Adventure Bike Rider Forum

Eh?, had what running out the exhaust?

With all this talk of ethanol in fuel would anyone recommend any of these fuel stabilizers that are available or are they just a con?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from ... r&_sacat=0

lets say you run the bike on methanol--with a little bit of nitro added--introducing oxygen in liquid form is sort of supercharging--BUT you have to dump in more fuel (for the hydrocarbons) to make use of it--hence the fuel consumption goes up.(on old carb bikes bore out the main jet with an 1/8th drill!) A litre of fuel with 10 % ethanol contains less hydrocarbons than a litre of normal fuel--you have to inject a bit more to get the same energy release quantity--vastly oversimplified but thats my take on it.

what are the true benefits of e10 as It doesn't burn cleaner, it isn't more efficient, it does mix easily with petrol, but it doesn't want to stay mixed with petrol. It absorbes water which in turn helps to rot your tank from the inisde from the condensation etc it will absorb and in turn will form gunks and crap in the fuel system, but saying that in most service maunauls now and owners books on newer bikes it states to use e10 as the everyday feul. but it does give less power and less economy. the reason it isnt used on older bikes is the fact it eats away at rubbers and seals on the older bikes and causes issue over a period of time. but personally i would rather be changing out a eaten seal than changing out a eaten tank and sorting all the problems in the feul line etc that will come with it over time.
is this just an econmy boost for the eu so they can in turn take over more land to growing grains and crops and make it a wide spread sale on the market milking money from the trade it will incur over time more sugar cane feilds more potatoes being grown saying that it may infact give the uk a boost aswell due to one of our biggest exports being potatoes . now that would be funny we shall grow potatoes sweet potatoes and sugar canes sell to another country which inturn turns it into ethanol and sells it us back for twice as much as fuel .

I don't know the truth of it, but I read that France is still producing the same amount of undrinkable wine that caused the wine lakes in the past, thanks to the common agricultural policy of guaranteed prices. The surplus wine is now being converted into petrol to get rid of it ! E10 ??

Stay away from high ethanol content if you can. Causes lots of issues.

Alcohol in fuel.
Ethanol absorbs water , which regualr petrol does not, so in damp conditions you end up with water in the fuel , admittedly it is dissolved , but it still causes corrosion in carburated bikes with alloy carbs. Ethanol attacks brass so not good for the jets in Carburetors.

Modern fuel injected bikes with plastic fuel system parts are ok on it , on older bikes its a no no . So no alcohol at all , 5%, but definitely not 10% for older bikes . Alcohol in fuel also causes some petrol tanks to swell. See https://www.ducatiforum.co.uk/threads/e ... nks.49584/ for example.

Methanol / ethanol does give more power than petrol, or can do so in the correct circumstances. On old speedway bikes , they used to run a 1/8 drill through the main jet , yes you do need that much fuel to deliver the extra power. Alcohol is anti-knock , it will stand a compression ratio of about 15:1 so it is added to petrol to increase the octane rating cheaply.
From the net :
Will ethanol fuel improve my MPG?

Eh… no. Because a gallon of ethanol contains less energy when burned than a gallon of gasoline, ethanol yields lower fuel economy than gasoline. Cars using E10 will generally see MPG reduce by 3 or 4%; FFVs operating on E85 may see a drop of up to 30%.

Recent investigations by WhatCar? have suggested that E10 could cause a reduction in fuel economy and increase fuel spend.
All in all it's not great.

also when leaving the bike unused for some time us the super unleaded to help reduce these problems

I have been taking my K bikes to France for a few years.

Early 80s fuel injection systems......they run on 5% ethanol ok, 10% ethanol less well, noticeable power drop, noticeable change in fuel consumption. 15% ethanol they hate the stuff, its horrid and sometimes its all you can get in which case as son as the tank is down a bit you are topping off with 5% or 10% ethanol.

The thing is a joke because upping ethanol from 5% to 10% seems to increase fuel consumption by at least 5% on them.

Ethanol addition was invented by the Americans to give the mid west corn farmers something to grow for--and we are perpetuating the non green bullshit.