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I know that it was common in olde times to use Methyl alky to start tractors, and that methanol was a common additive to gas in small quantities. However, the advent of the ethanol mandate in 2004-ish changed from Methyl to Ethel, and expanded greatly from a small focused population, and limited takes and dates to nation wide deployment. Ethyl alky wasn't common in car fuels until the 70s when a lot of companies started trying to meet new fed emission standards. As I recall, the Methyl version had fewer problems with cars/trucks/tractors maybe because less free Hyd? Been a long time...

hacker-pschorr

Methanol is highly corrosive and requires special fuel lines. The hoses in my 81 are NHRA certified for Methanol (wasn't necessary, just what I ended up with).

Such requirement are not needed in racing where pure Ethanol is used.

My point was, alcohol in many forms finds its way into fuel outside of the e10 or e15 mandates as an oxygen agent. I'm not sure how alcohol compares to ethers in this discussion....

Oxygenates (from Wiki)

Alcohols:
Methanol (MeOH)
Ethanol (EtOH)
Isopropyl alcohol (IPA)
n-butanol (BuOH)
Gasoline grade t-butanol (GTBA)

Ethers:
Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), now outlawed in many states of the U.S. for road use, mostly because of water contamination.
Tertiary amyl methyl ether (TAME)
Tertiary hexyl methyl ether (THEME)
Ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE)
Tertiary amyl ethyl ether (TAEE)
Diisopropyl ether (DIPE)

polecat702

The Ethanol, we blend into our gasoline at our fuel racks, is the same corn Alcohol that is distilled for Whiskey. It isn't filtered for drinking, so it's pretty dirty. I've heard that a couple of our drivers used a carbon filter process, and drank some cut with fruit juice.

They got pretty wasted, and are still driving for us. So I don't think blending it in our gas, is gonna destroy the fuel lines in our cars.

hacker-pschorr

DonaldBuswell

My S4 from Ethanol.



Fuel line from tank



Dissected fuel line from Fuel tank



Fuel line compresses and is mushy.

hacker-pschorr

Sorry, but you have no way of knowing that is from 10% (max) ethanol in pump gas.

As I stated above, some areas have dumped some nasty stuff through the pumps, so bad engine block coatings were eaten away & we know for a fact the culprit there was not ethanol.

Also stated above, alcohol to some extent has been a part of fuel mixtures for decades. Long before the EPA regulation for 10%, your "E-Free" fuel could have had 10% alcohol of some kind in it (which would have the same negative effect as e-10).

mike77

Porsche recommend a maximum of 5% bioethanol for our cars

https://www.porsche.com/uk/aboutpors...-05-23-classic

polecat702

Anyone living in the Western U.S., isn't going to get gas with less than 10% ethanol, unless they buy racing fuel, or aviation gas. It's blended at the rack where the tankers load for retail delivery.

DonaldBuswell

And you don't know either, what I do know is the fuel lines were mush, period. I do know Ethanol does horrible things to fuel systems.

polecat702

Donald, I'm in the business. One of my clients, owns the Pilot/Flying J, Travel Centers, and our own refineries.

If ethanol, was a problem at 10% in blended fuels, we'd have lawsuits up the wazoo. Years ago, there were problems when the government mandated the elimination of lead out of gasoline.

A couple of times tanker drivers, have pulled a hot load. That's where the rack loaded the 10% ethanol, then the rack had a problem, the driver pulled off the rack, switched to another lane, reprogramed the rack to load the trk, less the 10%, but the rack loaded another 10% on top of the ethanol already in the tanker. 20% ethanol in the load instead of 10%. With todays computer controlled cars you'll never notice it. All the gas in storage is stored without ethanol. It's loaded first in the tanker, then the 84 octane is loaded, the ethanol, brings the octane rating up to 87, for regular. Mid grade is a blend of premium, and regular for 89, and premium, is 89 with 10% ethanol for 91.

Top Tier, has a detergent package added based on the brand of gasoline. The racks have different brands on the different lanes at the rack. Then there are what's called community lanes. This is the gas that's sold at COSTCO, 7-11, that type of station. Chevron, Shell, ARCO, those types of stations have their trade named additives added automatically when the driver selects the product at the rack.

All the gas is the same gas, in the pipe line that goes to Kinder Morgan, Rebel, Pro Petroleum, ETC. The only difference is the name of the supplier ( the tank farm), and the broker's account. The price changes, everyday at 6pm.

I've been in the business for over 30 years, and I know how it's produced from the well to the tank in your vehicle.

Diesel, is a completely different animal. It's allocated by the government. There's Bio Diesel, low sulphur diesel, strait diesel, blended diesel, winterized, and artic diesel, plus some others.

hacker-pschorr

We convert cars to run E85 including a local 928. If ethanol was dissolving fuel systems at 10% we'd have complete & total failure at 85%.

So yes, I do know a thing or two about running ethanol in 928's. I'll be converting one of mine to e85.

FredR

Force fed or N/A?

Rgds

Fred

FredR

Donald,

That hose looks as though it has been in there about 15 years longer than it should have been. I trust the rest of your hoses are in somewhat better shape. That kind of condition is what I expect to see after hoses have been exposed to hot oily vapours like in the breather system.

I change my fuel hoses about every 10 years irrespective of visual condition. The alternative is to fit something like the kit GB produces and then forget about it altogether. That hose of yours is of course a stock item and it is in that condition because no one has intervened until your goodself as the current owner.

Right now in your position I would be wondering what else is in such a crappy condition irrespective of "why" - which in itself is interesting but somewhat lower down the priority tree I would politely suggest.

Rgds

Fred

DonaldBuswell

Let me clarify, Ethanol does not dissolve fuel systems, or cause issue by itself. Introducing Ethanol into our fuels encourages other factors to destroy our systems. I have many motorcycles, lawnmowers, and small engined devices with carburetors. On pump gas, they all run horribly, and suffer fuel hose damages such as mushy lines - exactly what my 928S4 showed as I illustrated above. As a result, we see fueling stations are now offering Ethanol-free fuels. To mitigate this before these sparsely populated Ethanol-free choices, I used and use VP C-12, with my own internal mixture; a little bit of 2 stroke oil with a little bit of pump gas and a little bit of fuel additive to mitigate Ethanol after-effects (which I think is horse manure as the only mitigation is remove it from the fuels and go back to eating our corn vs. the heavy subsidies Farmers get to grow corn for gasoline). This 'brew' works wonderfully in my WR450f, my riding lawnmower, my push mower, my 1970 300 HP440, and would be splendid in my S4 but a very impractical fuel - and expensive - thus the Precision Motorwerks lines in which I will acquire so when I can't locate Ethanol-free pumps I can and will run our food sources through the lines.

And, sadly, I do know the fuels are mixed in the trucks, and in the tanks, and, I am pretty certain the truckers may not give two hoots on ultimate destination of the fuels as they need to be refilled in 2 days or so. Same way with Tow-Truck operators, all on the shady side of ethics - as long as one knows this they are effective if needed as an ally.

Wisconsin Joe

What "other factors" are you talking about?

The ethanol is very hard on fuel lines in cars from the 70s (and earlier). Anything since the early 80s has fuel lines that are not affected.

I've run E10 in my cars since it became common. Small engines too, both 4-stroke and 2-stroke. No problems at all.