So what are the downsides of using Ethanol (grain alcohol) or Methanol (wood alcohol) as fuel other than having less mpg and the availability at regular gas pumps?
Just finished watching The Pump, an interesting documentary on oil based fuels vs biofuels and electric and it made it seem like most cars made after the 90s could easily run on biofuels but that it's a corporate conspiracy against it.
Documentary link for those interested
youtube.com
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It's not very nice to rubber seals and gaskets in the engine and I believe fuel filters get fucked more easily.
I suppose it would be fine on a newer car but older cars from the 90s are designed with regular fuel in mind and there is about 50 years of incremental mechanical observation to predict with a reasonable certainty how and when the engine components will fail. You would have to spend a lot of time running an older vehicle with a biofuel and tracking the wear differences to properly make a judgment, but then there is the added problem that these things are no longer made.
I guess it's kind of similar to using synthetic motor oil in older engines.
>it made it seem like most cars made after the 90s could easily run on biofuels but that it's a corporate conspiracy against it.
Oh look, another reason to not buy a used car.
Yeah I had the same assumptions as you and probably a lot of people do. If you watch the documentary it will dispel a lot of that.
Most cars will run on (m)ethanol just fine with minor modifications. Some with just a simple software hack.
Part about rubber might be true though and it's what I was wondering if anyone knew more about. Apparently methanol can also interact with some metals in a negative way.
>other than having less mpg
Why would you need another reason?
Costs more than oil and is worse for the environment.
Yes, if you let it sit it eats non stainless shit, particularly if you've got a carbied engine, the pot metal dies badly. Driven regularly that shouldn't be a problem but why would you?
Well the price of ethanol is lower and it balances out. In fact I'm pretty sure it's cheaper mile for mile.
That's completely wrong and the exact opposite.
It's only lower due to government subsidies not production costs.
Yeah, it's also been hell for boats because alcohols turn fiberglass gas tanks to jelly. You can convert any vehicle to flex fuel but you need to overhaul the fuel delivery system.
Are people in here really this retarded?
You're welcome to educate yourself
Biofuels are cheaper to make just see Brazil ffs
You can make them out of almost anything too, corn, agricultural leftovers, even trash. And speaking of trash you might have better use yourself as a biofuel instead of posting retarded lies on a chinese cartoon web bulletin.
You can make it out of trash because most trash is petroleum based, ergo it isn't a biofuel simply a repurposed fossil fuel.
>Brazil ffs
Ever wondered why US manufacturers produce everything they can get away with in Mexico?
If we farmed/traded ethically then we wouldn't have the gluts we do which encourage governments to mandate ethanol use we'd be using a large % more to actually feed people.
Methanol is toxic, and causes brain damage.
E85 is a good fuel. Pure ethanol is not good for cold starts, and while methanol works in racing, I believe using it in a road car introduces too many problems, so I'd just stick to ethanol.
I now convert some of my cars to run on E85, since it's a lot cheaper at the pump and it has a higher octane rating than gasoline, great for turbocharged vehicles. In my experience it also keeps the piston tops and combustion chambers clean.
You have to replace the fuel pump and fuel lines with alcohol-resistant ones though and have the ECU remapped. I've tried running gasoline engines on E85 with regular fuel maps and ~35% bigger injectors, but usually it'll run like shit until you reach operating temperature.
Every gas pump here have E85, or at least 90% of them have E85.
Methanol will absolutely fucking rek you if there's a leak. If you take a look at how much people leak when pulling the fuel nozzle out of their vehicle, that is a reason for concern
my somewhat newer (2011) model toyota specifically says that methanol will fuck it up in the hand book. It says that ethanol up to 10% is fine.
Im going to listen to my manufacturer and not some "documentary" which probably has a massive bias
Good argument
>Im going to listen to my manufacturer
retard alert
i fucked up my 70s 2 stroke very badly with this meme
Anything pre 2002 shouldn't run ethanol. The engines and components like fuel injectors are not designed for it. I'm glad we can still get regular gasoline, corn is for whiskey, not cars.
The problem with biofuels is that they end up taking a shitload of land to produce even the meager amount of fuel available on the market.
Biodiesel is about the only biofuel that doesn't need land, just waste food grease.
He's right though, you still use a shit load of petrol products to bring the shit to market. If you could solve the land issue, and make cultivation easier without so much processing then it would be more reasonable.
>Part about rubber might be true though
If you knew the slightest bit of chemistry you would know this is absolutely true. Ethanol and methanol will dissolve your fuel system and seals. You have to replace everything with parts that are chemically resistant.
Methanol is actually a pretty major component of biodiesel. Only, like, a tenth (or less due to efficiency) of what pure methanol-burning cars use, but it’s a requirement to sever the fatty acid molecules from the triglycerides in the oil and turn them into usable fuel molecules.
well how bout I listen to them and you don't and we will see which car dies first?
Fist off, butanol cut with propanol and ethanol to lower the viscosity is a better idea than a methanol and ethanol mix.
the main reason is there is no sustainable industry set up for its large scale production, i.e. we cant make enough as it stands, to sustain its usage as a fuel in cars, also what to do with the waste
the fact that pure methanol burns invisibly is more worrying
youtube.com
did you adjust your jetting? or just go balls to the wall?
>numales always talking about their alternative fuels
>meanwhile you burn to death by ghost flames
there's a reason its for racing cars only
there are additives for it now to burn color now, this doesn't happen any more.
>what are the downsides of using Ethanol (grain alcohol) or Methanol (wood alcohol) as fuel
people in my country are too busy drinking them
Methanol is widely used as windshield washer fluid. It won't rek you unless you drink it or inhale concentrated vapors.
>burnt to death by ghost flames
Sounds breddy gud
Most cars get a bump in power when using ethanol, but have worst fuel economy. The thing is, you can use a much higher compression ratio on ethanol-only engines, wich makes more power, using more fuel.
As other anons said, alcohol will eat trough the fuel system, but all the flex cars sold in Brazil had that problem solved (Golf, Corolla, Civic, 3 series, Fusion, Cruze, etc.). You could try getting these br-spec parts and swapping.
Aftermarket alcohol-resistant fuel lines, fuel pumps and injectors are common these days in Europe and North America.
Buy a new car from before the 90s?
>alcohol just appears out of thin air at the fuel pump and doesn't require millions of acres of farming land, harvesting, refining, and transportation between plants and to the pump, almost every aspect of which is fueled by petroleum or otherwise creates pollution
you dumb niggers are just as bad as teslafags that think electricity and lithium batteries appear from the sky and don't each produce substantial pollution in their creation
>require millions of acres of farming land
Reeeeee! Poor people stop eating my motor fuel!
Let's just burn our food.
>eating corn
>eating wood
if we used algae ethanol would be easy, but the US government looked to an existing industry to cut emissions overnight because that wins votes more than something sustainable.
>Most cars get a bump in power when using ethanol
No, only turbos if you advance the timing, otherwise expect about 20% less power in an NA
I put it in my Harley Davidson for about 2 years until the tank rusted out and fucked everything. Ethanol attracts condensation, the water sits on top and when the bowser gets low you get a lot of water in the fuel. No good for metal fuel tanks.
Well yeah they recommend no ethanol gasoline for anything that sits around for long periods of time without using fuel. Like lawn mowers, chainsaws, bikes.