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Old 05-03-2009, 09:06 PM
iajim iajim is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 151
Default ethanol

Just a few random thoughts on ethanol. Raising the alcohol content in gas won’t help , but it’s not the doomsday mark for two cycle engines either. If you ride a four stroke, particularly a fuel injected one, you probably won’t notice much difference. The root cause of the problem is that you , me and all other two stroke owners are trying to use fuel made for a four stroke, fuel injected, V-8 in a much a much smaller two stroke, carbureted single cyl. engine. Hopefully the manufacturers’ will come up w/ alternative jetting guidelines. We may all have to run a blend of race gas/ pump gas to be on the safe side. Several years ago Polaris recommended 10% richer jetting for engines running on gasohol, in any event more alcohol will require richer jetting. My Dad’s midget car racer used Triumph motorcycle engines running straight methanol, the main jet needed to be tripled, then start leaning down. GMP, I don’t want to argue with you on ethanol, there simply is more to the issue, you can find statistics to prove anything. I wouldn’t blame the ethanol producers, they’re trying to sell their product to the auto industry as an alternative, not a superior replacement. As far as inefficiencies, keep in mind that an ethanol plant has to be able to sell the corn fructose or syrup to stay afloat. The leftover corn “mash” has value as animal feedstock, roughly 28% protein as opposed to an ear of corn which has about 9% protein. By comparison, an oil refinery always operates at a net loss of product. If you have 100 barrels of oil going in, there might only be 96 to 98 or less coming out as product, the rest being used in heaters, boilers, etc. They also must be able to sell their by- products, asphalt, heavy oil, LP & Natural gas. Even a small unit (section) of an oil refinery will have three dozen 50 Hp. Elec. Motors and a couple of others in the 250 – 300 Hp. range. It all takes energy. There’s no easy answer, they all operate a losing process, the price at the pump makes or breaks them. The refiners’ would love to sell us exactly what we want, 98 octane, 8.8 vapor press., no light naptha and minimum reformate blend, but we’re too small of a market. One idea kicked around was to increase the amount of oil in the gas, going from 40:1 to 24:1. The basic idea being that you could replace the lost BTU’s in ethanol with an increase of BTU’s in the oil. The problem is more oil = lower octane, exactly what you don’t want. I’m hopeful that there will always be a low/ no alcohol, hi octane blend available. Muscle cars, snowmobiles, 4 wheelers, outboards, they all like the 100% petroleum fuel. If you are in a situation where you have to run a higher amount of ethanol, you’d better re- jet richer, I can’t emphasize that enough. I know it’s not a solution, but hang in there. As Red Green would say “we’re all in this together”.
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