I took the car for a spin last night and the temp said it was 47 degrees. The run craps won't heat up and feel like they're made of stone.

It was suggested to me by one shop to just store the car with as little gas in the tank as possible. The tanks are plastic so there's no worry about rusting them out. Then when you take it out in the spring you don't have to run a tank of old gas (stabil or not) through the system.

 

Hey,good idea!

 

Thirty feet is that all? You have to pull the fuse for your NPP!!!

 

To the OP, I would store it with no more than 1-2 gallons if possible (C6 has plastic fuel cells), with fuel stabilizer, & without ethanol if possible, as it turns to jelly after a few months & can clog your fuel filter & the injectors. You're on to a very good idea & I wouldn't hesitate to buy a couple gallons of VP 104 race gas, w/out ethanol, for months of winter storage.

In very simple terms, Octane degrades over time, so the higher octane you use, the less the numeric degradation. Meaning that if a 93 octane degrades to a lower number, then when 97, 104, etc degrades, it will at least degrade to a number closer to optimal LS3/7/9 octane.

Not sure about IL, but fuel degradation is a big deal in CA. as our methanol gas turns the fuel to junk in as little as 1-2 months, & also deteriorates rubber gaskets/orings. We often see green gelatinous gobs in our carburettor float bowls which are especially good at clogging pilot jets. Ask me how I know...

I try to only fill my tank 1/2 full if that's all I'm going to use for a weekend drive. Increased evaporation/degradation is a factor in 1/2 full fuel cells, but I try to run only (relatively) fresh fuel through my fuel system/injectors whenever possible. I try to run Chevron exclusively, b/c I've only read good things about Techroline's cleaning ability.

In my motorcycles, I have to shut off the fuel petcock well before I get to my garage so I leave the carb as dry as possible, especially for months of non-use. Fuel degradation in single cylinder/single carb bikes is a very noticeable performance decrease, but not as noticeable in multi cylinder/injector cars.

Bottom line is, you don't want green gobs of degraded ethanol/gas forming & running through your LSX fuel system.

 

Octane does not degrade significantly with time. It is a function of hydrocarbon types: aromatics, olefins, paraffins, isoparaffins, oxygenates. As long as you’re not planning to store it for thousands of years, those classes of hydrocarbons do not change spontaneously from one into another, and as long as they don’t, there’s nothing to change the octane.

The biggest risk to winter storage is dissolved water. About 1 milliliter of water per liter will dissolve into gasoline at 70F, so a 20 gallon tank that is filled during the summer when the storage tanks are at about 70F may contain up to about 3 ounces of dissolved water. The full, solubility limit of 3 ounces is seldom there, but it’s never bone dry. The risk is that as the temperature drops during winter storage, the solubility decreases. If you are lucky, and got “reasonably dry” gas, that’s no problem. You have some room for the gas to cool before any water starts dropping out of solution. But if you were unlucky, and got a batch of gas that has nearly the full saturation of 3 ounces of water in the tank, then as temperature drops, some of the dissolved water will separate out as water goo in the bottom of your tank. The function of the stabilizer is to keep the water that is dissolved in the gas dissolved even as temperature drops, rather than letting it separate out as water goo. As long as the water stays dissolved, it will not do any harm.

Gas with ethanol can contain significantly more water by a factor of roughly 10. So the winter storage problem is potentially worse with ethanol containing gas, because there is potentially more water to separate. But as with ethanol-free gas, there is seldom the full saturation amount of water present, and as long as the water does not separate, it is not a problem. So a stabilizer should keep you safe for winter storage irrespective of whether the gas contains ethanol.

 

For years I have used "Star Tron Enzyme Fuel Treatment" in addition to the fuel stabilizer in my boat which has a fiberglass fuel tank. This helps keep the ethanol from turning to jelly. Boat has a 5.7L engine with a 4 barrel carb. Always had starting problems in the spring until I started using this. I leave in NY and boat is laid up from end of Oct till April.

 

The octane rating of a gasoline has nothing to do with how fast the gasoline degrades or absorbs water in storage.

 

I just realized that I am an idiot about fuel

 

Hey, everybody's an idiot about something.
I can do multitasking and be an idiot about several things at once!

 

I would think that anything that you gain from having fresh fuel would be countered by fuel pump issues. The fuel pump is in the gas tank (I think drivers side) and the gas keeps the pump cool.....

 

Some fuel stabilizers lower the octane of the gas, so I would suggest putting 93 in if you really want your car to run its best when you take it out. Either way it wont hurt, the ECU will detect lower than normal octane.

 

With a nearly empty tank, wont you get a lot more condensation in the tank from temp changes if its not full?

 

[QUOTE=KneeDragr;1581884136]With a nearly empty tank, wont you get a lot more condensation in the tank from temp changes if its not full?[ /QUOTE]

Yes you would........I always store my vette with a FULL tank of fuel(with stabilizer added) for this very reason, and have never had a problem

 

Gas doesn't last long. You possibly won't notice a difference if you don't put fuel stabilizer in the gas, but there are microscopic wax deposits that form. If you park the car for more than a month, just put some stabilizer in it. It's cheap enough and real easy to do.