I happened to be living in Brazil when they started converting to gasohol.
In theory, there was 10 percent ethanol added to the gasoline, but there
were times when you couldn't even smell the gas. Since ethanol is anhydrous,
the first thing that happened was that all of the water that had been
quietly sitting at the borrom of the tank got picked up by ethel and made
that first tankful burn bad. After a couple of tankfuls, that issue was gone
along with a filter or two as the Cap'n indicated. After that it wasn't bad
at all. Would we rather have gotten Amoco Ultimate? Well, yeah, but that
wasn't one of the options.
There are also issues with ethanol and aluminum not getting along very well,
but at the 10 percent ratio it isn't too bad, although I would recommend
draining your float bowls before storing the car for the winter.
Brazil also went on to sell cars that run on pure ethanol, and aluminum
parts in the fuel system of these are nickel-plated to reduce the contact.
David Lieb
|