Sorry, guess I was a little snarky and, believe me, I'm not a fan of ethanol in
gasoline (I think it's one of the
biggest shams ever perpetrated on the American public). I just don't like to
see people making associations without
evidence (there's enough weird crap going on for real I don't need to make
stuff up).
In my immediate family we have: a 1919 Seagrave Pumper fire engine, a 1946
Chevy 2-ton truck, a 1955 T-Bird, a 1965
Mustang, a couple old Ford tractors and, of course, our 2 Healeys (BJ8 and
100M). All are carbureted (various types)
and all run fine on California gas which, it can be assumed, contain up to 10%
ethanol (all run on 87-octane except my
BJ8, which usually gets premium). I just put 4,000+ miles on the BJ8 buying
gas in several states and two Canadian
provinces without a single problem. I bought a tank of premium in Burns, OR
which did not contain any ethanol; I
thought wow, we'll really see a difference with 'pure' gas. No discernible
difference in performance or even mileage (I
thought we might get an 'extra' mpg or so). Problems with gasahol in fuel
tanks, old rubber lines, diaphragms, etc. I
can believe.
I'm the curious type, so if I thought the gas was the problem in my car I'd
drive the 150 miles--that would pretty much
empty the tank--and buy a tank of pure gas, then drive it home. If my car ran
as it should on the way home then I'd say
there's a high probability of causation; if not, I'd have to look elsewhere for
the problem.
I'm also not a fan of conspiracy theories; I don't believe refiners or
distributors--I suspect the ethanol is blended at
the refinery--would risk adding illegal amounts of ethanol, then admit it in
order to get 'tax breaks.' AFAIK, only
corn farmers and the distillers are getting tax breaks.
Bob
On 9/3/2011 10:48 PM, Steve B. Gerow wrote:
> Geez Bob, according to the link you sent, there are 4 stations in California
> that sell non-ethanol gas - the closest one to me is in Ridgecrest, 150 miles
> - hardly a solution.
>
> If you'd actually read my post below, you would see that I didn't say my 8%
> ethanol gas was over-mixed, I only said there's an incentive for distributors
> to over-mix ethanol into gas. It may indeed be over mixed for Healeys,
> though. Do you know what the ethanol percentage was of the gas we were
> typically running, say, a year or two ago was?
>
> What I'm saying here is my car and those of others I know are running
> somewhat badly now and I suspect the gas may be the problem.
>
> Just because 10% is allowed, which was presumably arrived at in coordination
> with the current car manufacturers, doesn't mean it will run in our old
> carbureted cars without problems.
>
--
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Bob Spidell San Jose, CA bspidell at comcast.net
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