What fuel would your run
 

If you had to make a choice what fuel would you run on a boost application 540 procharger with 5 to 7 lb of boost. 91 octane no ethanol or 93 with ethanol.

as much as i hate ethanol i hate detonation worse,i would use the 93.

Do they not offer 93 without Ethanol where you live?

no they sure dont

Surprisingly I have never had an ethanol related problem yet. Have a few hot rods not driven often and of course the boat. Try to at least start up fairly often and always run stabil thru everything before winter storage so it enters carbs ect...I run the tanks down to about 1/4 before winter... Been running 93 w/ 10%ethanol (Our only choice in 93. Try to avoid 91)

Only reason I asked was there a few stations in LA that have 93 Ethanol free. I'm sure there is a link on this site somewhere but here it is just in case

http://pure-gas.org/

I think i would run non ethanol and use octane booster or 5 gallons or so of race fuel,. I despize ethanol fuel.
Ior i would put a exhaust temp sensor in my manifolds.

inner cooler? Steel heads?

inner cooler aluminum heads

Nice set-up, 93 would be my pick too. Whats your CR? Does it have a big cam? Or average hydraulic?

Use the 93 E10. Just don't leave any significant amount of fuel in the tank for more than about 3 weeks.

x 2

Just curious, what would the problem be with 93 with ethanol

if i remember correctly ethanol creates hotter cylinder temps. recall some engine builders having to add 1 or 2 numbers jetting to carbureted blower motors. it was a few years ago so i do not recall the whole deal behind it. but I do remember a lot of black rubber dust from rubber fuel lines.

my personal experience in the automotive field on high line vehicles that ethanol caused issues with there high pressure fuel pumps and causing check engine lights to come on all the time. what we were told is to measure the ethanol content of the fuel and if it was more than 10% that the repair was not covered and the customer would have find fuel with less than 10% ethanol in it. we very rarely found the ethanol content to be less than 10%

Just wondering, we've been running a procharged BBC on E85 in a boat for the last few years without a single problem. The fuel system was designed with ethanol in mind though. We actually see lower EGTs. The motor runs better across the board, it doesn't load up at idle because of the big cam. I don't see why 10% in 93 would be a problem.

I run eth 93 with procharged setup...no issues

I've never bought nonethanol fuel for anything i own. Never had a problem. Id go with the 93 and not think twice.

Yes, same here. I know everyone talks about ethanol as if its the demise of the world, like its the plague, but I have never had any issues because of it. Not in my Fountain, my cars, my lawnmower, snowmobiles, or my pontoon boat.

i know with e85 you can turn the boost up without worry of detonation because the octane rating is around 115 but in illinois you never really know what you are getting when you buy it.i have heard it can be from e60 to e90.how is the consumption,i would think mileage would suffer compared to 10%.

Issues with Ethanol are deterioration of fuel lines and carb problems, proven facts. Here is an article last year from the "SunSentinal" that talks about the adverse effects of Ethanol and problems it has caused

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/201...ternative-fuel

I personally don't like taking chances and will drive the extra 40-50 miles to find the pure gas and add boost if required. Just my $.02

The last motor I just built is for e-85. It's 12.3 to 1 compression. We ran it in our racecar for a few yrs and it a lot better and way cheaper than race gas. I have never saw a prob with fuel lines yet but I always use the push loc hose that's made for ethanol, methanol. I agree with some and would use the 93 and if u had to use the other.

I've had a holley carb eaten away because of using ethanol blended pump gas.

The ethanol absorbs water and corrodes the crap out of bare metal parts.

Since then I use stabil in everything.

In talking with my carb guy in regards to using e85 in a race application, he warned me to buy known quality (55 gallon drum of rocket brand e85) as the ethanol content of "pump" e85 is all over the place and as such, the octane rating varies greatly.

There is an ethanol difference in the seasonal fuels, we don't run the boat in the winter so there's no where near the fluctuation that you mentioned above. You will burn roughly 35% more E85 over gas depending on how you're running it. For us the $3.25 a gallon E85 in both tanks makes more sense than $7 a gallon race gas in one tank and $4.29 a gallon for 93 in the other. I no longer have to play with the boost controller when switching between tanks. I have not seen any signs of deterioration in anything, hoses, throttle bodies, injectors, fuel tanks, pumps, pick ups,filters, nothing. I don't think everyone needs to run E85, if 93 does the job run it.

I have run into many problems with Ethanol. It has been with carburetors - remember, they have fuel tanks open to the atmosphere too, it's called bowls - and believe it or not it has been more with billet aluminum bowls, metering blocks without any coating - so yeh, more BG carbs than anything else.

Within 6-8 months, they've become nasty. A few carbs I did back to back years.

Stabil, startron, filling fuel tanks, empyt fuel tanks...didn't matter. It was within the carb that had problems.

I am in Northern New England where we get huge temp and humidity swings. Boats are left outside...non garaged.



How I fixed the problem so far ? A member from here and mostly another forum told me about removing fuel water seperator during winterizing, and filling back up with a 2cycle oil / gas mix.

Run engine until blue smoke comes out the tailpipes and wallah, carb bowls are full (well, 1/2 full cause of floats + N&S) and no more problems. Upper cyl walls get 'fogged' to boot.

Works for me and just so you know. I had about 20 carbs here after the first year we got introduced to ethanol in our area.

Sucked being one of the only one's that new how to do carbs.

Here's a pic (not mine) of exactly how the inside of these carbs looked. Scary !
Only difference, the carbs I add, again especially the Barry Grant's, where full of much more than this:

http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/p...207_132751.jpg

Any chance the Ethanol is cleaning all of the sludge from the tanks and lines and it ends up in the carb.

It's not sludge in the carbs I did....it's a form of electrolysis. In person it's more of a white granular jelly. Even the fuel bowl screws had major pitting where they are exposed to the fuel.

One of these carbs, I had the bowls off a few times for it's last week-end running. Cold weather, High pressure, it's the last day of the year, we don't care if it breaks as much, tuning for highest MPH day.....sort of thing. LOL.

First start next spring,,,,,pop,pop, fart,,,sputter. Take carb apart and fall over.

Remember, fuel bowls are roughly half full and exposed to the atmosphere (air/humidity/temp) thru vents.

BTW: Most engines I've worked on (perf mods) have another inline filter installed right before the carb. These you can take apart quickly and check it's fine metal screen. No debris.

So might be a good idea to drain the carb bowls before layup?

This was my exact experience.

My carb way a holley and the metering block took the hardest hit.

Found a much better picture. What I saw was just like this, mine had just a little more 'jelly' consistency. But same deal.

Sorry, won't post as a pic, can only provide a link. Prepare to fall over: http://forums.boatfreaks.org/showpos...9&postcount=29

We never cleaned the e-85 carbs weekly but we ran the alcohol carbs on gas for a min after every week. It's corrosive no doubt. I have never saw junk in and e-85 carb. That's interesting.

Not saying it can't, didn't or doesn't happen, maybe I should have said varnish instead of sludge. So far we haven't seen any issues, hopefully never will. I did put a gallon of E85 in a container with some random aluminum and rubber parts. Left it sit for almost a year in an unconditioned garage, half of the time with a lid the other half without and found nothing. No corrosion of parts, no brake down to the hoses.

It's wild that some have big problems with it and some have no probs. I fly giant scale gas rc planes and there are a bunch of people that claimed there airplane engines are junk cause of e-85!! Any place sell it on the lake?

Where is the boater girl thread
 

Posted here by mistake!