Originally Posted by dosoctaves

Man...this is worse than the pcv debate, or the ever surfacing oil debates! I really think it's time to distribute some tin-foil hats to some of this crowd.!

Originally Posted by mrvette

I have NO frame of reference on that, clueless....

I presume you mean Rush Limbaugh??

I think our country will fall from within over this green weenie crap and killing the cars as transportation....much less our hobby...

Originally Posted by turbojet

These cars are 40 years old and made to run on gasoline not 10% anything. For those that think you can just swap out a carb an the problem is fixed there's more to it.
Let start with the tank, ethanol is corrosive, need to change that to stainless steel. Then the fuel lines, like the tank stainless. Then the carb
anything rubber will harden and become brittle over time that will have to be swapped out for silicone.
Even after all this is done you still have to deal with vapor lock on those really hot days in traffic.
If your corvette was leased and you were handing it in three years you probably could care less, an you probably wouldn't even change the oil,
but if you own it you want it to last, hopefully another 40 years.

Originally Posted by FB007

Perhaps a nice "Fuzzy dice color poll" would be more to your liking?

Originally Posted by whitehause

You are either really old or really young.
I meant Rush the band....Red Barchetta is a song set in the future about a boy that goes out to the country to his uncles farm and take his old gas powered car (a Red Barchetta)out for a drive even though it's illegal to drive gas powered cars.
Not a political statment....just a song.
I would never assume to start a political rant on this site.

Originally Posted by Kevins77

Yes, absolutely sure. The difference between filling up at one of the few stations that claim a non ethanol mix and filling up at one that has the ethanol blend is night and day. I have learned my lesson.

Originally Posted by Jims66

Sounds like you may have water mixed in with your fuel. Have you tried many different 10% Ethanol stations or only one ??

Originally Posted by turtlevette

I found this on wikipedia:


Much overlooked in most discussions about ethanol from corn are the by-products from the production of ethanol. In general, the waste product from corn distillation is DDGS, distillers grains, a protein-rich food. The vast majority of corn produced in the US and the world goes to feed not people but livestock, which cannot naturally digest corn. The main result of feeding corn to a ruminant is excessive flatulence (production of methane gas, being a greenhouse gas), but the same animal can can readily digest DDGS[citation needed]. Seen in this light, all corn destined for livestock feeding should probably be distilled to harvest the ethanol fuel potential while simultaneously making the feed more nutritious to the livestock and avoiding unnecessary methane pollution. Wherever corn is used to feed livestock, farmers can take advantage of this process to make a profit on both food and fuel from the same bushel of corn.

A Federal Government Sponsored study found a gallon of ethanol makes almost twice as much energy as it consumes while it also has the potential to cut greenhouse gasses by 54% if cars ran on ethanol rather than gasoline.

Bush's point man on alternative energy, Andy Karsner, predicts that the opposition to ethanol will fade over time. Karsner says that while the government is now supporting ethanol made from corn, by 2012 there will be technology to make ethanol from garbage, switch grass, and other nonfood products.

Originally Posted by stingraymyway

From what I've been told, the Ethanol draws water/moisture.

Originally Posted by stock76

This has been an interesting thread. Either Ethanol is going to destroy my old C-3, or nothing is going to happen to it, depending on which post you read but.......

The above is very interesting. If I understand this correctly, Farmers feed cows corn. Cow stomachs cannot properly digest the corn causing all the cows to fart methane gas which in turn harms the environment and forms the Greenhouse effect. The by- product of processing the Corn into ethanol is readily digestible by the cows and does not cause them to fart (no Greenhouse gas!! Good thing!!). The article doesn't say, but is this by-product "fermented corn", i.e. booze? Seems to me the ranchers would have herds of drunk cows on their hands

Further down, if I read this right, using ethanol cuts greenhouse gasses by 54%. If greenhouse gasses are caused by methane gas which is (in layman's terms) - cow farts, wouldn't another option be to (1) feed the cows something else that won't give them gas; (2) get rid of all the cows and consume fish, fowl and pork only or; (3) have the government come up with some type of mandatory catalytic converter to attach to each cow to capture and neutralize the methane gas on its way out so the environment is not harmed?

Then all the Green people would be happy and maybe we could just keep using plain old gas and I wouldn't have to worry about my poor old C-3 corroding - or maybe not - depending on who you choose to believe.

Originally Posted by wombvette

Imagine that. The greenies are saying that we will be done in by cow farts, if we dont quit burning those Dino droppings. Wonder what the methane count was when Dino was here?

Originally Posted by wombvette

You could vote for me. My platform is to take government out of everything else, except regulating trade between us and the common defense. Now go out and vote. Oh, but thats too radical.

Originally Posted by stock76

The article doesn't say, but is this by-product "fermented corn", i.e. booze? Seems to me the ranchers would have herds of drunk cows on their hands

Originally Posted by Mike Ward

No, not at all. The process for making ethanol for cars is not that much difference than making beer or whiskey. In this case the corn is mixed with hot water and allowed to sit for a few hours while the starches in the corn are converted to sugar, this step is called mashing. After conversion, the liquid is drained off to a seperate vessel and yeast introduced to initiate fermentation. The corn mash is usually rinsed with hot water at least once more to ensure that all the sugar has been extracted. The fermented 'corn juice' is then distilled to remove the water and leave nothing but a high percentage of alcohol behind.

The residual corn (no sugar left and never exposed to yeast or fermented) is what's fed to cows. Whether they fart more or less with these left overs is something that I don't know or care about.