Being I run Gas and petrol i have been reading up on E10 and I stumbled on this
These stories are but 4 or so days apart from each other lol
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1308619/uk-fuel-pump-e10-petrol-changes-engine-damage
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1310426/uk-fuel-e10-petrol-classic-car-damage-rubber
And this..
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1313318/classic-cars-uk-fuel-e10-petrol-changes-damage
I reiterate the title!!
are they changing all fuels to e10 type fuels on your side of the rock.
did you ever get to use leaded fuels ?
I believe standard is 95 which will be E10 However Superunleaded 98 will stay E5 IIRC.
I've never used leaded fuels but my Granddad did! lol
Your first mistake is reading the Express. Any webpage with that horrific formatting doesn't deserve to be looked at.
Note that a lot of that relates to carb vehicles as well which obviously can go out of tune and need adjustment, you have fuel injection which will adjust itself anyway so running lean shouldn't be an issue as long as its working properly anyway.
We got proper full fat leaded petrol up until about 1985 (so long before Strange Rover was born) when they phased it out. Didn't really cause too many problems. The odd car needed the ignition timing backing off by a couple of degrees while even fewer needed to have the valve seats replaced. Things like the original BL A series had the valve seats cut directly into the cast iron head so they had to have harder valve seats fitted.
The amusing thing about those three articles linked to is that the information all comes from the same bloke. So in the first one he's saying that it could result in a lean mixture leading to burnt valves and holed pistons (but does talk about carburettors so for anyone using a car still fitted with them will only need to adjust it, or at worst, change a jet or two), in the second one he talks about it attacking the rubber in the fuel system, which is absolutely correct which is why anything built since 2000 doesn't have any rubber in the fuel system (so all that anyone really worried about it would need to do would be to replace any rubber fuel hoses with hose made since 2000) and then in the third article he says it isn't a problem despite what other experts are saying. He obviously didn't realise that he is the other experts (or strictly speaking, expert, singular) so is disagreeing with himself.
He appears to be the classic definition of an expert, ex - former or has been, spurt - drip under pressure.
Of course if anyone is really worried about it, just call in at your local airfield and fill up with 101 Octane Avgas......
In this part of the world we generally see 91 and 94, both E10, 95 and 98 without. I refuse to use E10 in any vehicle of mine, as they are all older vehicles. I also ran some mileage tests with it in a modern car, when I had one, over some long distances and found that in a V6 Commodore (3.8L Vauxhall equiv), I got about 20% better economy running 98 than E10. That was about the price differential, so 98 it was.
Whilst on my soap box I'll also say that the area of land required to produce the crops for ethanol production might be better turned into food production. I did some work a while back for a US start up ethanol producer and the land area required to provide the corn for what was a modest scale plant, was absolutely staggering. Tens of thousands of acres.
Marshall8hp wrote:
Whilst on my soap box I'll also say that the area of land required to produce the crops for ethanol production might be better turned into food production. I did some work a while back for a US start up ethanol producer and the land area required to provide the corn for what was a modest scale plant, was absolutely staggering. Tens of thousands of acres.
Shh, your not supposed to point out the reality!
What an utter munter. Both the author of the articles (as it's also the same person) and the 'Expert'
Complete contradictions, which surely any journalist worth their salt would throw back at the their 'source' given the time-frame of these articles being published. Do they not realise that it makes them all look stupid and not help the image of the press massaging facts and figures for their own benefits/narratives?
There's a difference between calorific values, stochiometric ratios and octane ratings between petrol and ethanol and none flex fuel rated engines / ECUs couldn't run well on E85 but should run OK on E10 provided they run closed loop fuel injection (or carb / open loop with mixture adjusted) and don't have rubber in fuel lines.
Ethanol can increase octane rating but despite that will usually produce less power due to the other factors.
Before ethanol was added to petrol LPG pipe could be used for petrol. Ethanol turns rubber LPG pipes to mush but Faro/polypipe isn't affected.
L322's with the BMW V8 suffer cam cover rear breather pipes turning to mush, possibly due to ethanol vapour (possibly an oversight on BMW's part but I forget when ethanol started being added to petrol)..?
I mentioned about E10 fuel ages ago and those who commented said --- nothing to worry about ----- old classic cars will have some serious issues like fuel pumps etc
Lpgc wrote:
L322's with the BMW V8 suffer cam cover rear breather pipes turning to mush, possibly due to ethanol vapour (possibly an oversight on BMW's part but I forget when ethanol started being added to petrol)..?
The Mercedes 1.8, 2.0 litre and 2.3 litre, 4 cylinder supercharged engine suffers from what is known as the 8 pound pipe issue. Basically you get the MIL on and an unstable idle. The pipe, which as you might have gathered, costs £8 from Mercedes (probably the cheapest part you can buy from Mercedes) but it's a 5 hour job to change it as it is a breather between the crankcase and underside of the inlet manifold involving much dismantling to get to. The original pipe was made of rubber (the £8 replacement appears to be silicone) and turns into a gooey black mass. I suspect for exactly the same reason as the L322 breather does.
On every older car I've owned with a mechanical fuel pump, I've made up a blanking plate from 10mm alloy and stuck that over the hole and fitted an electric one instead. I suspect E10, if not E5, will eat it's way through the diaphragm in a mechanical pump.
The bit that puzzles me is,....
This can also lead to an ice cream in pollution and higher fuel consumption in a major concern for road users.
?????? Must be something to do with the calorific values :)
Typical Daily Excuse lack of proof reading and relying on speeling chuckers. Fuel holes appears at least 3 times when it actually means fuel hoses. Predictive text has corrected a misspelled increase into ice cream and in the same sentence an s has been replaced with an n so it reads "in a major concern" when it should say "is a major concern".
BrianH wrote:
Your first mistake is reading the Express. Any webpage with that horrific formatting doesn't deserve to be looked at.
Note that a lot of that relates to carb vehicles as well which obviously can go out of tune and need adjustment, you have fuel injection which will adjust itself anyway so running lean shouldn't be an issue as long as its working properly anyway.
Correct Answer. The Express is a not a factual publication nor is the Mail, Mail on Sunday, Daily Mirror or even whatever they're calling the Independent these days.
Having seen the story with my own eyes on a couple of occasions and then read about it later in the papers - it's all shite.