GENERATORS???

Originally posted by podwerkz Originally posted by Masternav   <span style=": rgb251, 251, 253;">Your point is valid, but your math is off significantly.  Ethanol produces 70% of the energy of gas, so if gasoline has 10% ethanol content, then it will produce 3% less energy than pure gasoline, not 10% less as you stated.</span> The math may be wrong on the chalkboard or the computer screen but in the real world the math is correct. Since typical gasoline engines and even typical flex-fuel engines are not optimized for burning a 90-10 blend (or any other blend) then yes...we get about 10 percent less range per tank, or 10% less mpg.  I have verified this many times.

This is the post I was referring to, weeks ago btw.

Every credible source (including the EPA BTW) states that fuel economy with E10 is 3-4 percent less than with non ethanol gasoline, yet you say you have personally verified a 10% reduction many times.

Please then share your scientific data demonstrating that. How did you control for all the other variables that effect fuel economy and what were the statistical techniques you used? Or perhaps this is just an personal anechdote you are putting forward? Again.

With reference to Colt's post, if we bought fuel by the pound your units would be valid but we don't so we need to stick with units of energy/volume. So ethanol is 76330 btu/gal and gasoline is 116090 ⁶and the ratio is 65.8%.

I do fully agree about avoiding using E10 in carbureted engines, especially small ones. If you have to, and in many places you do, then it's best to have a fuel cutoff valve and run the engine till it shuts off from lack of fuel before storage, which will (mostly) clear the carb.

I'm not a big fan of E10 personally, especially because it screwed me up in the past for mogas aircraft use. 100LL avgas is extremely expensive and has lead in it which causes lots of other issues. E10 is harmful to expensive aircraft fuel system components. But E10 is better environmentally than the MBTE it replaced.

As for it otherwise being food, that in itself doesn't bother me. Only a small fraction of corn produced in the US is consumed by humans, and that is mostly in the form of high fructose corn syrup, not really the best stuff for you.

The fact that corn ethanol's energy balance (output energy/input energy) is so bad does bother me. There are much better biofuel feedstocks.
Brazil, for example, which uses mostly sugarcane based ethanol, is much more efficient at ethanol production.

I found that most of my carb issues stopped when i started using Sta-Bil in my E10 gasoline.

I found a 4650 watt inverter generator by Champion with remote start and it works perfectly.  It will run everything I need, including the a/c.  I have a hard time finding ethanol free gas in my area ( Northern Illinois ) so  add seafoam to all my fuels, and i do use the premium blend in my unit.  Thank you all for all the iformation!

It will probably start the a/c without an Easystart. Might be close though if it's overload protection circuit is fussy. If it won't start it then you can return it or put in an Easystart.

Your back might not survive though. Your alternative is an Easystart and a sub 50 lb 1-ish kw generator. The Easystart is well worth not having to have back surgery IMHO.

Since I converted my two Honda EU2000i generators to propane operation, I'll probably have to use both of them in parallel to run the AC even with an EasyStart now unless I want to mess with gasoline again (which I don't). I wanted to get away from gasoline due to the mess and smell. Propane tanks are clean enough that they can ride in the passenger compartment of my SUV.