E10

[Burdekin]

Originally Posted by Familyman 90

Is it fair that you and I pollute the air with our cars?

Is it fair that we contribute to climate change?

Is it fair that us polluters complain about any tactic that lessens the impact of our car use, no matter how slight?

I think that as car drivers we've had it good for too long, and the true cost of motoring to the planet and society is going to start being reflected in the financial cost to us. Qe have gotten away with it longer than any one imaged, so we can't really complain.

In 20 years pump fuel is going to be difficult to obtain and have the bejesus taxed out of it. Running on super unleaded is the least of everyones worries.

If super keeps you going for some more years, then go for it while you can, because over the coming decades it is going to become very difficult and very expensive to run old cars simply for the pleasure of doing so.

That's true petrol will get harder to get in decades to come but it isn't correct around the pollution/CO2 part in reality. It probably would take me about 10 to 12 years to produce as much CO2 as a new car does to get built. That isn't then taking into account how much CO2 a new car produces in that 10 or 12 years, be it petrol, diesel or electric. There's a argument for clean air in populated areas and the health benefits but not for CO2 emissions.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Familyman 90

Is it fair that you and I pollute the air with our cars?

Is it fair that we contribute to climate change?

Is it fair that us polluters complain about any tactic that lessens the impact of our car use, no matter how slight?

I think that as car drivers we've had it good for too long, and the true cost of motoring to the planet and society is going to start being reflected in the financial cost to us. Qe have gotten away with it longer than any one imaged, so we can't really complain.

In 20 years pump fuel is going to be difficult to obtain and have the bejesus taxed out of it. Running on super unleaded is the least of everyones worries.

If super keeps you going for some more years, then go for it while you can, because over the coming decades it is going to become very difficult and very expensive to run old cars simply for the pleasure of doing so.

It's not fair, especially if you run a diseasel that spews carcinogens into the atmosphere.

There have been many pollution free engines invented over the decades since cars became the norm. They have been patented by the original inventors. The rights to them have then been bought by various petrochemical companies. Is that fair? No, because they were only bought to maintain the profits of those petrochemical companies. The ideas have been deliberately lost. Is that fair?

We could have been running around in cars powered by water or some similar innocuous substance for many decades if it hadn't been for the greed of oil companies. Is that fair?
On a similar tangent, we now have renewable (solar and wind generated) electricity but the tariffs are going up - is that fair? No.

People insist on buying new versions of everything they own which causes a huge carbon footprint when their old items are still perfectly usable. Is that fair? No.

The carbon footprint of just one new car would probably allow me to continue running my old beasts for another 2 decades without increasing the overall carbon footprint but guess what, i have to pay for it in increased fuel costs. Is that fair? No.

Short answer is we are a consumer-driven society that has created an unfair world.

Is that fair? NO!!!

[142 Guy]

Originally Posted by woodman

If I'm reading this right, then so long as the vehicle does not stand for lengthy periods, allowing water contamination to cause corrosion, then E10 is not a problem for Amazons; and the switch to E10 doesn't in itself mean that we have to use super unleaded instead of standard unleaded - though some people may prefer super anyway.

Is that fair? I've done 50,000 miles in my Amazon, mainly on regular unleaded, and when I do use a better such as Shell V-Power I don't notice enough difference in consumption or performance to justify the additional cost.

Thanks.

If you are running fuel through your car at a reasonable rate water accumulation in the fuel system is probably not going be an issue. However, 'reasonable rate' will be subject to conditions. I live in an area that qualifies as semi arid. I suspect that in GB humidity levels are much higher so you will have to run through fuel faster than I do to preclude any problems.

If you have an A version of the B series engine you can probably operate satisfactorily with the stock advance settings with 87 R+M/2 octane fuel which is about 91-92 RON. If the engine is running without detonation with the stock advance curve, there is a down side to running a fuel with a higher octane rating. Higher octane fuels resist detonation because they burn marginally slower (more aromatic ring molecules like toluene) which is offset by the higher flame rates in the denser fuel mixture in a higher compression engine. Put high octane fuel into an engine that runs fine on lower octane fuel and performance and fuel consumption will generally be marginally worse. There is an upside to premium fuels because in addition to the higher octane fuel blend they typically come packaged with (more) detergents / additives. That may or may not have an offsetting benefit to the deterioration in performance and fuel consumption.

As noted in another post, the stoichiometric ratio (ideal air to fuel ratio) for E10 is slightly different than it is for unblended gasoline. Unblended gasoline is 'sort of' around 14.7 and E 10 is sort of around 14.1 (pounds of air to pounds of fuel). For fuel injected engines with O2 sensors this is not an issue since the ECU will trim up to hit the target lambda of 1.0 with no problem. Carb equipped engines are different and will run slightly leaner on E10. The stoichiometric ratio difference is less than 5% so you may never notice a difference, particularly since most pre smog carb equipped engines typically seem to be set up running with AFRs slightly below stoichiometric (rich).