Non ethanol gas

[nelsb01]

Why doesn't more drivers know about this?

I take a printout with me for every state that I drive my old Ford in.

https://www.pure-gas.org/

[Ernstudet22]

Fortunately there's a place near me that sells 91 no alcohol.
But if you can find a place that has marine gas, it's the same, no alcohol.

[deuce_roadster]

I have an ethanol free gas station 2 miles from my house. I use it in all the things that sit around like Stihl leaf blower, chain saw, hedge trimmer and all 5 of my old fords and 2 Brand X cars. Ethanol has far less energy in it than gasoline and it absorbs moisture out of the air. When I put the ethanol free in my 2023 F150, I get 2 mpg more while normal driving proving there is less energy in the ethanol.

[mrtexas]

Originally Posted by The Art Doctor

Technically the ethanol is anti-knock at 110 octane by itself that is why its run in race cars with high compression. For non-ethanol fuels common "rocket fuel" additives back in the day were benzene, toluene and xylene which all are around 100-120 octane individually. When they were cheap guys would add a gallon of them to the tank of regular to make high-test in areas where it was not available. Now toluene is regulated and hard to find and xylene is over $25 a gallon so its just cheaper to buy premium from the pump rather than mix your own. The octane boosters in a small bottle are nothing more than benzene (naphtha) and a touch of xylene at a huge mark-up.

All modern gasoline has benzen, toluene, and xylene in it. Althought the benzene has been legislated out and refiners remove it intentionally. One major refining process is catalytic reforming to convert the cyclohexane in distilled naphtha to BTX. The 65 octane naphtha is converted to 95-105 octane reformate. Have you heard of chevron's advert of "our gas has platformate"? Yup, chevron's version of catalytic reforming is called platforming and makes platformate(yield of 75%). Refinery I worked in had 1/3 of capacity in reforming. 32 years as chemical engineer in XOM refinery.

[ford38v8]

Our EFV8 Regional Group once had an active member who was a Chemical Engineer for a refinery. A likable guy till the subject came to Ethanol in our old Fords. Seems he had taken a personal role in developing his companies Ethanol products and was proud of his work. Poor guy would almost have a heart attack in defense of Ethanol. I won't name him, but here's a hint: A close relative of his had gained fame on Iwo Jima.

[The Art Doctor]

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Originally Posted by mrtexas

All modern gasoline has benzen, toluene, and xylene in it. Althought the benzene has been legislated out and refiners remove it intentionally. One major refining process is catalytic reforming to convert the cyclohexane in distilled naphtha to BTX. The 65 octane naphtha is converted to 95-105 octane reformate. Have you heard of chevron's advert of "our gas has platformate"? Yup, chevron's version of catalytic reforming is called platforming and makes platformate(yield of 75%). Refinery I worked in had 1/3 of capacity in reforming. 32 years as chemical engineer in XOM refinery.

Nice to hear from someone in the industry. Nearly all my graduate chemistry was focused on materials longevity and identification, so I only know enough about gasoline and the science behind it to be a dangerous hobbyist. The big brain folks certainly can do some amazing stuff with those molecules in the labs.

[hueyhoolihan]

all gasolines, the contents thereof, including octane ratings and ethanol percentages, are regulated by our federal government for defense department reasons. think about it. we can't have superior and inferior gasolines for use by the military in the event of a call to arms, foreign or domestic. and you can bet your bottom dollar that the military doesn't scrimp on quality gasoline for their vehicles. meaning that gasoline, formulated and quality controlled by the government, drawn straight from privately owned oil company storage tanks, and has had nothing added to it by any oil company, is the best.

and if any particular brand of gasoline wants to add something to the gasoline so as to legally permit their multi-hundred million dollar advertising departments with budgets amounting to, on average, about two to three ($200,000,000-$300,000,000) million per oil company per year, to claim superiority is accomplished by THEN tossing in some kind of mumbo-jumbo additive. it's as simple as that.

in the end, it's all the same gasoline with various government mandated octane ratings and ethanol percentages. and then the premium oil companies top it off with their special advertising sauce from their tanks. but the truth is that it simply can't make it better, for if it was the military would have it in their base gasoline formulation to begin with. IOW, the special sauce simply cannot make it better than the government's formulation. as the military would require it in the base gasoline to begin with!

and BTW, fun fact WRT how much our government is willing to pay for the best in military equipment and it's performance...

the price of ONE, repeat ONE, of the best bombers (although it doesn't burn gasoline) in the U.S. Air Force, the B-21, is about $700,000,000.00 dollars. so the chances that the government formulated base gasoline (i.e. the cheap stuff at the discount gas stations) is not the very best available, is practically nil.

[fordor41]

When we had our '41 ford with a sbf 302 i replaced all the fuel lines with ethanol resistant hose. We put 200k+ miles on it and never had any problems listed in above posts. Couple times i pulled the top off the carb to check condition. Not a speck of damage. The ca wouldr sit all winter with whatever gas was left from summer. Jump in, pump it twice and would fire right up