What Did You Pay For Gas Today?

droptop73 · Mar 5, 2012

E-85 can be appealing. I have friends running E-85 in their high horsepower street and race cars. True it is high octane and is relatively inexpensive compared to race gas.

The down side is ethanol has only 70% of the latent heat energy of gasoline. Ethanol is hygroscopic (absorbs water) and therefore is very corrosive. Finding fuel system components will be difficult. Ethanol attacks all rubber based components, steel components are suceptible to rust and aluminum components will corrode.

The cost of Ethanol based fuel is exaggerated at a $1.00 savings. There was a 50 cent per gallon federal subsidy on E-85 which expired earlier this year. You can expect about a 20% loss in fuel economy with E-85.

If you currently use race gas there may be savings to be had but most of us can get away with premium.

71BossPrototype · Mar 5, 2012

Thanks for the info, Jeff. It seems that it's always a trade-off that makes things impractical, especially when it comes to energy solutions. Looks like that Chevy Volt may not be "coming to a garage near you soon" either ! How about using a "flux capacitor" ?

droptop73 · Mar 6, 2012

Actually in my opinion Methanol would be a better choice for an alcohol based fuel. Ethanol must be made from grain with a high sugar content (read FOOD) and methanol can be made from anything that bio-degrades (read garbage/waste). The issue with Methanol is that it has 50% of the heat energy in gasoline.

Another solution!!??

How about the lawyers in government getting the heck out of the way and let INNOVATORS solve these problems? Why did my '63 Falcon from back in High School get better economy with me beating the wee out of it than my V-6 Ranger can today.

Let engineers come up with solutions and the market determine if it is feasable.

mach71351c · Mar 6, 2012

Topped off Superduty yesterday out in the desert. payed 4.53 for diesel.

trainey · Mar 6, 2012

In Raleigh NC for work, filled up for $4.75 Reg.

71BossPrototype · Mar 7, 2012

Re: E-85......Check out this site: http://e85prices.com/ and you will find that it is actually about $1 per gallon cheaper in states like Nebraska, Michigan and other midwest states. It is currently $2.79 a gallon in Nebraska, while gas is $3.79 here in Florida, and same up in Wisconsin, according to my friends whom I spoke with by telephone today. E-85 is only about 50 cents per gallon cheaper in most parts of the country.

Just wondering if the loss of btu's in ethanol would be somewhat recovered with the higher compression ratios and timing advance that it would allow, due to the higher octane. Maybe even some gas mileage loss recovery too ? Best of all, some of our dollars don't go to foreign oil? I seem to remember that some dragsters and even some stock cars ran alcohol. Also remember the invisible flames during the big Indy fire in the mid 60's when they were running alcohol.