Ethanol vs premium

[Mumbles]

All grades of gas on the island here are supposed to be ethanol free. Apparently they don’t have the facilities here to blend it, yet.

Something I noticed recently though, the pumps now have a sticker on them saying the gas may contain ethanol. It’s the law to have the stickers on the pumps. Anyway, I run the marked mid-grade (89) in my motors. It’s cheaper and the truck likes it too once in a while. ☺

[shoestringmariner]

BlueHaze; interesting link, thank you

Chris; good to know! I put stabilizer in all my stored gas as I never know how long they will sit. I live rural and after many nasty storms that have left us without power for periods of time, I began storing fuel for the generator and small equipment. I usually don’t mix fuels until needed and if I have straight gas sitting more than 3 months, I dump it into one of the vehicles and refill the cans. I used to run my chainsaws, leaf blower and genny dry, but learned that this caused problems from dryout, so now I run them every 2-3 months for a bit and top up with fresh fuel which seems to work well, which I suppose skirts "long term" storage issues.

Your thoughts piqued my interest though. I can see that carb rebuilds are mandatory for any old motors that I acquire, as are fuel lines. Just wondering though, are the dual fuel lines still available NOS, or are they remanufactured with upgraded rubber that are compatible with alcohol fuels?

PugetSound, great link! thanks

[labrador-guy]

I been reading these post for quite a while now. Finally decided to sign up and get into the thick of things. I had to get my two cents in on this gas question. I cut my teeth with two cycles on the race track over 40 years ago. Believe me it was a learning process. Seized pistons, holed pistons, broken internal parts I did’em all. We learned right away that higher octane always ran cooler. Down side was carbon build up. Loosing a race because of a piece of carbon across the spark plug gaps happen too often. Cause was lead in the gas. Unleaded came out and we were leary that lower octane was gonna hurt us, but carbon buildup went down, motors ran cleaner and that helped us. Then alcohol came along we were concerned about that. I ran a alki-twocycle one season. Big learning process and we never learned how to make it work like it should. We did learn to keep the water away from our fuel! Alcohol in the gas at concentrations of 10% is not a bad thing. Yes I said that! It is when the alcohol becomes loaded with water that problems occur. I like to buy my gas at the busiest gas station I can find. Never at a marina or back woods station. Fresh gas that has not been sitting around is the best you can do for your motors. Condensation builds up on all metals due to temperature changes. That can’t be helped but, it can be minimized if a person gets gas as fresh as he can.

my humble opinion!

[cookjer24]

wow big thread,i use premium in my 59 5.5hp fisherman no issues i do use regular with ethanol in my snowmobile and other small engines i use lucas e85 ethanol treatment it kills the ethanol and stabilizes the gas at the same time never had a problem when usesing that product with ethanol regular gas,fuel lines on the sled are factory lines from 1998 and there have not hardened or deteriorated yet,it’s all up to what you want to run premium is fine,regular is fine to just use a product like lucas or the marine stabill brand mixed with it and you will have no problems.

[jeff-register]

I try to use ethanol free gasoline but if I have to use the bad gas I run it out of the fuel system by running the motor while on the trailer while the fuel line disconnected, before taking it home. I run at high idle & when it starts to run out I will pull the choke & have it get as much as I can get out & letting it die on it’s own. I did this every time at the ramp before bad gas. It would always pump up before putting it back in the water while leaving the motor down. The motor will flood if tilted as the floats are not level & the gas in the carb will dump down into the engine & flood it out. My motors always start very easy doing this actions before removing the boat running the fuel out. I have never used any stabilizer in my fuels but I never let it sit in my lines after use. Guess I’m lucky so far. I didn’t know prem gas ran cooler but I don’t have that problem as all my motors are from the 50’s & have no T-Stat. Good to know though, never know when I might need that data!

[Tubs]

A "Boathouse Repair" is one that done without having tools or the skills to do it properly.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by Tubs.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Tubs.

[jeff-register]

Tubs,
Ever have a military 4 wheel drive? I had one ambulance Dodge power wagon style. It had a bad v-8 motor install without any side mounts on the block. It was to be bolted to the bell housing across a cross member which was cut out. I installed a 318 block with block side mounts & hand built the trans cross member. It now had AC too. I was a fool & sold it for a fast Mercury car, stupid stupid !!! That & my 54 panhead dresser I paid 500 for. It was orange metal flake, the flakes were dime sized, so ugly it looked good.

[bill-m]

I did a lot of soul searching on this gas matter and have settled on a formula that works for me. I do not use premium gas because it has many undesirable additives and I do not use ethanol gasoline either. I go to the airport and buy 100 low lead aviation gas which does burn cooler and does not have all the additives of automobile fuel. I mix the 100LL gas in a ratio of 3.5 gallons with 1 gallon of Coleman fuel to get an octane of 89-92 or there abouts. If you google white gas Coleman fuel will come up. I called Coleman to determine the exact octane of their fuel and they said it was between 50-55 octane. Now the avgas is 100 octane all day long and has to be certified but the Coleman fuel doesn’t have to keep a plane in the air so the manufacturing tolerances aren’t so exact. This is why the octane on the mix can very by 5 octane. If I want to very the octane up or down all I have to do is change the ratio with the understanding that it can still very 5 octane. I also use Stabil or SeaFoam in all my small motor gas. I was told a long time ago that running a motor dry still left a small amount of gas in the carb which could eventually gum up. I put stabilizer in my gas can before I fill it up at the pump. I have stabilizer in everything all the time. I leave my mowers set for 6 months in winter and my snow blower set for 6 months in summer and everything fires up just like they are supposed to when it’s time to bring them out of hibernation. It may cost a little more but my 1949 Mercury Super 5 is very happy!

[Pondrocket]

Great comments here. Seems all are making this out to be harder than it actually is. Jeff Register hit it right on the money! 😀

Travis

Travis
AOMCI VP Communications
AOMCI Webmaster
webmaster@aomci.org

[jerry-ahrens]

Here is a carburetor from an early 2000’s Mercury 4 stroke, that I just had to rebuild. I took these pics with my cell phone standing at the workbench. The owner used ethanol blended fuel and added Sea Foam since the motor was brand new. What I found interesting on this carburetor, was the fact that it has a very fine mesh screen built right into the fuel bowl, [and I do mean fine] thus filtering virtually all debris from entering the carb.
I’m not knocking Sea Foam here… just wanted to share these pics. Needless to say, I have advised him to stay away from the ethanol. BTW, it was very very difficult to get clean. I am keeping my fingers crossed untill I get it back on the motor to see if it will run.

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