making ethanol free fule

[pembletondon]

interesting artical in the club mag on how to make ethanol free fule. why would you want to . just buy it at the pump it is readilly available. Chris Day and myself went to Goodwood at the weekend and visited the BP trade stand and asked them about ethanol fule. the following facts came to light
-BP Ultimate is ethanol free and the is no current plans to change that.

Ethanol in petrol up to 10% increases preformance
Ethanol is hydroscopic and obsorbes water (this is a benifit)
Ethanol in petrol attacts rubber if it is allowed to seperate ( this happens if stood for a long period ie. over winter )
so what to do ! the nice BP technician sugested for our cars . Run on BPultimate then befor laying up for the winter put 1/2 a tank of ethanol fule in and run till near empty. this will pick up any water. then put 1/2 a tank of BP ultimate in and do the same. finaly fill up with bp ultimate and lay up for the winter.

hope this is of interest it is what i shall be doing Don

[woodsy99]

Hi Don,

I've been looking into this as well and understand that most if not all 97+ octane brands are ethanol free. During a recent 2,500 mile trip through Europe I started off using 95 octane petrol but was careful to ensure I got 5% ethanol band not the E10 variety.
I then switched to only use 97 octane and found that in addition to a slight MPG gain, the performance of my car improved significantly, so now I have decided to only use 97+ octane/ethanol free in future with Shell V max being the preferred option.

The additional cost of 97 octane petrol is not very much spread over the year as it is partially offset by the better mpg but the clincher for me is the performance gain which I have found quite noticeable.

Any other views?

Nick 1933J

[Tom Rae]

Agreed Don, I fill up using V power or Ultimate most fill ups, occasionally a tank full of 95 octane if 97 is not available, but like Nick, I find the performance improved and over the year the difference is not that much.

Tom