Well, first of all... just to follow up on my original dilemma:
I made that change to the conversion box, inside, so the little potentiometer is now set back at "5" vs. "2" where I found it originally. So far, so good... No more CEL's after a week of driving. I think I'm finally ready to get that emissions test re-taken later this week and get my plates and title transferred. (Going to cost me a $25 late fee though... grr.)
As for ethanol, I did a lot of reading (both pro and con) on it, and I'd agree with most of this. Of course, the complaint about alcohol separating from the gasoline when it sits overnight really applies more to the 10% ethanol concentrations found in unleaded gas all across the country. (I don't think I've even seen a single pump in the St. Louis, MO area that didn't have the 10% ethanol blend in the gas -- so pretty unavoidable around here.) If you're talking about E85 and a vehicle modified to use it? You probably don't care much about the separation issue. Even with conversion kits like the box my car has in it now, they claim you should also be ok to run E98 (which is 98% ethanol in the blend).
The biggest scam about the entire thing, IMO, is the idea it made sense to encourage farmers to grow so much corn to be used as the fuel. With the drought conditions we're seeing now, crops are dying all over the midwest, and we're about to see a price increase on groceries. There's no WAY fuel like E85 will be cheaper than regular unleaded gas in a situation like this, and we'd probably all be better off using edible crops as food for people, and using other options for the cars and trucks.
Personally, I think compressed natural gas has a lot more promise. I don't know how well that works for high performance applications ... but seems like a good answer for the daily driver vehicles out there. With recent developments in extracting natural gas from shale deposits, our country (as well as Canada and Mexico) have plentiful supplies available for at least the next 100 years.
Originally Posted by
MoparFreak69
I know this about ethanol;
1: gallon for gallon contains less energy potential vs gasoline.
2: ethanol, being an alcohol, is hydroscopic, meaning the **** absorbs water. Period. For those people that run through a tank of fuel a day and refuel at a station that has its tanks refilled almost daily this isnt a problem. For the other 95%, this means you are getting a free helping of WATER with your alcoholed up gasoline, that hasnt dropped a single penny in price with the dilution of the 'much cheaper' fuel.
On that same topic, alcohol WILL seperate from gasoline, and gas floats on top of it. So those of us who live/work/refill rural, the original 10% ethanol mix may be 50 or 60% in your couple gallons of gas if you are the first one to fill up after a long period of time (as little as overnight!). Pumps draw from the bottom, not the top.
3: yes, ethanol does have a higher octane rating as well as slightly better cooling abilities than gasoline, which makes it make sense for very high performance 'race' machines. However these racing outfits do not use pump ethanol. They get their fuel from the source and store it in methods to prevent the absorbtion of moisture. They use the fuel in small quantities (compared to street use) so it makes sense in this role. For any other use, i stand behind my statement fully, Ethanol is GARBAGE.