Hi there,
I am sure I posted this but I don't see it up...so I'll try one more time. I recently discovered my local Casey's has 91 octane w/o ethanol. I have now gone through 2 tanks using this fuel. I did post a question a few weeks ago asking anyone if they knew if would make any difference and most said no. This last weekend I drove from central Illinois to the Bloomington Gold event in Indy. The mpg was the same and the performance seemed better. I do realize that could all be in my head, but the biggest difference I noticed was NO soot in the exhaust tips. When using an ethanol gasoline there was always soot in the tips and that would happen within a 100 miles or so. I would constantly have to wipe it out. After driving round trip to Indy there was almost no soot on the tips of the exhaust. I'm no tech or mechanic but that has to mean the car is running much cleaner. Has anyone else noticed this or used a non ethanol fuel with similar results. Thanks! Love the forum you folks rock!

MTF

 

That is what I run in my Grand Sport and I think it's better.

 

I also burn Phillips 66, 91 octane No Ethanol gas in my Corvette.
On an out of town trip I would feel fine using 91 ethanol .

 

3rd time you've posted it.

Here's one of the other ones:

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...o-ethanol.html

and another one:

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...o-ethanol.html

 

In OKC I've had the wonder of being able to have no ethanol, however, I would say no difference IMO compared to ethanol up to 10%. As far as no soot on exhaust tips, depends on your tune. Mine runs a little on the richer side so I will see soot after a while regardless of ethanol or no ethanol.

 

Vette DD,
Thank you for your reply. It's clear to me now senility has set in!!!

MTF

 

I haven't found 91 anywhere around where I live. Only ethanol free gas is 90 and is sold under the label of "recreational gas". There are tens of thousands of golf carts here, used for transportation, and that is what the rec gas is targeted for. So, I have been running 93 with "up to 10% ethanol" from either Shell or Marathon and have yet to find soot in my tips, even though I have read several posts on this forum that have mentioned soot, especially when running with NPP exhaust open at all times (which mine is).

 

If the car is running properly it would be very hard for me to believe soot would be influenced by presence or absence of 10% ethanol. Your exhaust gas O2 sensors should automatically keep you at the proper A/F ratio for either fuel, thus there should not be an influence of lean versus rich. Assuming your soot observation is real, I can only think of two plausible explanations. One would be a malfunctioning O2 sensor, but it would have to be the reverse of the normal malfunction, making it pretty unlikely. The normal malfunction would be that it doesn’t respond very well, so doesn’t change A/F ratio enough as fuel is varied. But if the system is sluggish and doesn’t change A/F enough as ethanol changes, then you are richer on pure gas, not leaner, so you’d expect more soot with pure gas, not less. It would thus have to be a very odd malfunction. The more plausible of my two possible explanations is that the way you describe your experience, it sounds like your pure gas run was the highway trip over to Indy. If you are comparing ethanol experience around town to pure gas on a highway cruise, it wouldn’t be surprising to get less soot on the highway cruise, so perhaps that’s the explanation.

As a “for what it’s worth” comment, I doubt that Casey’s is top tier gas. If you are looking for issues that matter to performance, using a top tier brand is a whole lot more important than avoiding ethanol for use in a car built since the early 1990’s. There are a zillion threads on the forum about top tier, and I’ll concede that there are a few who don’t think it’s real or important. But most would choose top tier with ethanol over non-top-tier pure gas.

 

Greg: I thought the golf carts were all electric?

At any rate, I am coming down (probably early August) with some friends to check "The Villages" out.

TO THE OP: To easily find any of your past threads or posts, go to your "User Panel" and check under "Subscribed Threads" on the left side.

 

If you've never been here, the first thing you will realize is just how big this place is as opposed to what you might have envisioned. We are talking miles, not blocks, where over 120k people now live. The vast majority of golf carts here are gas powered. Most electric carts simply won't give you enough run time to get where you want to go here, or where you can go, and get you back home. It is not uncommon for your golf cart to be your daily driver here. You can literally go to the grocery store, the bank, the doctor, Walmart, the gas station, out to eat, etc. on a cart. It's also home to what I believe is the largest Vette club in the US. If not the US, certainly in the state. Living here will make your arm tired if you are accustomed to giving the wave to fellow Vette drivers.

 

My friends, who I am coming with (they winter near Williston) have been there and told me how huge the whole thing is. That's interesting about the gas carts and Vette club.

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