Re: 15% Ethanol

Posted by Eric Boyle On 2010/10/20 21:34:35

If you have original rubber hoses or gaskets in the fuel system they'll be gone in short order. It will also completely clean out your fuel system, meaning you might have to change the filter a few times before the gunk is all gone.

People gripe about performance and lost power, but actually you can gain power if you tune the engine right and increase the compression ratio.

If people would do a little research on ethanol they'll realize that it isn't as bad as most people think. A lot of the time people confuse ethanol with methanol, and methanol is a lot harder on fuel system components.

So, increase the compression ratio, update the rubber components in the fuel system, and advance the timing a little and you should be good to go. Oh, and you can run a hotter spark plugs that will help as well.

FWIW, the 356 that I'm building to eventually put in my '48 coupe will be running on E85 only. I have done quite a lot of research on the subject of ethanol and it's advantages/disadvantages. There's a ton of mis-information out there, believe me.