Don Terrill’s Speed-Talk

mark_follweiler wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:33 pm just fired the chainsaw up yesterday. been sitting since last year, 3 pulls and fired right up. I DO run them dry when they will be sitting for a while.

since our summer camp is in logging territory stations sell ethanol free gas for use in the chain saws.

pamotorman wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2017 1:37 pm

mark_follweiler wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:33 pm just fired the chainsaw up yesterday. been sitting since last year, 3 pulls and fired right up. I DO run them dry when they will be sitting for a while.

since our summer camp is in logging territory stations sell ethanol free gas for use in the chain saws.

it is available here at almost all stations. just never saw the need. ya'll do know we have had E10 since the 70s!

mark_follweiler wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2017 3:20 pm

pamotorman wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2017 1:37 pm

mark_follweiler wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:33 pm just fired the chainsaw up yesterday. been sitting since last year, 3 pulls and fired right up. I DO run them dry when they will be sitting for a while.

since our summer camp is in logging territory stations sell ethanol free gas for use in the chain saws.

it is available here at almost all stations. just never saw the need. ya'll do know we have had E10 since the 70s!

one year the fuel lines in my weed wacker were completely dissolved inside the fuel tank over the winter.

mark_follweiler wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:26 pm

peejay wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:22 pm

swampbuggy wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2017 11:26 am I wish to heck at least one of the major petro. companies would offer a 100 pct. gas in the area of 98 octane for performance street engines and motorcycles, can i get a witness ? Mark

93 would be cheaper if they'd stop making 87 and 89. And a lot of modern cars would get better fuel economy to boot.

have to argue this also. no improvement with higher octane. at all!

I said "modern". The only modern-ish car I have had that didn't show a measureable improvement on 93 was a 8.5:1 compression slug with a simple mechanical/vacuum advance distributor. No knock feedback, no computer control over the ignition at all. So basically it was 1970s engine management. (I went the other way with that car, tried using cetane enhancer mixed in with 87. That DID make fuel economy about 10-15% better, but not enough to offset $9/bottle/tank)

You never know unless you try. One car went from 35 to 42mpg by running 93. The one I am driving now is beating its EPA highway rating by over 30%. The rest did show gains but only about as much as it took to offset the higher price.

When the OEMs have feedback control over the ignition, they no longer have to take a lowest common denominator approach to compression and ignition timing. So while they technically can run just fine on 87, you are leaving some efficiency on the table, because it is always going to be pulling timing a little bit compared to what is ideal.

With our '97 S/C 3800 Park Avenue, if I topped up with more than ~ 1/2 a tank of 87, it would start off rattling a bit under light load, then would switch to the low octane spark table and go quiet but down on power. I never used 87 enough to assess mileage. (I ran a smaller blower pulley that upped the boost by ~ 2-3 psi.)

peejay wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2017 4:45 pm

mark_follweiler wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:26 pm

peejay wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:22 pm

93 would be cheaper if they'd stop making 87 and 89. And a lot of modern cars would get better fuel economy to boot.

have to argue this also. no improvement with higher octane. at all!

I said "modern". The only modern-ish car I have had that didn't show a measureable improvement on 93 was a 8.5:1 compression slug with a simple mechanical/vacuum advance distributor. No knock feedback, no computer control over the ignition at all. So basically it was 1970s engine management. (I went the other way with that car, tried using cetane enhancer mixed in with 87. That DID make fuel economy about 10-15% better, but not enough to offset $9/bottle/tank)

You never know unless you try. One car went from 35 to 42mpg by running 93. The one I am driving now is beating its EPA highway rating by over 30%. The rest did show gains but only about as much as it took to offset the higher price.

When the OEMs have feedback control over the ignition, they no longer have to take a lowest common denominator approach to compression and ignition timing. So while they technically can run just fine on 87, you are leaving some efficiency on the table, because it is always going to be pulling timing a little bit compared to what is ideal.

2014 ford escape ecoboost....new enough for you. ran 93 on 4-5 tanks over a months time, no difference at all. i'm done here, loosing battle.

I just bought 10' of micro fuel line at HD to replace the line in my leaf blower that got brittle and fell apart.

i had a 2004 impala with 3800 and on trips to fla for speed weeks when they switched to E-10 i lost 3 MPG on that trip.

Since I Retired all my neighbors bring me their small engines when they won't start. Most all of these two strokes need a carb kit, or a new carb. There is no non-alcohol fuel anywhere around here. The alcohol hardens not only the fuel lines, but the diaphragm in the fuel pump causing it to NOT pump adequate fuel for the little motor to operate. New carb kit, cured.

You should see how many weed wackers I have hanging from the rafters in my barn. Neighbors get tired of having the carbs rebuilt every three years and go buy a new wacker. Then bring that one to me in a couple of years. LOL

Alcohol in the fuel is job security for mechanics.

Want to talk about how many outboard carbs I cleaned every year?

Enough I am now Retired.

mark_follweiler wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:26 pm

peejay wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:22 pm

swampbuggy wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2017 11:26 am I wish to heck at least one of the major petro. companies would offer a 100 pct. gas in the area of 98 octane for performance street engines and motorcycles, can i get a witness ? Mark

93 would be cheaper if they'd stop making 87 and 89. And a lot of modern cars would get better fuel economy to boot.

have to argue this also. no improvement with higher octane. at all!

With no other changes I'll agree but with computer controlled engines that change the timing based on the knock sensor info I'll have to disagree. My car gets about 1.5-2 mpg increase with premium

There's no rule that says all manufacturers must use the same calibration strategy. Company 'A' might select a compression ratio and other specs. that result in performance and/or F.E. benefit from the higher SA enabled by mid-grade/premium fuel, but specify regular as a sales aid (although possibly referring in the manual to the benefits of premium), while company 'B' optimizes everything for regular, resulting in no benefit from higher octane.

There's an interesting observation that small engines made in say 1995-2000 or so and earlier work just fine with ethanol-added gasoline, but sometime after that the manufacturers started using non ethanol friendly fuel parts. (I have NEVER, EVER had fuel related issues with old equipment, like stuff like 5 horse snowblowers that get used 2-3 times a year and then "stored" by being ignored from April to December. My part of my state has been E10 since at least the mid 1980s)

Which is, on the face of it, absolutely stupid. They know that their market will be using E10. Designing to not be compatible with the standard fuel for their market would be like if, say, Chevy and Ford and Honda and Nissan and everyone else got together and started building cars that required 105 octane unleaded to run correctly. Sorry, it's not our fault you're having problems, you're using the wrong fuel. You gotta go to this guy over here and give him $30/gallon for the right stuff. Yes we *could* make cars that run fine on what you're putting in, like we used to, but then we can't sell you a new car every year.

People won't put up with that for a $30,000 car. But people seem fine to put up with it for a $200 chainsaw. That or there isn't enough money in suing the manufacturers, so they continue to screw the consumer because there's no effective legal recourse. The best part is, they get to screw you over while pointing the finger at someone else, hey, it's not our fault, it's their fault, get mad at them instead. Sorry that THEY broke your chainsaw, but we have a new one out this month!

Remember E10 NEVER USED TO BE A PROBLEM. It's only a problem RECENTLY. Because people are willing to accept that it is a problem.

Naw. I was working on small engines in that time period. I remember plenty of dysfunctional fuel lines. In the two strokes, the fuel lines turned to taffy. Yeah taffy, it would stretch actoss the shop far as you want to pull. I'm not making this up.
We had just switched from mtbe to alky. The mtbe was blamed fro problems to, but mainly health problems.
IMO The hose companies and the fuel companies just half ass it,,,,,,,no single boogyman to blame.

Mid grade fuel is made by mixing premium and regular. It gets mixed right at the pump, so it doesn't really cost anything extra, besides an additional button and a few pipes.

My mother used to put premium in her new suburban every now and then as she felt it "helped". I explained the science behind it and she still did not believe. Then I got her to monitor her MPG. After about five tanks of each, and seeing that her MPG was down well below 2 MPG with the premium she stopped wasting her money. Knowing her engine is lower compression, there really is not benefit to it. Now if it were a higher compression engine to start with, then the potential is there, but the lower octane is sucking the potential down the drain.

Now those both had E10 in them, so it was apples to apples. If the Premium did not have the ethanol, then that might have changed things.

Paul

FC-Pilot wrote: ↑Tue Oct 31, 2017 3:39 pm Now those both had E10 in them, so it was apples to apples. If the Premium did not have the ethanol, then that might have changed things.

X2!!!! I have tested the same thing many times!