Dave Kautz writes:
> 
> > David Carment writes:
> 
> > A Gas company up here in Ottawa has Ethanol blend at the same price as
> > regular. I asked him if it was good for air cooled engines and his answer
> > was it has 15% higher octane, runs cleaner and cooler. Any opinions,
> > advice, experience with using ethonal blend  for air-cooled Vanagon engines?
> > 
> > BTW its 55 cents CDN per litre up here.....DC 
> > 
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > There was an interesting article in _Porsche Panorama_ about oxygenated fuels
>   about a year ago. On vehicles with oxygen sensors, very little changes 
>   except fuel mileage which drops (there's less heat available in Ethanol). On
>   vehicles without O2 Sensors, exhaust emissions were shown to drop along with
>   driveability and fuel economy. The air to fuel ratio for ethanol is different
>   than that for gasoline (numerically lower) so unless one can richen up their
>   mixture the engine effectively runs lean. 
> 
>   There was also considerable discussion of the corrosive nature of the 
>   oxygenators. Although not as bad as methanol, Ethanol is more corrosive
>   than gasoline. The article suggested using gasoline containing MTBE (Methyl
>   Tertiary Butyl Ether???) because it is less corrosive but I have not been 
>   able to find a gas station employee yet who could tell me what their      
>   company was using as an oxygenator. The article said that ethanol smells
>   sweet and MTBE smells like formaldehyde. I think all gasoline smells like
>   sh*t, so I haven't followed this up.
> 
> 
>   Dave Kautz
>   '74 Westfalia
>   sh*t. 
> 

This is interesting and paradoxical, since we normally associate a leaner
running engine with higher fuel economy. But if I understand you
correctly, the engine will run leaner with Ethanol AND fuel consumption
will also increase. Is this correct? This plus the potential corrosion
could spell trouble, yes? DC -- 

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David Carment
School of International Affairs
Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario
K1S 5B6
voice - (613) 788-2600-6662
fax - (613) 788-2889
Email address: dcarment@ccs.carleton.ca
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