rhammett123

E10 isn't terrible. As I said before, most military vehicles, especially post WW2 were designed to run on very poor quality gasoline and should probably cope just fine with the right precautions. I couldn't suggest what might be the best course of action for ethanol vehicles but I wouldn't be concerned because the emphasis for the industry is moving away from gen.1 biofuels, of which most ethanol road fuel is derived (crops grown for the purpose of energy without nutrient recovery).. I.E. Ethanol isn't as environmentally friendly in Europe as it is in South America for instance, where energy recovery rates are much higher). However, most EN spec. gasoline is already around 5% ethanol so you're probably already using it to a limited extent. There is more focus on other alcohol fuels like Bio-Butanol, which is chemically more similar to gasoline, with a much higher energy density. However, if a vehicle is being stored for a length of time, take the fuel out and always check your oil before you start it up again, if not change it altogether. If you can get hold of AV-gas I'd say use it. It was fairly easy to get hold of a few years ago however it's slightly rarer nowadays with fewer civilian aircraft flying and tighter regulations on use (largely due to the inclusion of tetra-ethyl lead). The leads great for your valve seats, not so good for your general wellbeing, especially if your in a confined space with the engine running for long periods of time. I personally dislike the alcohol fuels, they don't give the lubrication to cylinder bores and pistons that regular gasoline does, but that said, were still only dealing with low concentrations so don't be too scared of it. Bio-diesel is much much easier to deal with. Hope all this helps

Hello. I know this post is fairly old but I just thought I'd chip in as I'm a Process Tech. at a Biofuel plant. It's entirely possible to run any engine on an alcohol fuel, especially an ethanol blend like E10. We run 2 2.4Mw gas engines on Biogas (bear with me, I'm getting there). Although Biogas and Ethanol are different, the chemistry that goes on is essentially the same. Shorter chain hydro-carbon's will burn hotter, especially ethanol which has the addition of inherent oxygen to the fuel, therefore, you're better off running it richer. You're unlikely to get too much engine coking because ethanol's inherent oxygen helps to counteract the additional carbon. You can also run the engine at a higher compression due to the higher octane (RON) of ethanol. You can work out the octane number of E10 by taking the pump gas at 89 (for instance) x9+ 108.6 (RON of ethanol) and dividing by 10 = 90.96 RON for E10. Seems like a good deal? It's not really, ethanol is about 2/3 the energy density of gas, so increases richness will also help prevent lean burn and piston/cylinder damage. So, back to the question at hand. Any alcohol will eat natural rubber. We used Viton rubber seals in everything, as this is the only thing resistant to the chemistry going on inside your engine. So if your bladder's anything but Viton it'll perish (it's a shame it's not very abrasion resistant but that's a different story). Ethanol is also a solvent so it'll start to eat any sludgy horrible stuff in your engine, which will quickly be flushed around and cause pump failures. You'll have to change your fuel filter's more regularly and it might be worth fitting a few more inline filter's if you can get them. As has been said, you might be better off making a stainless tank (316, not 304, the added chromium and molybdenum helps prevent the solvent wearing the sacrificial outer layer) and adding a drain plug in a sump at the bottom. Ethanol does absorb water, so shouldn't be stored for any length of time, especially where oxygen and moisture can get to it. It also produces it's own moisture as it breaks down... more quickly than gas. All this said, at E10, it really shouldn't be a huge problem as you're not dealing with a huge concentration and it does have a number of benefit's with the decreased likelihood of engine knock, not that you should get any, I think the CVRT engine was designed by Rolls Royce? to run off some extremely poor quality Russian gasoline. We've run generating engine's off methanol, ethanol, SVO, glycerol, biodiesel, biogas and various mixes of them.. Just be thankful you don't have to deal with hydrogen sulphide (H2S+(2)O2= H2S04.. in otherwords.. Sulphuric Acid) Hope all this helps, and if it doesn't I hope it's helped to kill 5 minute's of potential boredom

Thanks chaps... From a now less sunny Surrey.

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen. Just a quick introduction from myself. I've been interested in military vehicles since a young age (well younger being 24 at present) I have owned the usual Land Rover, but haven't managed to procure anything more interesting than that.. Yet. In my currently role I find myself spending a lot of time welding back together various pieces of waste management equipment via the media of ARC and Tig mostly and have also spent some time working for Tiger Airways in Gloucestershire on Stampe bi-planes in the past (past....errr). So a good morning from sunny Surrey