E10 Fuel & 3.9 V8's

[steelo]

I have a Disco 1 (96) with the 3.9 & was just wondering (did a search & nothing came up) if they are E10 compatable?? :)

[101RRS]

Officially YES - personally I would not use it as I have concerns about its impact on older rubber bits in the fuel system but official documentation indicates a 96 Disco is OK.

Garry

[PeterM]

I'd never run ethanol blend fuels in anything. Not even a lawn mower.

[Statusquo]

I'd never run ethanol blend fuels in anything. Not even a lawn mower.


What he said.

[Blknight.aus]

go it....

unless you're running premium unleaded you can be running up to E10 and not know it anyway...

its all in the wording.

Shell Unleaded 91 with Ethanol FAQs - Australia (http://www.shell.com.au/products-services/on-the-road/fuels/shell-unleaded-with-ethanol/faq.html)

have a read, then have a read of this...
http://www.themotorreport.com.au/45859/queensland-to-mandate-ethanol-in-unleaded-fuel

unleaded is essentially getting the same handling as diesel now so if you're not buying premium theres no guarantee that whats in the pump is bio fuel free (Ethanol for unleaded and bioD for diesel) but if you buy E10 or B10 then that fuel will definately contain biofuel.

all in legal mumbo jumbo and about all they have to do is put a small sign (the one in one of my local servos is about the height of a credit card and the width of an A4 sheet with about 6mm text on a black background inside the window thats in the shade) that says something along the lines of "our diesel may contain upto 10% biodiesel" Most places do the righty and have it displayed on the pump face.

[Grimace]

I use premium in everything! Have for the last ten years.

Ethanol, no thanks!

[steelo]

Yeah I don'y really like e10 but mainly because of fuel economy, didn't really know about other said effects. I like to use premium (95) as much possible as it does seem to run smoother & you're supposed to get better mileage than 91, just depends on the wallet at the time.
Thanks peoples :D

[PeterM]

Ethanol attracts water molecules. Water causes rust and doesn't burn very well.
The ph of ethanol is damaging to certain materials, leading them to break down.

Then there is the reduced economy which leads to you spending more on fuel anyway.

[harry]

the v8 uses too much fuel,
but with the right exhaust it will use more,
putting low octane fuel in it will cause it to use more again,,
so use premium and a good exhaust,
at least you can enjoy the v8 on full song knowing that all the fuel is doing you good.:o

[steelo]

the v8 uses too much fuel,
but with the right exhaust it will use more,
putting low octane fuel in it will cause it to use more again,,
so use premium and a good exhaust,
at least you can enjoy the v8 on full song knowing that all the fuel is doing you good.:o

:D:D:D:D:D

[xstriple]

Well, Ive never had any bad side effects from it. But I go through so much fuel anyway. Id have to say one in three of my fills are bio.

[redandy3575]

I've probably said this before. But I work on a 'rule of thumb' method being that any vehicle that was manufactured before the year 2000 to not use e10 at all, regardless of the VACC official safe listing on compatible vehicles. Reason being that most cars the were built before 2000 (though ok to run on e10) were never really built specifically run on that fuel. And as a pre-caution wouldn't use it, just to be on the safe side of things. Even vehicles built between 2000 - 2005, it pays to check suitability with not only the VACC website, but the manufactures themself.

I found by that some common car models even up to a 2007 built were not recommended to run on e10. And some cars were ok to run on e5, which is the European standard, but not the e10 being Australian standard. So it definetaly pays to check.

As for running on 95 octane premium, I did find improvements in smoothness with the 4.6 V8, but definetaly no saving in fuel economy. Again, I'm sure with Australian spec RR & Discos V8, they were just about all tuned to run on the standard 91 octane unless otherwise stated in the manual, right up to 2002 for RR and most likely 2005 for the D1 & D2. So adding the higher octane, apart from a little extra smoothness and response, don't think it's worth spending the extra 10c a litre more.

[disco2_dan]

I'm yet to try ethanol blends in the disco but used them from time to time in my wrx, most were ok but never got great mileage out of them, the only one that come close was a 100 octane blend I stumbled across near a mates house, and holy hell she made the car run like a bat outa hell!!

I was thinking about running a tank threw soon! Will keep you posted on how it goes

[redandy3575]

I'm yet to try ethanol blends in the disco but used them from time to time in my wrx, most were ok but never got great mileage out of them, the only one that come close was a 100 octane blend I stumbled across near a mates house, and holy hell she made the car run like a bat outa hell!!

I was thinking about running a tank threw soon! Will keep you posted on how it goes

What year was the WRX? Cause I'm pretty sure on the VACC guide that that vehicle was one of the not recommended models, more likely the earlier ones.

E10 is a great clean fuel to run, minimising carbon build up and reducing harmful emissions. There is about a 3% drop in economy with e10, but with the extra octane, should really not make that much difference.

[disco2_dan]

What year was the WRX? Cause I'm pretty sure on the VACC guide that that vehicle was one of the not recommended models, more likely the earlier ones.

E10 is a great clean fuel to run, minimising carbon build up and reducing harmful emissions. There is about a 3% drop in economy with e10, but with the extra octane, should really not make that much difference.

It was a 98 model, I never had any issues running it every 3-4 tanks for 4years

[BDA]

There is lots of online material to read about the pros and cons of ethanol in unleaded petrol . I'll see if I can find the link to a site in the US where they tested various ethanol petrol blends and the results were most intersting .
Long/short , 10% ethanol is a really poor blend from a performance and consumption point of view and all it ever did was make the eco Nazis in the US feel a bit better . Ten percent ended up being a number cooked up to make ULP emissions look a little better - basically to edge petrol emissions to their line in the sand .

Real world "E10" is sold as a budget priced fuel and the authorities and oil co's know many consumers buy on price alone . To make budget fuel cheap to produce they blend the ethanol with low octane ULP and I believe OS a compound thats similar to ULP but cheaper .
Now we know ethanol has a lower heat value than ULP , how much heat it produces per unit measure , so to get sufficient heat to make adequate combustion pressure you need to burn more of it . This is comparing straight ethanol to straight petrol BTW .

The perfect air fuel mixture is one that burns completely mean no fuel or oxygen is left afterwards . As a general rule of thumb with petrol this mixture by mass or weight is about 14.7 parts of air to one part fuel . With straight ethanol is something like 9.8 to one so you can see how more is being used to achieve a similar result .
Now petrol fired engines are throttled or strangled if you like air wise so we can control engine speed and load . When the throttle is less than fully open you get a restriction in the inlet system so the cylinders can't be fully charged on their induction strokes . When less than 100% filled there is naturally less air to compresson the compression strokes so the dynamic or effective compression ratio falls . Less air needs less fuel to achieve the same ideal air/fuel ratios and part throttle running is where economical cruising takes place .
One thing in an engines specification that has a direct effect on part throttle torque and economy is the static or measured compression ratio , measured as a ratio of everything above the piston at top center to the swept volume of the cylinder itself .
A higher static or measured compression ratio usually leads to a higher dynamic compression ratio because even strangled cylinder squeezing x amount of air into a smaller chamber achieves higher compression pressure .
Most non turbocharged production petrol engines have reasonably high static CRs because this raises the effective or dynamic CR at part throttle and helps with torque and economy . We have electronic aids like knock sensors to retard the ignition timing of high compression engines at wider throttle openings and this helps prevent these engines from detonating to death .
Generally high combustion temps to a point is how you get greater thermally excited expansion , and therefore combustion pressure , in your cylinders but the killjoy is NOx emissions created by high combustion temps . Usually high combustion temps are created by lean air fuel ratios particularly when the ignition timing is set to start the fire the mixture and getting the pressure spike at the optimum point with the piston just past top center - something like 10-15 crankshaft degrees . If the events in the chamber lead to detonation the easies fix is to fire the mixture closer to top dead center (piston) so the innitial pressure spike occurs later with the piston further down the cylinder resulting in less heat/pressure/detonation/torque/economy .

We need to understand what high octane fuels do to make our engine produce more torque/power/increase economy . Delete all notions that high octane petrol is dynamite for you engine because it isn't . It is formulated to be harder to ignite so its less likely to do so at any time other than when your engine management system decides its time for the spark plug to light it up . When an engine detonates often often two flame fronts collide and the shock waves cause the pistons to literally rattle up and down in their cylinders .

Ok so high octane fuel helps hold off detonation but how does tis help ? Simple , because the engine isn't detonationg the knock sensors stay asleep and the ignition timing is not retarded back past the optimum or best mean torque ignition timing .

Also , another side to making good power/torque/economy is having cool charge or inlet air temperatures because inlet temp is directly related to combustion temp .
When you introduce fuel to air in a fine mist it vaporises and when it does you get that evaporative cooling effect . With engines burning high ethanol percentages ie Caltex E70 (70% ethanol) or United E85 , because you're injecting a greater quantity of fuel you get a greater charge cooling effect . Ethanol has a reasonably high octane rating so the gains are two from cooling and being less detonation prone as well .

What makes life difficult if you wish to try various ethanol blends is that engines designed to use petrol can't cope with ehtanol in high percentages and run quite lean . Later cars often have engine management systems that "self learn" and can adjust their parameters to cope with extra ethanol - but only to a point .
Cars designed to run any ethanol blend you throw at it from 0-85% are called Flex Fueled Vehicles or FFVs and that basically what many late model Commodors have . They have an ethanol content sensor in the fuel system that lets the computer know whats in the fuel rail/s ethanol percentage wise and it has look up tables to inject the correct quantity of fuel to get workable air/fuel ratios .

If I can find the right site it shows how badly E10 blends perform real world , the interesting point is that when the blend climbs to the 15-20% area much of the performance and consumption is regained compared to E0 (0%) to E10 . Sadly many older vehicles don't have the electronics and software smarts to be able to run say E20 because it does perform better than E10 . Especially if the ethanol is blended with better fuel than the typical 89-91 octane mouthwash rubbish most fuel suppliers use .

I have an car that was tuned specifically to run Caltex E70 EFlex and while its fuel consumption isn't the same as it used to be the price of EFlex is significantly lower than BP Ultimate 98 - which the performance industry considers is the best and most consistant of the 98 oct PULPs .

Fuel hose . This went through significant changes when ULP was first introduces because ULP is pretty vile stuff compared to the old leaded fuels it replaced . You can research the different grades of rubber fuel hose and you may be surprise how much old spec stuff is sold at auto outlets - not all EFI hose is good stuff either .

Water and ethanol , yep ethanol is hygroscopic like brake fluid but worse . Most late car fuel systems are semi air tight and you know that when you open you fuel cap and release pressure in your fuel tank . If air and moisture can't get in the ethanol can't absorb it . Neither petrol or diesel engines like water in their fuel so none to less is best .

So to round off , E10 fuels are crap and are being forced upon us by eco nazis drawing lines on beaches with sticks . 10% is enough ethanol to screw things up with little real world gains for the user . A little more in good fuel would be better but the engine has to be able to meter it properly .

You drink ethanol in grog , can't be that bad till the morning can it ?

A .

[steelo]

I was getting some fuel today, on my way to 4x4 club meeting, in Hervey bay at the United Fuel servo & I noticed a 80% ethanol pump. I've never seen 1 before, is that blend any good??? :eek:

[Tombie]

No!

[BDA]

If you could tune your computer for it and the injectors and pump capacity were up to it .

A .

[elshano]

Thanks BDA, glad I read this. My local servo has just gotten the E10 at the pumps.
On first glance, definitely an attractive option for a v8 driver. I normally just use the standard 91 stuff.

The literature they put out to sell the E10 is pretty glowing, but as always, caveat emptor..

The same servo sells what they claim is premium 100 too. I might try a tank of Ultimate and go from there.

[Familyd2fun]

I filled my 99 disco 2 manual with united e10 and it killed it i was concerned i was up for sensors and lots of money a simple tank of 91 fixed it!! I could not accelerate over 4000rpm unless staionary the left hand cat would glow red if i allowed it to cut out multiple times. It would accelerate sometims give a miss then 4000 rpm nothing just cut out revs would wind down to about 2000rpm and car would take off violently again as i said new tank of fuel and fixed perfect car again