My immediate area is all 10% ethanol. I've noticed a significant dip in mpg since I've had to start burning ethanol in my bike. Performance wise it's hard to say. Lucas Oil has just came out with a new additive for ethanol specifically. Add 1 oz per 5 gallons of gas. Found it at AutoZone. I just used it in my first tank of gas Saturday so hopefully it will help with the mpg. Bike seemed to have a lil more pep. Maybe it was my imagination.

http://www.lucasoil.com/products/dis...&%20Stabilizer

 

I prefer gasoline with no EtOH because my bike is optimized for that fuel, in my comparison about greater efficiency of an alcohol-optimized engine, I'm referring to burning alcohol exclusively where compression rations can be 14 to 15:1. Here's good info on converting gasoline engines to alcohol to make it more understandable:

http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id32.html

 

I haven't seen ethanol free gas in this area for years. I wish I could find some, I'm tired of replacing carbs on grass trimmers, chain saws, etc.

 

I hear you Jim, as soon as we were forced into the EtOH mix, I was off and running to WalMart for a big jug of StaBil. Never had to service my stuff yet for damage due to fuel decomposition - and now I never have water in my gas tank as the only "real" benefit to the EtOH fuel mix!

 

Harley and other manufactures say its ok as long as you don't exceed 10%. When ever I can I use pure gasoline. You can search your city / state here to find stations that carry it.

http://pure-gas.org/

Ethanol sounds like a good idea in reducing foreign imports but the reality is that it is not. You can Google ethanol University of Minnesota and I think it Rice University to learn more.

 

i've never seen a tank from harley that had a rubberized coating on the inside. it's more likely that wherever you saw one, it had probems with leaking so that was a fix someone applied. i know that the pour in bladder that you can use can come loose from the inner surface of a tank and cause problems. i can't find gas that doesn't have some ethanol in it, so i just use what's available. our bikes will run just fine with whatever comes out of the premium pumps. i haven't had any problem at all with it.

 

firetender, it's nice to come across someone who understands the whole scenerio.

 

They make Ethanol from grains other than corn, including rice. Great, all that money and I still have a Rice Burner!

 

I run nothin' but pure gasoline in all my vehicles, period.

 

"Ethanol sounds like a good idea in reducing foreign imports but the reality is that it is not. You can Google ethanol University of Minnesota and I think it Rice University to learn more."

If you continue to google, you will find the U of M study, a "cost comparison" study, had some major mistakes that were pointed out quite dramatically within days of its release. As an example, they failed to include the value of the fertilizer value of manure. A major bi-product of ethanol production is high protein animal feed, which is fed to cattle, producing manure, which is spread on crop land, reducing the need for commercial fertilizer, which is produced from (gasp) oil. Incidently, ethanol is produced only from the starch of the corn, leaving the rest of the kernel for other uses, which are many.

Ten percent ethanol blended with gas isn't giving the potential savings that can be achieved, and should be considered only a steppingstone to the future. Only when engines are designed to run on near all alcohol will the savings in oil consumption be realized, as firetender posted, as the higher compression available in such engines will offset the lower BTU's that alcohol has vs gasoline.

Anyone who has run a current e-85 engine knows the mileage is a lot less running e85 than running pure gas. But running pure gas is 100% oil consumption. Even if your mileage is 33% less running e85, you are still saving oil consumption. Here's the math:

Engine running gas @ 30 mpg, uses 100 percent oil based gas. In 300 miles you burn 10 gallons of oil based gas.
Engine running e85 @ 20 mpg, uses 85 % alcohol, 15% oil based gas. In the same 300 miles you will burn 15 gallons, 12.75 which is alcohol, but only 2.25 gallons is oil based gas, saving 7.75 gallons of oil based gas traveling the same distance.

If the same engine was designed to only run e85, and not gas, much higher compression could be used, and the mpg would be similar. Brazil and some European countries have been doing this for years.