i dirve an 86 XF faLcon, and i do believe that ethanol blend fuel is not good for my car.

fuel economy went right down, and i found that the car was harder to start in the mornings.

just wondering what everybody else thinks of ethanol blend fuel, and for the record i was using 98octane blend, and also had bottles of spitfire in the tank.

Maybe it's not good for older cars, I've been using it in mine for a few months, havn't noticed anything bad, fuel economy is still good, power is the same, I just use the 95RON stuff. My mum has an XF carby and uses it in that, that goes fine.

Could be just you

Ben

a friend of mine is a mechanic at our council. they put half the fleet on E10
that half of the fleet is in for fuel related problems twice as much as the other half.


Problems include. leaking oring seals on fuel lines. filters blocking up. strainers in the injectors block up. hard to start all the time.
poor fuel economy.

I wouldnt trust the stuff, its bad news. it can damage your injectors.

http://www.fordmods.com/forums/viewtopi ... highlight=

i'm sure there is some one who is going to go insane with thet link frank. lol nice

Ethanol is very aggressive towards rubber, even petrol resistant rubber is no match for ethanol. Hence why o-rings fail and fuel lines fail.

Also, ethanol requires an AFR of 9.0:1 for stochiometric combustion. I believe this is due to the fact that there is oxygen in the ethanol molecule which is absent from most of the molecules in standard petrol. Since the fuel itself already contains oxygen, you don't need as much oxygen from the air to combust with the carbon. Until the ECU learns sround this, the full benefits probably won't be realised. Initially, the ECU will see a leaner combustion and will have to richen the mixtures.

It also has different burn characteristics, specifically, it burns slower and has a higher flash point, hence why it resists detonation better than regular fuels, but this also means that to get the most from it, you need to advance the spark as a bare minimum.

Probably works better in an EFI car compared to a carby car since the ECU can learn around the different fuel requirements. That said, an out of tune carby car could see big benefits as the ethanol might adjust the AFRs towards a better tune for the engine.

If you notice a difference in idle quality, it might be due to the fact that the engine is running a little leaner, and the slower burn of the fuel has the same effect as retarding the spark a bit. Both of which may decrease idle quality.

I was reading the other day that Holden has announced that all there vehicles are ethanol safe (they didnt give a date to go back to) and Ford has said that all post 98 cars are safe, but anything before that they cant garauntee will be safe.