Gasahol for your Celica, In your state Options

[Shigexile]

Kind of off-topic but stay with me here.

I'm researching the alcohol level of gasoline in every state.
In Illinois, its E10 (well... UP to 10% ethanol) or E85.

For Toyota, majority of the cars from 1987 will operate on E10 but Minnesota is pushing the E15 mandate which E15 is not recommended to cars prior to 2001 ---> 6th gen Celica.

I want to ask the local guys in every state, what is your gas fuel regulations or laws?
I know Florida, Minnesota, Hawaii, Missouri, Iowa, Montana, Kansas, Oregon, Louisiana, Washington, and Maryland MUST have 10% ethanol in their gas.
Other states are up to 10% but never over (besides E85).

If your state (MN people especially) has E15 and up gas or blender pumps, do you see any symptoms with the celica using the high alcohol content fuel?
I got lot of information off the internet but no definite data of each state and their fuel regulations for 2011. (Found 2007 but that data is too old to use now)

What about you 6gc'ers in Brazil? I believe the gas over there is like E20~E25. What kind of gas do you put in your 6gc?

Sorry, its for work but it got me curious on how it will affect the celica.
I'm not expecting much of you to answer this for me but I thought it won't hurt to ask.

Thanks in advance,
Shigs

This post has been edited by Shigexile: Jan 26, 2012 - 2:27 PM

[rave2n]

Kind of off-topic but stay with me here.

I'm researching the alcohol level of gasoline in every state.
In Illinois, its E10 (well... UP to 10% ethanol) or E85.

For Toyota, majority of the cars from 1987 will operate on E10 but Minnesota is pushing the E15 mandate which E15 is not recommended to cars prior to 2001 ---> 6th gen Celica.

I want to ask the local guys in every state, what is your gas fuel regulations or laws?
I know Florida, Minnesota, Hawaii, Missouri, Iowa, Montana, Kansas, Oregon, Louisiana, Washington, and Maryland MUST have 10% ethanol in their gas.
Other states are up to 10% but never over (besides E85).

If your state (MN people especially) has E15 and up gas or blender pumps, do you see any symptoms with the celica using the high alcohol content fuel?
I got lot of information off the internet but no definite data of each state and their fuel regulations for 2011. (Found 2007 but that data is too old to use now)

What about you 6gc'ers in Brazil? I believe the gas over there is like E20~E25. What kind of gas do you put in your 6gc?

Sorry, its for work but it got me curious on how it will affect the celica.
I'm not expecting much of you to answer this for me but I thought it won't hurt to ask.

Thanks in advance,
Shigs

Had E10 in SC. May all be in my mind, but it always seemed the E10 made the idle more rough. So I opted for regular gas which was close to work, rarely did the put E10 unless had too. Mileage was a decrease, but was min.

[Johnnyny]

e10 almost everywhere now here in pa hard to find pure untampered gas i noticed nothing but less mileage

[Neon90424]

I thought youd get more gas mileage having a leaner fuel mix -> e15

[richee3]

Nah, ethanol burns quicker than regular gasoline so E85 gives you crap gas mileage. E10/15 will give you slightly diminished gas mileage.

[Neon90424]

thats why I said e15 haha, my car gets awful gas mileage as of tonight!

In brazil I believe they have gone as far as E30 or E40 or its like a future plan for it to be e40

[stephen_lee]

texas is up to 10%

[ricochet1490]

it's been 10% for YEARS. I ran 40+% ethanol in my car for weeks. the decreased mileaage was worth it because E85 was so much less expensive.... half a tank of 87 pump gas with half a tank of e85.... it's all about time and getting the ecu used to it so the A/F can be adjusted properly. running E15 won't hurt a dang thing mechanically speaking. At 40-60% mix i did notice it starting to struggle with the idle, but I attribute that to me pushing the learning curve of the car too fast, not something saying the car couldn't handle it if need be.

my $.02

[Smaay]

Yes E85 needs more fuel. basically you have to double the size of your injectors to support it. but at the price of it, it still works out better. Alot of Supra guys convert to E85 because it has such a high octane rating and burns so cool. but they are running 2000cc injectors and 3 fuel pumps. im actually considering running it in my 7th gen race car.

[Shigexile]

thanks for the input guys.

I just hope the E15 doesn't become the new standard instead of E10 and what's even worse is that I found out Minnesota is actually trying to pass the E20 mandate.
And i don't think using gasoline thats rated above E15 is a good idea. Anything above E10 is too corrosive for our cars.

Reading up on SI engines prior to MY2001's E15, E20 test results, for the 6gen to be compatible with the E15 and E20 blends, we need to upgrade our fuel delivery systems to prevent engine damage.

Even if that is to be upgraded, the AF mixture leaning, and vapor lock is likely to happen. Phase separation of the alcohol, water, and gasoline will also happen if the celica is not driven on a daily basis.

So what else does the celica have to do in order to prevent these symptoms ?
A lot actually. Ethanol eats away rubber, plastic and even some metals to a significant amount.


Any MN guys out there? Do gas stations there usually sell E15, E20, E30, E50 even, through blender pumps?
My customer is selling most of their products in MN so I need to make sure our product can handle the high alcohol content fuels.

Smaay, is there anything else the supra guys upgrade on their car to handle the E85?

This post has been edited by Shigexile: Jan 28, 2012 - 3:47 AM

[ricochet1490]

you really think that E20 will eat your fuel internals while E10 used over the course of the life of the car(because lets face it, e10 has been around a while) have diferent effects?!

When they first started adding ethanol to gasoline in the late 80's early 90's they had to change the chemical composition of the fuel delivery system. You are correct, ethanol will eat the rubbers and plastics of a fuel system.... that wasn't designed for it. A simple change of chemical composition, done by the manufacturers at the time of the E10 change over made the fuel system able to handle 100% ethanol if need be. I mean sure, There is more alcohol in E85, but 8.5 tanks of E10 is equivalent in terms of amount of alcohol right?. It doesn't make sense that a smaller percentage of alcohol would be better for anything other than allowing the engine to run the same as it always did.

There is no 'conversion' needed to run ethanol. Infact the only thing that gives a vehicle a "flex fuel" tag is some sensors that detect the presence and percentage of ethanol in the fuel and an ecu map to help adjust the A/F.
My car over the course of time did it naturally because of oxygen sensors.

The supra guys i'm sure have standalone ecu's that are customized for E85 if they are running 2000cc injectors and 3 fuel pumps. There is nothing stock about those cars.

But i would LOVE to see the sources that say E30 will eat your fuel system and E10 will leave it alone.

I would be questioning if it's a forum of guys who is telling you that information.... they're likely the same guys who say 5sfe engines, stock, NEED 93 octane gas, and that think anytime Vin Diesel gets in an old muscle car it's going to be able to pop wheelies... even while traveling across the desert at close to 70mph

This should be all the proof you need. 2000 Tahoe with 100k miles of strictly E85.... They tear down the engine and fuel system and debunk all the myths, even compare the fuel system to a similar one that ran gasoline......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuOs1yap8mU

[richee3]

anytime Vin Diesel gets in an old muscle car it's going to be able to pop wheelies... even while traveling across the desert at close to 70mph

Are you trying to tell me this is impossible? Not sure if srs....

The only real benefit I see of ethanol is cheaper had because ethanol costs less than petroleum. Yet, E10 costs no less.. Just gets me worse gas mileage. I'm no expert on the subject so I prefer to pump straight petrol or the lowest ethanol I can get.

[Shigexile]

Yes, I have lab results conducted by Minnesota university but unfortunately detailed results are still confidential but you can find the results from the 2008 published on the internet somewhere. I also get my information from the EPA. MN have to give the EPA results on E20 to them in order to pass the E20 mandate by 2013.

I am not trying to prove anyone wrong.
Just saying E20 is more abrasive than E10. E10 too has these effects but many car manufactures designed their product to take E10.
Flex fuel cars are built with dual fuel systems, one for gasoline (E10) and E85. and like what you said additional sensors and what not.

Interesting. this video is right in where that some materials took the ethanol better than the gasoline. The test results i'm reading now also pointed out that there were some materials that did not show swelling, corrode with the higher alcohol content while gasoline showed more wear and swelling but that was only for the 1/12 materials tested (Source: UofM 2011 Test)
Your youtube link also has a link that sends you to a E85 converter kit (although their website doesn't give much info and doesn't seem legit). There is a possibility that this Tahoe was converted as well.

Thanks for that youtube link. I want to look at this ethanol fuel from all perspective without being biased. (trying)

My main concern is the driveability of the car with higher ethanol content.
ricochet1490, when you ran 40% ethanol, did you notice any hesitation with cold start? Especially on a winter day?
A study of 80cars (half running E20 and half running E0), a few E20 vehicles noticed a need for longer cranking and experienced stalling in cold winter days. Just wondering if this have happened to you because the RVP of ethanol at 0deg C is 3~4 times lower than gasoline so that means it is difficult to vaporize ethanol at temperatures below 10deg C like at cold starts.

The more people say their opinion, the more i learn and better for me.
Still no MN guys?

[ricochet1490]

I'm glad you're open to a couple points of view. I also try to be open but my experience tells me that the ethanol isn't as bad as might be anticipated.

When I was working at honda, summer '11 and fall-winter '10, I was putting blends of E85 in my car regularly.

Using the winter time experience because that's when it'll make a bigger difference....

I would take the car down to about 2gal in the tank, put in 6-8 gal of E85, then top the rest off with E10(standard pump gas 87 oct. they had)
The car has about a 16 gal tank, so I was about 35% ethanol when I started. At that blend I never noticed any discernible change in start time or anything. I would increase the the E85 by about .5 gal every week/fill up. I got to where I was running about 9-9.5 gal of E-85 which is about 50% ethanol. As it got colder, and as I hit that percentage I would notice the car would have quite the rough idle sometimes and I had to "clean out the injectors" lol with a good rev to get it to run right. But that was only when the motor was cold and it never affected highway driving

Now I might have been trying to train the ECU too fast, the learning curve may have been too great for it as mine is only a 94 so I don't have all the extra oxygen sensors to give the ecu emissions information. That's where I noticed it start to struggle though. This was into about the 3rd week of october around Lima ohio.

I ended up hitting a deer the first week of november and drove a nissan maxima until christmas when I finished up my work there so my data for my celica didn't make it into really cold weather. I did the same thing with the maxima though for the next month or two. It's was/is a 2000 with 234,xxx on it at the time. It ran fine on 7-8 gal in a 20 gal tank through the cold.
The only time I figured I pushed it too far was I got to talking while pumping one day and put nearly 13 gal of E85 in the tank and it struggled a bit on the start up. Ran fine on the interstate. But I drove it to work and back for two days and then re-topped it off with pump gas and it ran fine after that.

So from my experience, without any modifications or a whole lot of ecu training time you can safely run E20-E50 without too much trouble. But again, that's just my experience.

*disclaimer*
While running the Maxima in that 2 month time frame, I had to replace the Idle air control valve.
I don't know if E85 had anything to do with it or not, but I was clocking 236,000 miles by that point, so it's hard to tell what was due to fail or IF the E85 had anything at all to do with that. I can't imagine it did, but who knows.

This post has been edited by ricochet1490: Jan 28, 2012 - 4:04 PM

[richee3]

I think BonzaiCelica is running a mixture of E85 and E10 in his Celica. Maybe he can chime in with his experience.

I meant to add earlier but forgot that some of us have 17 year old Celicas- the rubber has already seen some age, who knows what the alcohol might do to it. That's the second big reason I'm hesitant to pump anything more than E10.

[ricochet1490]

I think BonzaiCelica is running a mixture of E85 and E10 in his Celica. Maybe he can chime in with his experience.

I meant to add earlier but forgot that some of us have 17 year old Celicas- the rubber has already seen some age, who knows what the alcohol might do to it. That's the second big reason I'm hesitant to pump anything more than E10.

Dan, when the car was made the plastics and rubbers SHOULD have been chemically designed to take ethanol indefinitely. DON'T run ethanol in an old lawnmower or 1972 chevy big block that still has the original fuel system cause it WILL destroy that. But since the early days of E10, all fuel system rubbers and plastics should be ethanol resistant for any %age... My fuel system didn't crap out on the 94 with 3 months of E40-50 - so it SHOULD (lol) be fine