TomH. did start this complaining about engine performances on the E-mixed fuels. Then he gravitated to buying quantities for longer term storage.
I was addressing long term storage.
A non-feed-back system as in your racing cart can be made to fuel on a wide range of combustibles. Many of these will store very poorly. Degrade, coating with “varnishes”. Turn acid. Become very corrosive.
Example. Methanol makes good power when set up for. Kills storage containers, and transport lines and engine oils in service.
Ha! By the way my 2007 Hyundai Tucson manufacturers set up for E-10 will misfire enough on clear non-ethanol to set the check engine light for Random misfires.
Yet the older 1996 Plymouth mini-van 3.3L manufacturers set up as Flex-fuel would run fine from E-0 thru E-85. Only the milage noticeably varied. Sea level to 5000 feet at Yellowstone.
Only year around all-travel, all use is what matters to a Practicalist.
Racers are trailered or towed to the race tracks.
Pump gasolines stored in mid-90’s and later vehicles with still intact E-VAP systems I’ve found is good for a few years. True sealed modern plastic cans kept in NOT-metal sheds, but kept in temperature moderated areas, lasts for me the same one year or more.
I do not believe the claim of octane loss if stored optimally.
But I do not believe in any way to restore gasoline once gone bad either. Dump-it. With extreme care open burnt off. DO NOT run it out in any engine you care about.
S.U.
I keep a two gallon can of mix fuel down at the garden for the weed wacker. Completely sealed. One day I went there and the sides of the can were sucked in like if you sucked in your cheeks. Where the chainsaws do not run well or some at all with E-10, the Stihl weed wacker runs perfectly fine on it. This crap is just designed to confuse an old guy who already stands in front of an open refrigerator unable to remember why he is there.
Filled up my cans. $3.69 for E-10. Not so bad. Non-ethanol is now $5.69 at our local station. I couldn’t pull the trigger on that one. At two dollars a gallon difference it now makes more sense to separate the alcohol out of it with a device I made a while back. I’ll probably quickly regret that decision.
I am lucky I guess TomH.
Two places in my county I can get all three grades of non-ethanol. So 87 to 87 it only costs .70 cents to $1.00 more a gallon.
Still . . . WA State is higher on both.
I did look up availbity of Aspen branded engineered canned here. 30 miles to the closest place.
3X the pump prices. I just can’t pull the trigger on that one either.
Some small engines repair folks videos showing most of the other brands of canned are cat-piss.
Yes I suppose you can remove the majority of the alcohol. Not so sure it gets rid of the co-solvnets goo . . .
S.U.
Tom, Steve,
Fuel suppliers actually use ethanol as an octane enhancer for distillate they wouldn’t be able to sell. If you remove it your engine may knock.
Rindert
I have heard that before Rindert. It’s all so confusing. I’d like to have the money back that I spent buying high octane gas thinking that is increased performance. I would like to know what the petroleum distillates are in Stabil that extend your gas two years. I wonder why ethanol in gas shortens the storage life due to hydroscopicity but adding Heet gas line methanol or the iso-heat is a benefit and yet Isopropyl alcohol is not as good as ethanol as a fuel. Why can you use IPA treated gas in a two stroke and not methanol? If I treat my gas with one of the Heet products does that increase storage life?
I sure can’t answer all your questions, but I can answer this one. IPA is a better lubricant than methanol. Fancy word ‘lubricity’ is often used. It just means lubricating property of a fluid.
Rindert
A lot of professionals may disagree, but I tell you for a redneck that is just looking for “good enough” these are the best body working materials around. A high lift jack, 2 ball peen hammers, bfh, pry bar chains and binders. This is the wrecked geo I bought the front clip was WAY out of wack one frame rail was 3” high, rolled to the inside and rolled left to right 2”. Strut tower was collapsed into the cowl area. About 2 hours with only these tools and it’s ready for new sheet metal. Everything is within 1/8” of plumb true and square. applied pressure in whatever way is needed, and tap any crease out while keeping tension. Can draw things out and twist them around pretty darn good. I’d say when it has some fresh paint no one will know the difference
Hey TomH.,
As in most things in Life all of these questions about the engine runabilty, and long term storage of gasolines: Clear Non-Ethanol; E10 & E15 (or 2022’s Biden approved E20 summer mix); and up to E-85 you will have to make your own choices.
Too many Depends in each individuals situations. Sealed fuel injection system versus an in-bowl sitting carburetor with a vented fuel tank. That tank was metal or plastic. That tank or storage can in a sun exposure and extreme temperatures extremes exposure storage.
Here is another video time-siting testing series to help a fellow decide:
Important is he goes onto actual engine starting and running testing at 9:23 minutes.
I’d tried to put up Todds at Project Farm full 5 of 8 Gasoline Testing playlist above but it would not link come through.
The Taryl Fixes All video’s that I put up I consider valid too as he did time-sitting and then actual engines starting and running too. Huh. It’s just that Taryl in scary plastic teeth, wig, and dancing around wasting a fellow time viewing is hard to take.
Him; Project Farms Todd; the Chickanic gal; The Repair Specialists guy; DOW’s Goren and I think I recall Canadian Wallace are all saying the same things . . . . for your small carbureted engines DO search out and pay more for a true Non-Ethanol gasoline. Skip the treatments. Or use one the better proven canned engineered fuels.
Still best to run out, or drain the carb fuel bowls. Sheee . . . I did not on the wife’s Honda 2000 inverter unit (it has an easy small screw driver tubed to the out side drain!) and now have a rust corroded float bowl.
2-cycle mixed using one of the better branded mix-oils makes a five gallon annual can made up for me using non-ethanol, useable out to a full year.
For me E-10 stored in mid-1990’s and later F.I. vehicles lasts easily useable for at least one year and more.
My true sealed plastic gasoline cans doing the same one year usability. Always stored in wooden outbuildings.
Metal cans; older vented breathing vehicles; and by a year stored gasolines will have degraded too much to trust and depend on.
Fellows trying for 3-5-7 years of emergency backup pre-stored gasoline are beating a dead horse in my opinion.
Use LPG propane for that. Pay the price to convert the engine.
Two taught to childern wisdoms are apt so far as gasoline engine fuels are concerned:
“You get what you get, and you do not throw a fit.”
“It is, what it is.”
Decades use of tetra-ethyl lead as octane boosters late 1920’s thru mid-1970’s was no joy-fun if you were the one having to pull cylinder heads and de-carbon and leads build-ups scrape, scrape, scape to get rid of developed pinging and hot engines run-on’s, will not clean stop.
A few decades of MTBE dosed gasolines was not much joy either. Toxic stinks in use with still cold catalytic converters. Water contaminations all down through the manufacturing of it; distribution, and dispensing.
Do you use this Al and find that it lives up to the claims? I mentioned I put Stabil in stored gas and it claims 2 year shelf live. I have found that to be an exaggeration. Pri-G claims even longer results and I have talked to people who use it. Same as the Stabil. I’ll look through the videos at the right but I rather get information that is more trustworthy than youtube.
I’m probably beating this horse more than necessary Steve but in my mind at least the next year is going to be a shit show. No idea how it will effect me directly but I absolutely will get panicky if I don’t have at least two years of stored gasoline. Now that you mention it though it occurs to me that I have many times had year old gas in my FI plow truck. Sealed fuel system. It always started when winter came. The suggestion of sealed containers therefore makes a lot of sense.
Yes Tom I have been using it for several years. I get it at Rural king stores. If I don’t use it in my 1948 truck when it sits, I have to take top off carb, and clean snot out of fuel bowls.
Okay Steve and All,
I like and trust that Project Farm guy. I think he was a Marine, wasn’t he?
Anyhoo, that video got me worried, and I went around taking float bowls off where I could. I found very small traces of white powder here and there.
I always run things out of fuel before I store them. This is because I remember someone telling me that fuel stations send all the fuel they have that is more than thirty days old back to the refinery. And because I remember a '62 Fairlne 221cu.in. V8 that I brought back to life in 1983. It was a major chore getting all the old fuel out of the tank. I took it to a radiator shop. The guy said $20 bucks. Three hours later he came out looking really grumpy and said ‘The tank is ready’. The way he said it was as if it were an M1 Abrams tank. So to me it just makes sense not to leave fuel in stuff. And also you may be right Steve I do live in a semi arid climate, and that may have something to do with it.
I learned something today, but I’m not going to stop using e85. Thanks Steve.
Rindert
First time trying my potatoe plow. I did not keep ahead of the weeds towards the end of this summer but the plow did a pretty good job of laying the potatoes on top of the ground - some in the trench and some on each side.
Nearly 3 decades ago (gosh the years went by fast) I used an electric clothes drier heating element for a current limiting resistor for welding at very low currents when using 1/16" stainless rods. The heating element had an exposed nichrome wire coil that I could use an alligator clip (automotive jumper cable) to chose how much of the element was used as a resistor. I ended up having 2 of the elements at one point so that I could parallel them for higher current levels. You don’t have to use an alligator clip. I did simply twist bare copper wires around the element as taps also. Note, care does need to be used as the nichrome coils are easily stretched and become a mess.
Technically, the change in resistance of the nichrome wire as the wire heats up creates a “slope” effect in the current limiting which can be desirable and can be taken advantage of by where the alligator clip is attached to the wire such as one clip closer to the end than the other clip.
I made some sketches for options on taps for illustration.
