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Originally Posted by jin1481
Just saw something about it on motortrend. It sounds and looks like a great way to wain off of imported oil and a way to get more money back into the states, where it needs to be. Its great gives me hope that we arent going to turn into japans community of ridicolously small econmic cars, believe me ive been living in okinawa japan for nearly two years now. It even says it burns cooler, cleaner, and increases performance as well as help the enviroment stuff. Hopefully this stuff takes hold and its as good as its being made out to be.
sorry first good thing ive seen doing with fuel, auto performance, and the economy in the united states of bush.
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i dont know what you've been reading but it was wrong on all accounts.
from what i have learned in chemistry ethanol is EXTREMELY solvent and is known to be corrosive to certain metals and does not have the lubricating properties of other substances so it will cause premature wear to our engines.
as for performance and mileage: everyone's car is designed to run on the old gas so our timing is all off now. we can all expect about a 10-20% decrease in both HP and gas mileage with this new gas. why is this? ethanol bumps the octane up a bit but is very very unstable and can burn quicker or slower without warning. it is possible to adjust the timing to make up for this somewhat but because of ethanols instability it will be hard to make your car consistant.
is ethanol the end all be all? **** no! 1 gallon of ethanol requires 131,000BTUs to produce, but only has an energy value of 77,000BTUs. so we are wasting energy making energy? how is that helping the environment? how is that efficiant. if our cars could run on 100% ethanol we would need 97% of america's land to produce enough corn to make 1 year supply to drive our automobiles! (E85 is 85% ethanol so that would need ~80% of our country)
in the end we now have decreased gas mileage, higher gas prices because every gas station has to modify their equipent cause of ethanols corrosive properties, our cars are slower, and our piston rings are becoming more worn more quickly
on the other hand it does burn cooler and cleaner like you mentioned but remember there was a manufacturing process to which could offset the cleaner burning fuel. but who knows
edit: one more thing: ethanol costs $1.74/gallon... gasoline costs $0.95/gallon
another thing is if you start running your car on E85 you would need to change your oil every 1000 miles or so which sucks cause i can do that in a week sometimes