New gas mileage standards - are they gonna hurt Harley riders?

[silentflyer]

Hell I always thought you were supposed to burn gas and DRINK the ethanol, but here in the Blue Ridge moutains we had our own version of ethanol distillers long befor it was "politically corect"......helped start something called NASCAR...........

 

[glider]

Isn't ethanol made from grain, and with all the stories about food shortages around the world won't the use of ethanol be curtailed?

Form what I heard, they stopped paying the farmers to NOT grow the grain so they can use it for the ethanol so now we import the grain from other countries:bigsmiley20:.

 

[Fisher]

Ethanol is crap.If you wanna run alcohol methanol is the way to go.Kinda hard to deal with,corrosive and all that but 16:1 compression,detonation resistance.Rotten fuel mileage though.Oh and I'm not sure the new standards will apply to bikes.

 

[Tigg]

Everyone I ride with has noticed about a 3 mpg drop in fuel mileage this year and we were told it was because of the added ethanol...:bigsmiley29:

 

[Joyflyin]

We have been experimenting with the E-85 and there is a drop in fuel mileage, but it is @ .60/gallon cheaper here than the 87 octane. It is also about $1.20 cheaper than the diesel we used to have to get. I haven't done the math to see if it's worth the difference overall. Will chat with hubby & see what we come up with and let you know.

 

[Fourdogs]

Been using Ethanol since I got my RK. At 45,000 mile later no problem with the fuel system. I lost mpg after my engine upgrade. In Missouri ever station I've went to has the Ethanol 10% blend. In fact in Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa I think its all you can get. I don't know if it hasn't bothered my bike coz since day one every time I fuel up I add a couple oz. of MMO to the tank.

 

[dynarider]

It's a joke that we are using our food supply for fuel. That is just ridiculous. Come up with some alternative sources of fuel. There's plenty of gas being burnt off of wells all the time, and it is such a waste.

 

[mrrattle]

ethanol vs gasoline

gas burns at 14.68:1
ethanol burns at 9.67:1

typical gasoline has octane rating of 89-91
typical ethanol has octane rating of 103

so any interanl combustion engine must have its fuel map or jets adjusted to allow
about 23% more fuel to flow (assuming your running 85% ethanol) to get the same power.

your ignition timing can be advanced on average 7 degrees.

the ethanol will actually run cooler because of the higher octane rating and much larger volume flowing through the engine.

the corrosive issue is due to ethanol is hydroscopic (sucks up water)

now the good thing about ethanol is you can get yourself a boilee and some copper pipe and......well maybe you could make your own-just kinda hard to get that last 4% of water out of the 190 proof.