Non-Ethanol Fuel and MPG

I'm thinking more political but then there's little difference from hypocritical, especially when the proponents don't have to pay the price (GORE). Now, the MPG decrease is about 11% for my VFR. For my Stang the diff is 13%, but that's based on the car's first tank which was only one with E10, so I don't have a solid E10 average to compare with the pure stuff average. At least in my case, the percentage of additional fuel burned is about even with the emission reduction so I'm not seeing how this is a good thing...

 

When you figure it out let me know.

Absolutely!

What are you paying for non-ethanol fuel?

 

The stations that I get it from only sell the non-ethanol fuel at 91 octane. Compared to E10 87 octane fuel. I am paying 40 cents more per gallon. My wife's Jeep has a Hemi in it, this is great because that engine requires 89 octane (so it only really costs 20 cents more), but my 4 cylinder Malibu does not, but I'm putting it in both cars anyway. With that said, it is a few cents cheaper per gallon to run the non-ethanol fuel because of the increased MPG. I've estimated that the Jeep costs about 25 cents per mile and the Mailbu about 15 cents per mile. I am seeing a 2-3 MPG increase in both cars. Even if I was losing money, I think the extra cost is worth it to keep the ethanol out of the engines.

 

In my case, 9% more that for E10, while seeing 11-13% more mileage (less fuel burned/emitted).

 

Here Chevron 88 is 3.10 a gallon an I'm paying 3.05 for the non-ethanal 88 (from the mom & pop station) Hmmm...less money, more mileage AND performance.

 

Right! So why are we buying E10 / E85 fuel? I think that most people are not aware of these facts. I was one of them until 2 months ago. Why is this not a bigger deal, especially with the media?

 

That is a great deal!

 

The E10 really doesn't make sense to me, i feel that it was a way to help farmers, reduce emissions, and etc. However the biggest problem I have with it is that it ruins the image of ethanol. If the engine is setup properly for ethanol you can obtain more horsepower. I wanted at one point to convert my vfr into ethanol/e85, the only problem I would have is that in order to produce more horsepower you need to pump more fuel. Then after reading the "supercharger" thread that toecutter made a while ago i realized I couldn't pump the required amount of fuel threw the injectors. Now I just need to find an older bike to convert, my car gets about two more mpg with non ethanol fuel. I cannot tell on my vfr because it really depends on how im driving.

 

What's this "We" stuff Pilgrim, I've been buying the good stuff for years! As for the media, I would suspect certain points of view at work there.

 

"We" would be the general population which included myself up until 2 months ago. I am actually disappointed with myself that I didn't dig deeper into this before now. Better late than never though.

 

My "We" bit was teasing you:whip:

 

Here's some reading on the ethanol boondoggle from the Cato Institute, lengthy but informative.


http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/ethanol-boondoggle.pdf

 

Yeah, I know

 

I just downloaded the PDF. I'll give it read later.

 

Yes, this was lenthy, but full of great information. It did a good job of tearing apart the reasons why they say we need to produce ethanol (as a country). Thanks for posting.