Curious. Ethanol or not

[stangflyer]

Like Rob mentioned above the ethanol is what is hardening the tygon. Ethanol free for me, as it's about 1 mile away from house to get it. We should protest, corn is for SHINE, not gas.

That or....tail dunkin' your plane into.

 

[ghoffman]

On a 4 stroke it does not make much of a difference, but alcohols have little or no lubricity and are definitely not beneficial in a 2 stroke. And, if you look at the energy content of ethanol, it is about 1/2 that of gasoline (ethanol 23.4-26.8 MJ/kg for ethanol versus 46 MJ/kg for gas) to 10% ethanol is about a 5% energy reduction.
Also, the shelf life of a gas/alcohol blend is not very long, ~3 months, and it will absorb water.
Ethanol is all about politics, not science.
http://www.fuel-testers.com/expiration_of_ethanol_gas.html

 

[stangflyer]

On a 4 stroke it does not make much of a difference, but alcohols have little or no lubricity and are definitely not beneficial in a 2 stroke. And, if you look at the energy content of ethanol, it is about 1/2 that of gasoline (ethanol 23.4-26.8 MJ/kg for ethanol versus 46 MJ/kg for gas) to 10% ethanol is about a 5% energy reduction.
Also, the shelf life of a gas/alcohol blend is not very long, ~3 months, and it will absorb water.
Ethanol is all about politics, not science.
http://www.fuel-testers.com/expiration_of_ethanol_gas.html

 

[yakken]

87 octane wherever i can find it.

 

[Pistolera]

87 octane wherever i can find it.

You cheap bastard!!!!!!!

 

[stangflyer]

You cheap bastard!!!!!!!

 

[Robotech]

93 Octane pump gas and Stihl Ultra @ 50:1. I never drain the tank or run the carb dry. I use almost all aluminum lines except to connect to the tank and carb, and there I use the clear yellow Chinese line which stays flexible much longer than true Tygon. I use Viton on the clunk. I've never had any issues with tuning on my DA170 for four years and 1300+ flights.

Like somebody else said, if you're having problems with pump gas, you might just need to change where you get it. The station I use for my airplane gas and vehicles is a very busy station so they probably have pretty fresh fuel all the time.

 

[ericb]

I'm new here, been a member well let's see reckon all day now.
Been reading some posts in here and now I wonder how many of us are running ethanol free?
This is what I do. Ethanol free gas mixed with redline at 40:1. I use this even on break in.
The engine seems to run cooler and better than when I used gas with ethanol.

That is exactly what I do with great success.

 

[thurmma]

The only time I use gas with ethanol in it is when I can't find ethanol free, which isn't very often. I am running Redline from the first start also.

 

[Phil.Griffin]

I have a convenient place to buy non, so that's what I run. It's been my experience "something" in the pump gas was causing my Tygon clunk line to harden prematurely, and I tend to blame that on the ethanol. I've since changed all internal fuel lines to Viton, but intend to continue using the non-ethanol gasoline. Another really really weird issue my Buddy had was a build up of some foreign material in his carbs. He finally traced it to a reaction between the ethanol fuel and the fuel line in the "pre-built" tanks he was using. Once he changed over to non-ethanol, and Tygon/Viton, his foreign material problems went away. It was a real head-scratcher there for a while.