice President comes clean, admits he supported ethanol solely to get votes, and that it was based upon no science. And yet we can't wake up. The simple public believes ethanol is green, and talking down green is to defile the scared.

Dang! No wonder that Tennessee Sour Mash Bourbon is gettin' so spensive!

[sabray]

Cost benefit analysis. I'm pretty pro get green. Think ethanol was is not cost effective. You go after big returns with lowest cost. Many of these innovations and more everyday make good sense. Even if your proud gas guzzling grizzly anti environment liberal. I bet if you looked at cost analyst some Improvements to your personnel infrastructure could reduce cost and would qualify as green. That's hard to argue with.

[bobconnie]

Politics be darned!! ethanol is destructive to 2 cycles Period !! down the bayou we probley have more 2 strokes then most anywhere ! we have more folks making a living from 2 strokes one way or another!! now a days the ones making money are mechanics!!LOL but folks are learning !! we even have a web site with lists of non ethanol Gas Stations, Most of which have large signs saying No Ethanol out in front of the station. Ya know ya can run the stuff in 4 strokes but it's death to 2 strokes even with carb draining ECT ECT just my 2 cents! and I have a couple of 2 strokes LOL

[sabray]

Interesting my notsuhotsu and Yamaha hated ethanol and gas older then 3 weeks. My old Yamaha 2 stroke kicked until well uhhh the last time it didn't. Result is I have ethanol shoulder. Now I row the dink which seems more relaxing less taxing and my neighbors are not laughing at me as I row my outboard from land to boat and back.

[Cormorant]

That Sail Delmarva article is intriguing. He mentions that he's doing the testing for Practical Sailor magazine, and can't give us the results. I don't subscribe to PS. Can anyone give us a synopsis of the published results?

The Sail Delmarva article is dated May 20 of this year . . . so the testing was completed prior to that. I'm guessing the PS article is out by now, or will be soon.

----------------------
Quoted from Sail Delmarva:
...
And the successful additives weren't always the ones you would guess or be led to believe by advertising and marine catalogs, not at all. Unfortunately, If I give more than a teaser, PS will strangle me.

I will share this:

• Without air and water there is NO corrosion by e10.
• Without saltwater the corrosion is very, very slow. If salt spray, even the TINIEST AMOUNT can sneak into you tank, you're going to have trouble within weeks. The effect was dramatic.
• One of the very best additives did NOT come from the boat store. The worst ones did. Go figure.

It turns out that the NMMA (National Marine Manufacturers Association)has formed a working group to develop standards for gasoline additives. IT seems they have found that some are damaging their engines.