Public Service Announcement: Avoiding Ethanol

[Kube]

It's always good practice to avoid ethanol gas for many reasons. If you drive your early Ford weekly, you'll likely have no problems.

On my small engines, Stihl chainsaws, string trimmer, leaf blower, ethanol gas will destroy the carburetor every year.

On my zero turn lawn mower, Kohler engine, the engine will start almost immediately with pure gas. If I fill up with ethanol, it cranks longer before starting.

I realize that it's very difficult to source pure gas for many folks. I keep 200-300 gallons of pure gas on the farm for all carburetor engines.

Seth, I have to wonder if the issues you have occasionally with your small engines has to do with age of the engines?
I have a Stihl chainsaw and a Toro with 23hp Kohler, a Honda trimmer (4 cycle), etc. They are all within three years of age except the Toro which is about fifteen now.
Never have I experienced any issues and I use nothng but ethanol fuels.

 

[TomT/Williamsburg]

I have said this for years on this board and the HAMB - boats sit a long time with ethanol fuel in the tanks. You wiukd think they have tons of problems - not one that used this stuff:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/3046988479...t3g4tXe2SAZMh2OT6JRSouMA==|tkp:Bk9SR6bAof3OYw

In case the link does not come ip it’s called Yamalube ring free plus fuel additive - if you read the bottle it says it combats the problems associated with erhanol. All you need is a capful at every fill up. That’s it - you’re safe from any problems. Look it up on ebay - I bought the smaller, long neck version first as it’s easier to put in the filler neck. I then just refill it with the larger size - just a dollop every fillup. It’a lot cheaper tgan buying ethanol free gas if you can find it on long trips. I have a bottle in each of my three cars. If yiu have a fuel problem while us this stuff, it’s not because of ethanol gas.

 

[Hitman]

I have said this for years on this board and the HAMB - boats sit a long time with ethanol fuel in the tanks. You wiukd think they have tons of problems - not one that used this stuff:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/3046988479...t3g4tXe2SAZMh2OT6JRSouMA==|tkp:Bk9SR6bAof3OYw

In case the link does not come ip it’s called Yamalube ring free plus fuel additive - if you read the bottle it says it combats the problems associated with erhanol. All you need is a capful at every fill up. That’s it - you’re safe from any problems. Look it up on ebay - I bought the smaller, long neck version first as it’s easier to put in the filler neck. I then just refill it with the larger size - just a dollop every fillup. It’a lot cheaper tgan buying ethanol free gas if you can find it on long trips. I have a bottle in each of my three cars. If yiu have a fuel problem while us this stuff, it’s not because of ethanol gas.

I like how Yamaha mentions the corrosive nature of ethanol in fuel systems, that kind of counters the arm chair analysis of others in this thread. It is corrosive to fuel systems, that's been confirmed over and over. Ethanol's only issue isn't fuel system damage.

My issue with ethanol fuel is the vapor locking. That creates serious drivability issues in the summer. I actually notice a seat of the pants difference in performance with non-ethanol fuels. This is with gravity fuel system cars, not fuel pump cars, which obviously increase the boiling points of the various elements in gas.

For storage, I can manage that. Either drain off the fuel, or drive the cars often.

 

[50fordcoupeman]

Lots of opinions. All good so do what works for each of us. I would say each batch of gas is a little different than the previous batch. As for me, if it has a carb, it gets non-ethanol.