Which Fuel do you use?

[static]

Chiming in from California where I normally use E10 (regular).

Is alcohol in the fuel my preference?
No, but you buy what they sell.

Sure, I could hunt down a tankful of some boutique fuel (£££) but it isn’t really practical when traveling.

Bottom line is that my ‘71 burns it fine (though I don’t let it sit for extended periods of time).

 

[K@rlos]

Lived experience. I last filled my van up with E10 in September last year.
In April I drained the tank and put the fuel in my Audi. It ran perfectly. No signs of anything untoward in tank or fuel pipes. I reckon its literally 'just petrol'.
I just bought a load of posh new fuel hose for my van. £40 ..... I swear it used to be a fiver from Megabug

I’ve run my 1200 bug on E10 since the day it came out, periodically check the inside of the tank, carb and the fuel filter. Nothing bad to report, starts and runs lovely.

 

[NigelDenham]

I looked into this a while back as I have classic bikes, and heard ethanol actually degrades and disintegrates zinc-alloy (which My Amal carbs are made of. Apparently the Esso supreme? E5 is best, in most parts of the country it actually contains only trace amounts of ethanol. The e5 or e10 designation is the maximum ethanol it contains so I’m told. I have seen what ethanol can do to older fuel lines and glass fibre petrol tanks, not pretty.

 

[colinvw]

Personally i’ve founnd running E5 in cars, motorbikes, campervan gives better performance, better mpg than e10. When my son’s ecu light came on in his 5yr old exoboost engine, the computer said cat error. He doesnt like to pay the premium for super, but it stopped the light coming back on. Just needs a couple of tanks on e5 to notice the improvements.
Midrange on motorbike is so much better. Even been running super diesel in car, as that has eliminated the chugging from pulling away and improved mpg.

 

[yoda]

It was, it's cheap insurance. Using J30-R9 . Fuel injection spec hose. You get what you pay for.

 

[naskeet]

Lived experience. I last filled my van up with E10 in September last year.
In April I drained the tank and put the fuel in my Audi. It ran perfectly. No signs of anything untoward in tank or fuel pipes. I reckon its literally 'just petrol'.
I just bought a load of posh new fuel hose for my van. £40 ..... I swear it used to be a fiver from Megabug

There's no such thing as just petrol, the formulation of which varies with the seasons and climatic conditions, as well as there being various additives. Contrary to popular myth, petrol is not just a blend of straight-chain and branched-chain octanes (i.e. alkanes with 8 carbon atoms) but can include pentanes, hexanes, heptanes, nonanes and decanes, plus a few cyclic compounds for good measure, in varying proportions.

 

[Clem]

There's no such thing as just petrol, the formulation of which varies with the seasons and climatic conditions, as well as there being various additives. Contrary to popular myth, petrol is not just a blend of straight-chain and branched-chain octanes (i.e. alkanes with 8 carbon atoms) but can include pentanes, hexanes, heptanes, nonanes and decanes, plus a few cyclic compounds for good measure, in varying proportions.

I wasn’t using the term ‘just petrol’ in a literal way. Just reflecting that I didn’t find anything different to when I’ve drained 2 star, 4 star, LRP and unleaded fuel.
Tech advise and info can be presented in a casual manner sometimes.

 

[ozziedog]

Just to add my little ten pence in, I’ve had a notion or a vaguery that my fuel consumption is nowhere near as good with the e10 In my van which has had several issues of varying degrees recently . So the reality is, I’m yet to do a serious mpg test of either variant because of not being able to run continuously in order to record a legit mpg figure however I’m not alone in this thought as several petrol head friends are thinking in line with myself. Another possibility is that myself and my mates are all talking mpg issues with motors that aren’t clocking up many miles and perhaps that is indeed the issue as per more rapid fuel stagnation/ degradation
So as the summer chugs in and van issues are sorted and more miles are clocked, hopefully this will put paid to old age fuel problems if indeed this is a ‘thing’ I’ve got a gallon of e10 in a fuel container and I have it on ashelf in the garage. It’s been there since the beginning of April and not been moved, I do take the top off every now and then and look inside just on the off chance that I’ll see some sort of visual separation or maybe some condensation. I’ll keep this up until I need a gallon of petrol, not exactly scientific but this gallon of petrol was bought a while back and may be of some historical value as it only cost one pound and ten pence a litre. Future generations will wonder how we got it so cheap

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,, time will tell through the summer.

 

[Journey]

I’ve got a gallon of e10 in a fuel container and I have it on ashelf in the garage. It’s been there since the beginning of April and not been moved, I do take the top off every now and then and look inside just on the off chance that I’ll see some sort of visual separation or maybe some condensation.

Hi, how's the experiment?

 

[ozziedog]

Hi, how's the experiment?

Good nudge that. I’ve stuck to my guns so far in that I’ve been only getting ten or twenty quids worth at a time as I’m not clocking up any miles. This in reality probably is about a glass and a half each top up so I’m gonna rename my van as Cadbury. As with everything that i do nowadays, it takes a hundred times longer to get anything done, so I’m still fannying about with the internal refurb. Another thing that’s a bit of an issue is haven’t seen any E5 for sale near me in the forecourts I’ve been on so maybe do a giggly search once we’re off and running as there is absolutely no point in measuring if you have nothing to measure against.
The gallon container has been moved onto the concrete floor very very carefully but nothing appears to be separating, we’ll at least not visually, I’m not sure what I’m expecting to see, but I have seen separation from other fluids in with petrol before and this only took a couple of days, turned out an ex boy friend had been pissing in her petrol tank every so often in a different kind of separation issue . This was back in the days of glass milk bottles, so maybe that’s the answer, put it in a glass container so it’s easily visually checked. Sometimes, my brains seem to be ‘On Hold’ for extended periods. OK, round two, let’s see what happens now

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,new floor looks fab fab fab

P.S. Thanks to Nick, Teddy and Harry for welding up my floor as I can’t weld no more ,,,

 

[Journey]

Just hoping you'll hold on to that gallon of e10 in a fuel container till the end. Have you tried using one of those ethanol protectors/stabilizers on the market?