This New Gas Mixture with Alcohol

[Russ]

has anyone had experience running this stuff in their carburated engines ?

[wm link]

It would probably be best to avoid it and you will avoid vapor locking and damage to the rubber parts of your vehicle fuel system. The newer cars equipped to run on it are called bi-fuel and have a green leaf logo on them.

[denise 20352]

 What kind of green leaf?

[JIM CLC # 15000]

05-03-06
Denise, I thank it is a "generic-leaf" design. There is a PORD model that carried the design on the "lift-gate".
It may be "Mary-Jane" for all that I know.
Good Luck, JIM

[Lars Kneller 8246]

Ive run fuel with 10percent ethanol and have had no problems, but these are cars with new fuel pumps, rubber fuel lines, and rebuilt carbs.  The E80 can only be used in new cars that have engines designed to run on it.  Im all for the ethanol blends.  I live in Indiana and would rather give my money to our farmers than Middle Eastern oil sheiks.

[Ralph Messina CLC 4937]

I’ve been searching various car web sites on this topic. Below is a summary of what I’ve found.  Like much on the web, it needs verification. I make no claims that it is correct or accurate………..It’s just FYI.

E85 is 85percent ethanol which burns at a higher temperature gas, therefore is less prone to pre-ignition. It should behave more like high octane gas of old.

It takes about 50percent more volume of E85 to generate the same energy as gasoline. This means that mileage per E85 gallon will be 2/3 that of gas. We need to hope that E85 is at least 2/3 the price of gas.

Carburetors will have to be adjusted to provide greater volume of “gas”.

Alcohol will attack the original type rubber used in most of our old car’s fuel systems. New bio-fuel cars have hoses that are not affected by alcohol.  A change in fuel line hose will be in order. If it’s not now made in the appropriate size for our cars, I’m confident some aftermarket vendor will start providing it.

Original type fuel pump diaphragms will be effected and have to be replaced. GM (Delco) still makes NORS fuel pumps for old cars (at least my ’66), so I suspect they will change the diaphragm material. If not, some shade tree engineering will be order to install an electric pump that’s compatible with E85.

The tougher problem will be rubber parts for carburetors. In the worst case where aftermarkets don’t support our specific carburetors, there is always the option of changing the carb to a newer, none original unit. ………We need to make some modified / hot rod friends.

If all the above is correct, we’ll be able to run our cars on E85 with some modifications.

Ralph