[Sirrotica]

Having driven a fuel tanker for 5 years, the gas that is in the tanks at a loading rack has no ethanol in it, it is pure gas. They have a seperate tank for ethanol. When you load the fuel, is when it gets blended together. It's all automated, and it uses specific gravity to figure the octane of the base fuel, then blends the appropriate amount of ethanol to arrive at the advertised grade/number on the pump.

There is no way you're going to get stale gas coming from the loading rack, because the ethanol is blended as it's loaded into the tanker. From that point it starts to degrade the more it's exposed to air.

It used to be that the vent pipes on the gas station tanks were open to atmosphere at all times. When ethanol started being used the vent pipes were capped with a one way valve to only let vapor out if the tanks were building pressure internally, usually caused by temperature change.

The tankers were changed to 2 hoses, one for liquid, one for vapor. As you fill the tanks at a gas station the vapor is forced back into your truck to be carried back to the loading rack, instead of being vented into the atmosphere, as it was for decades before. As you load at the rack the vapor is then forced into their system, and disposed of responsibly. The delivery, and storage systems are similar in design to the vapor canisters you have on late model cars, they don't want the vapors vented to the atmosphere.

Having been around service stations since I was 16 years old, many things have changed as far as pollution controls from the fuel handling, from pipe line, to fuel dispenser.

[Nobuddy]

The article about not mixing is reporting that there is MTBE in the E0 fuel and the MTBE reacts with ethanol forming a brown slime. Most states banned MTBE several years ago so that seems far fetched. I suppose this is someone's speculation that there is MTBE in current E0 for the octane and oxygenation like the original reformulated gas.

There are growing options of lead free aviation fuel. Doesn't work for everyone but it is a good choice if you can get it. And this is real old fashioned gasoline, not the "reformulated" stuff sold for autos and trucks as E0, E10, E15 and E85 that contain a variety of solvents and byproducts.

[will slow gto]

Originally Posted by Cliff R

It basically takes about 5 percent more of this new fuel to make things happy. I made it standard ops in the shop to add a little fuel to idle, off idle and the cruise part of the fuel curve when setting up carburetors here and never had a single issue sticking to that plan.

Matter of fact I was STOOPID enough to let one customer talk me into keeping the carb 100 percent completely "stock" for his late 70's Corvette restoration. I wasn't comfortable with it, but followed orders. Sure as chit the phone rings as soon as he put the carb in service and he's busting my balls that it's not idling all that great and his "mechanic" claims it's sucking air at the secondary shaft and needs bushings put in it.

So I had him send it back. I opened up the IFR's by .002", replaced the 49K primary rods with my .045" full tapered rods, and sent it back. Didn't even look at the secondary shaft as the huge throttle plates seal tight in the bores and no bushings are needed back there.

Never heard another word from him, which in this business is ALWAYS a good thing because if you do good work 99.9 times out of 100 you don't here a thing. Mess something up and you'll hear about it 100 times before you get a chance to correct your mistakes!.......

Thanks Cliff! You rebuilt my carb about 10 years ago to run on our California 91 octane which has 10% ethanol year-round (aka pi$$). My car runs way better now (especially at WOT) than it ever did on better gas.

[Cliff R]

Good news!

I also use E-10 here and have zero issues with it. You just have to be smart enough not to leave it in a vented gas take for years as it can and will soak up water and form "apple jelly" which will clog up your carb and fuel system.

Standard ops here with seasonal equipment is that I run the tanks empty or dump them, and with the engine running pull the choke just as they die out. Have had ZERO issues with any of my vehicles or power equipment following this practice, even two stroke chain saws, string trimmers, etc.......