What fuel is best?

[newman]

Hi all,

Just a quick post regarding petrol, on advice from a friend I filled my EJ up with Caltex E10 the non-fossil fuel as it was reported to burn cleaner and in the words of my friend "That old car will run better". WRONG after three days of driving around town the EJ wasn't itself it seemed to run rougher and even though its a stock grey I could notice the difference in acceleration. So I siphoned out the tank and went back to using the normal Caltex unleaded with my usual shot of Flashlube and after a couple of days the car was back to its usual self.

So what petrol are you guys using??

Mick

[FC427]

I run the E10 in my FC Ute with a 3.3 Blue all I did was go up one size in jets to get it to run fine ....The Ethanol carries more oxygen and seems to give a leaner mixture but R.O.N   [Real Octaine Numbers] seem to be up on ULP  .........FC427......

[Dave_EH]

RON - Research Octane Number.

The issue with Ethanol is that it is soluble in water.  It needs to be a good servo with high turnover of fuel.  All concrete tanks absorb moisture to some extent (and they ALL leak).

Without making any adjustments to the spark advance, I don't think you'd notice any improvement in a standard grey.

[FC427]

Dave never seen a concrete tank worked for Shell for over 12 years did a lot of site work never struck one are they common 

[Spinner]

Don't use E10.

The SMH recently (about 7 weeks ago) did a comparative test of E10, Regular ULP and Premium ULP.  They used three relatively identical cars (Atoyot Camrys) and rotated the three drivers through the cars at every refill.  They used a course of a few thousand kilometres, including a bit of a fang around a race circuit.

The results were that the E10 car cost the most in money to run and returned the worst consumption figures.  The Premium ULP car was second cheapest to run but returned the best fuel consumption.  The Regular ULP car was the cheapest in money and was within 7% of the fuel consumption of the Premium ULP car.

My own experience, with a 1991 NA Fairlane.  On E10, the car has noticeably less power, feels rougher and uses about 10% more petrol (15.6 l/100 km) when compared to Regular ULP (14.2 l/100 km).  To be fair to E10, I did run the Fairlane on it for a two month period. 

My conclusion?  E10 is not worth the bother, it is definitely dearer in $ terms as well as fuel usage.

Do not believe the 'clean, green fuel' rubbish that is thrown at us.  The ethanol is dearer to produce, in terms of energy input (dieseline, electricity) than what it produces an (unviable) alternative fuel.

Ethanol production, for internal combustion engines is also distorting world food prices, as land formerly used for food production is given over to corn and sugar for ethanol.  The relatively recent (in the last year) riots in South America were caused by this.

Think carefully before you use E10.

[newman]

Spinner,

I didn't think I was imagining the difference in driveability, I've gone back to using "normal" unleaded with the additive I add to each tankful and my EJ is back to normal again.

I guess it's a case of everyones car is different e.g. stock or modified and how well tuned each car is. So while some are happy with the E10,some like you and I have a different story to tell regarding the use of E10 in our respective daily drivers.

Thanks all for the input, I've made my choice on this matter.

Mick

[Glenn 'Stinky' Stankevicius]

From what I have heard you car needs to be designed or modified for the fuel to take advantage of it's characteristics.

Bit of a blurb here about the subject - http://smasa.com.au/forum/index.php?topic=2097.0