87 vette 81 big girl

Has anyone here on C4 Corvette Forum paid attention to the Real Talk by the USA Politicians of E15 gasoline being mandated at all gas stations nationwide in mid summer of 2011 ?

My Boss owns a service station and also sells gasoline and diesel fuel.
He has been in business since 1978.

He still sells Pure 93octane gasoline.

No Alcohol added.

He special orders the 93 octane gasoline by the tanker truck full. 5,000 gallons at a time.

He is an Avid hotroder and Horsepower Junkie himself for his entire lifetime.

And I always fill my 87 Vert with his 93 octane gasoline during the spring, summer, and fall driving times.

When using anyone others gasoline, E10 93 octane, I do notice a power drop in my Corvette. Especially at Wide Open Throttle.

And fuel economy suffers while driving my car on the interstate highways. (65-70mph).


My boss tells me that it wont be long before he cant order Pure untainted 93 octane gasoline much longer.

They are going to quit producing it here at the Illinois refineries (Chicagoland).

And nationwide.

He has been notified by inside sources in oil and gasoline production and sales.

Our replacement for Pure gasoline and E10 ethonal based - mixed gas will be E15.

How will our old C4 Corvettes perform on this Higher alcohol concentration E15 Gas ?

Surely worse I imagine. for the sake of clean air. And politics.

I am thinking that anyone with a 1989 - 1995 Corvette will be in big trouble if they still have the GM Multec Fuel injectors in place.

The Original BOSCH 1 fuel injectors used in the 1985 - 1988 Corvettes are more tolerant to alcohol in blended gasoline. The Injector Bobbit coil winding is isolated from fuel at all times in the Bosch 1's.

Where as the GM Multecs Bobbit Coil windings are constantly imersed in gasoline during operation.

Alcohol in the gas destroys the Copper enamal insulation on the bobbit colis.

The GM Multecs coil winding shorts out, the ECM Quad injector drivers or transistors shut down from the Current overload.

Your Corvette quits running. Or sputters and runs like crap. Not new news to C4 owners out there.

And the 1990 - 1995 ZR-1 Corvette owners have 16 GM Multec fuel injectors to worry about failing with E15 gasoline.

I have Jon's - FIC Bosch 3's in place on my 87 Vert. Will they be fully compatible with the new E15 gas ?

How about Daily Driveabilty in our C4's with E15 ?

Seems to me that Factory Computer programming - BIN files will be worthless with E15 Gas coming.

Custom Reprogramming each of our EFI C4 Vettes for E15.

Moates to the rescue.

Can Jon from FIC Chime in on this E15 gasoline subject that all C4 Corvette Owners will face in the near future ?

JackDidley

You will lose a little fuel mileage on the E 15 for sure. Other than that you will not see much difference. It gives you a higher octane and that gives you the option of a more aggressive spark curve if you are into tuning. The Bosch 3s have no problem with alcohol. I'm using Bosch 3s in my 87 and it runs on E85.

87 vette 81 big girl

No problems with the factory rubber sections of fuel feed and return lines with E85 Fuel?

Burn Your own chip to run E85 Fuel ?

Or do you use a stand alone EFI system such as FAST XFI on your 87 Vette?

larry93lt1

I'm saving up for a set of Bosch injectors from Jon.

My '92's mpg is getting worse and it's starting to run a little rough at idle.

The injectors are almost 20 years old. Something else to replace.

JackDidley

I did replace the rubber lines under the hood. 23 years old and 2" from the headers worried me. The rubber lines at the tank are original. I put some cheap old rubber line in a container of E 85 and left it. Six months later, the label printed on the hose was still there and the hose was not hurt so I pitched it.
Burned my own chip for the tune. About 50, actually.
Stock ECM.

PLRX

I think we have some in California.

87 vette 81 big girl

Have You tried out the E15 Mixed gasohol in Vette ? How does it drive or perform on the stuff ?

Ok?

Or does it leave you #$%^^. ?

Geardo

We need to start voting out all the Liberal, or Corrupt Politicians. Ethanol should be banned as a motor fuel.

Moon86

This isn't really the right forum to express political views but since you brought it up, the big ethanol push started during Bush's presidency.

Flame Red

Every single piece of lawn equipment I have had for the last several years has had all the gas hoses melted by this ethanol crapulance. Just a corrupt payoff to big corn farmers big agra. Even the greenies have conceited that the carbon footprint of the alcohol is greater than straight oil. Yet another reason reason food prices are so high. Yet another export (corn) that we cannot use to help with our Chinamart trade deficit. Yet another boondoggle when the gooberment gets involved. I say throw them all them politicians out!

If I were cleaver I would invent some separator that we could add to our fuel system that would separate out the Crapulcohol just like a gas/water separator does and dump it on the street.

87 vette 81 big girl

There is nothing we can do about E15 Gas coming around the corner soon.

None of us on C4 are Billionares.

If I was a Billionare, I would have a garage full of Vintage Corvettes, Pontiac Musclecars, and Ferraris. Like about 500 total. LOL

I researched E15 gas last night. On all Corvette Forum, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, & C6.

It is mentioned everywhere in depth but C4.

All of us on C4 have been left in the dark. E15 gasoline is coming like it or not.

Cars built after 2007 will be OK.

So that tells me that the Fuel system, injectors, and ECM BIN Files have been upgraded by all manufactures since the 2007 model year inception. For E15 gas.

They had plenty of prior notice by the US Government and EPA.

I am putting together this winter a 1970 Pontiac 455 with 87 Octane pump gas friendly compression ratio (Low side to be safe).

Topping it off with a 1965 GTO Tri-power induction system.

For a daily driver in 2011. For my 1963 Pontiac Grand Prix.

Cant haul a family around in a 2 seat Corvette. LOL.

C1, C2, C3 Guys says there will be certain problems using E15 and a carburator for fuel delivery.

You should read about The Early Corvette Guys and Stringray Body Vette Owners Complaints and their 2 cents on E15 gas.

Hopefully I can Tune my 455 Tri Power Engine for E15 gas.

I tuned it prior the Tri- Power for E10. Custom drilled jets by hand by me. Was a PIA. Took me weeks of work, trial and error.

Own a Wide band Heated Air fuel Ratio GAUGE. AEM. SHOULD HELP.

Used it on other cars for Customers Tuning for them.

jhammons01

I'm not sure what you are talking about, there has been Ethanol in Cali gas for years.

My '84 seems to drive just fine with it.

jhammons01

I'm no Greeny...but I'm not sure what the problem is, if Cali gas has had Ethanol in it for as long as I've lived here.....and my '84 was delivered at a Cali dealership and lived some in NorCal but mostly in SoCal....wouldn't the injectors be shorted out and the rubber be disintegrated like you suggest?

I mean, it's had Ethanol in it's system for more than two decades.

Not because I am a Tree hugger...but because fuel prices have increased and I like to drive a V8....I've done a ton of research into growing switch grass and brewing my own Ethanol to run in my '84.......I burn about 700 gallons of Gasoline fuel per year.....Triple that due to the lower power output from Pure Ethanol and I need about 1500-1700 gallons of Ethanol per year.

I've calculated that two acres of switch grass, cut four times per year and using a solar distillery, I could drive for free.................

I'm not a Greeny.....I'm an opportunist.

The motor vehicle was originally designed to run on hooch.....back in the day when oil was seeping out of the ground at Spindletop Texas.......sure it made sense.....

Can you imagine the wealth that could be generated HERE in the states if all the farmers went back to work producing switch grass crops.....

Is corn a good alternative? Not really.... switch grass produces way more Ethanol and it grows native to the soil and actually replenishes depleted soil.....

http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/switgrs.html

RollaMo-LT4

Every single piece of lawn equipment I have, has absolutely no issues using E10.
My lawn mower is probably 10 years old now. I shut it off after the last use of the season, and put it in the shed.
Starts up every spring just fine. Never replaced anything on it.



I would bet more people are using E10 without even knowing it than most realize.
There are states (Missouri being one), where they don't have to label the pump that it contains Ethanol. There are stations in Missouri that advertise "Ethanol Free" though. But they are the minority.
And as far as I know, the premium fuel (91-93 octane) does not have it.

And then there are states, where E10 is all that is available.

jhammons01

^^I just wonder where these stories come from?? Wouldn't two decades of lab results (Ethanol in every car in Cali since the 80s) be enough proof?

engle1147

You can't stop progress as ethanol mix is everywhere - the stuff hit Florida in 2000. Back the base timing up a few degrees then get back on the gas pedal.

ddahlgren

Without getting too political it has been proven ethanol uses more enegy and creates more pollution than it saves and is actually dirtier than straight gasoline in the long run but another subject for a different forum. One thing I am very sure of is you need to slightly modify the bin file even for E10 and even more for E15 and up. As an example my 91 has an entry for target Air Fuel ratio stock for gasoline it is listed as 14.73 for E10 it needs to be 14.13 and for E15 13.85. This value is not that big a deal for closed loop part throttle but is a big deal while in open loop even with a stock engine. Speaking ony for a 91 SD system they are VE based and go open loop for WOT so no corretions are used and you will get painfully lean without the change. The loss of mileage is a big deal as is the loss of power too. EXX has less energy per pound so power will be less the more they add. There have been a lot of studies that mention crossing the line betwwen E10 and adding more has a dramatic change in how corrosive it is. Another interesting side note is planes and boats are exempt from being mandated or in some cases allowed to run EXX anything due to reliability for me that says a lot as to how good or bad a fuel it might be.
Dave

jhammons01

^^Top fuel dragsters.........pure alcohol/ethanol.

burns clean....so clean that when it is in the open and burning there is no visible flame

Funny how Top Fuel dragsters are "cool".....E15 is dangerous to "Everything"

ddahlgren

What????????????????? Top fuel dragsters burn nitromethane top alky cars burn methanol... None of those cars even comes close to burning clean. You need to spend more time in the staging lanes and starting line parts of the track. What does this have to do with E10 or ethanol anything? Maybe the only relationship I can find is it would take a great deal of ethanol in the form of Tequila shooters before I though it a great idea to drive one of those cars.

87 vette 81 big girl

Alcohol and Nitromethane buring racecars have to have the entire fuel system after racing that day.

Its flushed out with mineral spirits(paint thinner) or gasoline with the engine off.

If you leave either Methonal Alcohol, or Nitromethane mix in the fuel system, within a day or 2 the entire fuel system will corroded beyond usage.

Alcohol, wood based or corn based readily asoarbs moisture from the air. Where the water and corrosion comes from.

Nitromenthane is mixed or cut with methonal alcohol.