Ethanol free gas for lawn equip?

[tfudtuckerpucker]

My 1998 Lincoln and 96 Cadillac require Premium, but neither have ever never tasted it. @ 120K miles, no service of any plugs, transmission, or any part of the power train... Still get 21 to 29 mpg on Regular w/ ethanol.

Newer cars (since around '96) have knock sensors, that retard the ignition if lower octane gas is used. This may reduce gas mileage, and because of this many claim you don't save money if you use regular in an engine that requires premium. It does, however, reduce the engine's power.

 

[38Chevy454]

I will say that the E10 does cause problems in my small 2 stroke engines. Mostly from sitting over winter, or not enough use. I used to get the rebuild kits for $8-10 and clean the carbs, now I just get a whole new carb for $12-18 on ebay. Takes about 5 minutes to change out the carb and back to good working condition. The small carbs do not seem to have the corrosion resistance and with the extremely small passages it does not take much to not run good.

My mower, tiller, generator and other 5-8 hp range small engines do fine on E10. As stated, I just run them dry before winter.

 

[6miths]

Yes my 2007 Acura 'needs' Premium fuel but have had no trouble putting 160K on it with only regular fuel. The problem with ethanol in small engines, as far as I understand, is more about laziness at the end of the season. In these parts, with only 6 months of use for most gas powered equipment, it is failing to drain the gas and carburetor at the end of the season that leads to problems. Ethanol is hygroscopic and the water causes subsequent problems. Theoretically, one could run E10 gas all season and then at the end of the season start running gas without ethanol or as mentioned, just run them dry.

 

[samclem]

Most modern cars that also have high compression engines run best on premium fuel. But, they have electronic knock sensors that can detect detonation before a person can even hear it, and they automatically retard the timing so that the car can run and the engine won't be destroyed on fuel of lower octane. The engine won't produce as many HP and the mileage will be poorer, but the car will run. If a new car or truck buyer plans to run a higher-performance engine strictly on regular-grade fuel, they may want to save some bucks by buying the vehicle with one of the lower-performance engine options for it (designed to run on regular fuel), because the fuel choice will be limiting the HP anyway.

All properly-tuned automobiles operating with a mix of ethanol and gasoline will get poorer mileage than the same car run on 100% gasoline. Ethanol just has less energy per gallon than does gasoline, so it takes more of it to push the car the same distance. Same for a mix of gasoline and ethanol.

I know a guy whose airplane was extensively damaged by using ethanol, and another person with a motorcycle that was also damaged. In these cases, it was not an engine problem, but the fuel tanks were made of a fiberglass/epoxy matrix that was designed for use with gasoline, but even 10% ethanol dissolved the epoxy. And there were many problems with fuel hoses, gaskets, carb floats, etc in older engines designed for use with gasoline. There's just no reason to expect that a rubber/polymer designed specifically to tolerate gasoline will also work well with alcohol. Newer engines and fuel systems that were designed after the ethanol adulteration began should be able to work with the mix, though in many cases it's still not a happy situation: They can tolerate 10% for the expected service life of the vehicle (whatever that is--I keep my vehicles a long time), but go to 15% and the clock starts ticking faster.

Hopefully there will soon be legislative relief to this situation.

 

[misanman]

Marine applications and ethanol don't mix

Does anyone have personal knowledge of anyone with an engine of any kind that has been ruined by a gasoline containing ethanol...?

Where we have had problems is with the boats and jet skiis. Nothing permanently ruined but constant fouling of the fuel and fuel intake systems. Hard starting and rough running. We didn't have a clue it could be ethanol related until someone suggested we should try eliminating the ethanol. The improvement has been remarkable.

I understand that ethanol attracts water so maybe it's fine to use where humidity is low. In any case, I've decided to switch to 100% gas for the lawn mowers, trimmers, and chain saw at home. We'll see if it makes a noticeable difference.

 

[ERD50]

Most modern cars that also have high compression engines run best on premium fuel. But, they have electronic knock sensors that can detect detonation before a person can even hear it, and they automatically retard the timing so that the car can run safely on fuel of lower octane. The engine won't produce as many HP and the mileage will be poorer, but the car will run. ....

That is what I understand as well. However....

... if you drive conservatively, and don't live in a hilly area, or don't often accelerate to merge onto an expressway, I would think that the anti-knock sensors wouldn't be kicking in very often at all (I think all they do is retard timing a bit from what it would be? ). So I would think any hit on mpg would be very, very slight, if at all?

Now I'm wondering about my old Volvo S40, 1.9L turbo, I've always used regular gas (manual says OK, premium 'recc') - the initial accel from a stop is sluggish if I have the A/C on and need to get moving. It's fine after a few
seconds as the engine revs and the turbo kicks in. Maybe I'll try a half tank of premium when it is near empty and see if I can feel a difference.

-ERD50

 

[samclem]

So I would think any hit on mpg would be very, very slight, if at all?

Yes, I'd buy that. Not much of a hit to MPG if you aren't demanding much of the engine. But when the timing is being retarded (at high engine demand), the less-than-optimum timing will hurt fuel economy. A small price to pay to avoid the very rapid and serious engine damage that can result from detonation.

Of course, all of this requires that the knock sensor continues to function properly. In the default mode, a high compression engine putting out a high fraction of its rated HP will not safely run on low-octane fuel. It can take just a very short time to do a lot of damage.

 

[JakeBrake]

I discovered recently that an exhaust manifold leak sounds almost like an engine knock.

I discovered that when I took my 1995 GMC to an independent muffler shop to replace the muffler which obviously needed to be replaced. The muffler man said I also had an exhaust manifold leak on one engine bank.This is 5.7L V8. I had heard the noise but I thought it was an engine knock. The muffler shop doesn't do exhaust manifolds.

So, I took the truck to my trusted independent shop where this was verified and repaired.