Ethanol v Petrol

[XER905L]

I have been running my manual choke alloy block Peugoet 205 on E85 this year - 85% ethanol, 15% petrol, which is available from 1/3 of all petrol stations in Sweden at 7.9skr (v 11.8 skr 98 octane petrol) for 1 litre, a saving of 1/3 on a fill up. I have to run the 1.1 Peugoet with the choke out 1/3 but it is still returning about 18km per litre on mainly motorway driving at 65mph,total 7000km in 12 months..
This TC coupe hasnt been out for over a year, and the tank was empty, so I put in 5 litres of E85 and tried to start her up. No dice. So I added 50% 98 octane petrol and with a lot of spluttering the engine came to life but didnt have the power to move the car beyond 1st gear.Final mixture of 75% petrol, 25% E85 with the choke kept out a few mm and she runs the way BL intended. So I went off for a blast up and down the highway and all was well. I hope to find the time and money to put this car back on the road on a regular basis, with a tidy new paintjob in the next couple of years, because just that one afternoon I could feel how eager the car is to go, and much more comfortable than my Hiace or Peugoet
And I have learned that a cast iron engine as fitted to the Marina is too heavy and doesnt heat up fast enough to run on ethanol like the Peugoet, but I enjoyed trying, and with a manual choke no carb/ fuel injection adjustments are needed. The price of bread has gone up over here this year by 1/3 largely due to ethanol production , so I am told......
I have no idea how long we will be able to get affordable petrol for our cars, but unless some affordable electric motor bolt in power unit becomes available then biofuels is the logical alternative.

[XER905L]

I am looking to the next 10 years rather than what we have today, because oil has increased from US$30 per barrel when Kuwait was invaded to US$100 today - the £2 litre is maybe 2 years, more likely 4 or 5 years away what with China sucking up an increasing amount of world oil and the UK stocks in the North Sea running dry.
I dont know about other forum users, but i wont willingly scrap my Marinas just because petrol is soon to either cost too much or run out. As with the unleaded head conversions, the next step is to take the petrol away altogether, I think.
I guess in 20 years time my Marinas may well have electric motors and banks of batteries or even solar cells on the roof, because I have no plans to ever sell them................

[ado28]

what about gas conversion. has this been tried on an A series unit, is it possible?

[JubileeNut]

This TC coupe hasnt been out for over a year,

Hi XER905L,
I do like the colour of your coupe!!

If you and Gee TC get together you will have a full set as he has a Citron Saloon like your coupe! 8)

Cheers,
Paul.

PS. I am sure when the time comes Ethanol could be used! I hope so as a bolt on electric thing will kill the fun for me! :roll:

[Marinanut]

One other problem with ethanol is that it doesn't like certain rubber compounds and melts them. I believe most modern dual fuel cars have more neoprene based seals and gaskets to prevent this, but I'm still working on a definative answer from someone. E85 would work in any car as it has an octane rating of 114, so maybe in the near future an engine could be modified to run on it. I'm tempted.....

[marinast]

You should not have any problems with ethanol with any internal combustion engine, it has a higher calorific value than petrol so it should produce more power, as well as more heat and fewer emissions because the fuel is in theory of a higher combustibility so will burn cleaner. It does lower the air/fuel intake temperature, though the cooling effect of petrol is used by the engine anyway to keep engine temperatures down anyway.
E85 is slowly being phased in the UK, and will make up around 15% of fuel sales by 2015, gradually being increased as new cars combatable to run on pure ethanol become more common. Brazil runs almost all its vehicles on ethanol, but certain things need to be changed if a standard car is running on fuel with more than E85 rating. The rubber and some synthetic fuel components will perhaps need changing, plus the ignition timing will need looking at, along with the carburetion set-up. I suspect that your Marina is simply not set up for E85?
Eventually bio-fuels will be used on a 40 petrol/60 ethanol mix and perhaps a full ethanol fuel could be marketed in Europe, but currently there are not enough fuel refineries to refine diesel and petrol let alone refine ethanol.

Long term the future is bright for older cars like the Marina and Ital. Yes fuel components will need changing, but this will simply be a carb strip and rebuild, plus a few feet of fuel hose and perhaps using an ethanol friendly electric fuel pumps which I'm sure companies such as Burlen will introduce to the European market. The down side with older cars is that they lack items such as knock sensors and accurate ignition timing so upgrading to a good electronic distributor system will be paramount for ethanol usage. I'm positive that within a decade we will be using the stuff to keep petrol/diesel prices in check as well as European governments trying to use it to bring their nations overall CO2 levels down. Problems arise when people driving new cars right now try to change to ethanol, the cost could make it uneconomical so many current cars could be scrapped since they will eventually become too costly to run on unleaded or E85 (15% ethanol is supposed to be safe for all current unconverted engines to use....)
Pure ethanol is also better for me and you since unleaded and diesel contain very high levels of benzenes, which cause cancers, plus engine power should be higher, drag racers use ethanol over petrol so why not use it on a road car!

[Marinanut]

With regards to the ignition system, I wonder if converting to a Megajolt mappable system would be better. I think PPC did an article on Megajolt-ing an MGB which would be pertinent for us, the O series already has the fittings for the crank sensor and I suspect later A series will have the necesary brackets on already.

[marinast]

A fully mappable system would be perfect for ethanol.

[Gee tc]

HI,
Yes that car DOES look pretty Paul!

On a slightly different matter I've run Bio diesel in the 406 for a year on and off with no problems as mines the older indirect injection model.As does the 504 pickup I have access to. On a run with some injector cleaner it runs a treat and gives good mpg but in town you do notice a drop in mpg and performance.
However it's a nightmare in common rail diesels as it does the high pressure pumps no good at all. Hdi pugs even 'run on' when fueled up on the stuff. The mondeo forum will excommunicate you if you even think about it.....they (mondeos)can just about run on normal Shell diesel.
Tony

[XER905L]

You should not have any problems with ethanol with any internal combustion engine, it has a higher calorific value than petrol so it should produce more power, as well as more heat and fewer emissions because the fuel is in theory of a higher combustibility so will burn cleaner. It does lower the air/fuel intake temperature, though the cooling effect of petrol is used by the engine anyway to keep engine temperatures down anyway.
E85 is slowly being phased in the UK, and will make up around 15% of fuel sales by 2015, gradually being increased as new cars combatable to run on pure ethanol become more common. Brazil runs almost all its vehicles on ethanol, but certain things need to be changed if a standard car is running on fuel with more than E85 rating. The rubber and some synthetic fuel components will perhaps need changing, plus the ignition timing will need looking at, along with the carburetion set-up. I suspect that your Marina is simply not set up for E85?
Eventually bio-fuels will be used on a 40 petrol/60 ethanol mix and perhaps a full ethanol fuel could be marketed in Europe, but currently there are not enough fuel refineries to refine diesel and petrol let alone refine ethanol.

Long term the future is bright for older cars like the Marina and Ital. Yes fuel components will need changing, but this will simply be a carb strip and rebuild, plus a few feet of fuel hose and perhaps using an ethanol friendly electric fuel pumps which I'm sure companies such as Burlen will introduce to the European market. The down side with older cars is that they lack items such as knock sensors and accurate ignition timing so upgrading to a good electronic distributor system will be paramount for ethanol usage. I'm positive that within a decade we will be using the stuff to keep petrol/diesel prices in check as well as European governments trying to use it to bring their nations overall CO2 levels down. Problems arise when people driving new cars right now try to change to ethanol, the cost could make it uneconomical so many current cars could be scrapped since they will eventually become too costly to run on unleaded or E85 (15% ethanol is supposed to be safe for all current unconverted engines to use....)
Pure ethanol is also better for me and you since unleaded and diesel contain very high levels of benzenes, which cause cancers, plus engine power should be higher, drag racers use ethanol over petrol so why not use it on a road car!

Please let me know if you have any information on the adjustments needed to the carb and distributor in order to run a TC efficiently on 100%ethanol.I have electronic ignition on my TC saloon and it runs nicely with a 25% E85 mix, but I would like to switch to 100% E85 as I can do already with my 205 which needs no adjustment whatsoever beyond leaving the choke out a fraction.E85 has a pleasant smell - like alcoholic blackberry juice to my nose, unlike petrol which has a nasty chemical smell.It would be good to see information on this site so that we can all switch to E85 for our Marinas