Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 19:55:29 -0500
Reply-To: Greg Potts <Greg@POTTSFAMILY.CA>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Greg Potts <Greg@POTTSFAMILY.CA>
Subject: Re: gas prices- a canadian perspective
In-Reply-To: <422B8CCB.8050303@adelphia.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
Hi Mark,
Excellent replies, and right on the money pretty much everywhere.
Except...
According to my reading at http://www.permaculture.com/alcohol/FAQ.htm
, ethanol burns cooler ONLY if you adjust the mixture and timing
accordingly. when if you pour oxygen-rich ethanol into an engine
optimized for gasoline, you will find it is running too lean. Lean
running = burned valves and/or dropped seats. You do NOT want to add
any extra heat to an aircooled engine. Watercooled engines are much
more tolerant of this extra heat, but with modern fuels many people are
finding that aircooled engines are already producing as much heat as
they can handle. More is NOT better.
My main concern is this: How can I adjust a Bosch L-Jetronic FI system
to compensate for lean running thanks to gov't-mandated gasahol?
Megasquirt FI may be my only answer.
IIRC, compression is the answer to getting more power from ethanol...
You can run much higher compression ratios on ethanol thanks to it's
resistance to knock. More compression makes for a bigger bang, a
cleaner burn and less heat build up (compared to pre-ignition) Which is
one of the reasons ethanol is popular as a racing fuel.
Happy trails,
Greg Potts
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
1973/74/79 Westfakia Conversion **Bob the Tomato** LY3H
1977 Sunroof Automatic L63H/L90D
http://www.pottsfamily.ca/westfakia
http://www.busesofthecorn.com
On 6-Mar-05, at 6:05 PM, Marc Perdue wrote:
> Nope. I believe ethanol burns cooler. It does, however, have a lower
> BTU content than gasoline and is less volatile and therefore produces
> less power per given volume. Hmmm, this brings up a good point and a
> challenge to my argument. If a fuel is less volatile, does the engine
> have to run hotter to burn it? I've been out of the business too long
> to remember the correct answer to this.
>
> Marc Perdue
>
> Greg Potts wrote:
>
>> Hi Jim,
>>
>> Here in Canada the gov't is pushing to increase the alcohol content of
>> our fuels. Adding 10% more ethanol to the blend frees up 10% of the
>> refinery capacity to produce more gasoline. The target is to get to
>> 30% overall within the next few years, which will reduce the current
>> load on refineries by about 20%.
>>
>> The bad news is that alcohol as an additive burns hotter and produces
>> less power than gasoline. My air-cooled buses are going to hate that.
>>
>> Happy trails,
>>
>> Greg Potts
>> Toronto, Ontario, Canada
>>
>
>
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