Ethanol

[coachcw]

joe gibbs treatment is killer , but for small stuff i just get non ethonal fuel

[mazama]

As Reidus posted I use the blue STARTRON fuel stabilizer,Honda dealer recommended it,i have esed fuel up to 6-8 months later in lawnmower and chainsaw.

[thinkingman]

Granger in Issaquah for the generator fuel and small engine fuel plus Sta-Bil. I doubt I use 10 gal a year so price is not a concern.

[jackelope]

Thanks guys. Planning to pack my 5 gallon can along next time I'm going anywhere near issaquah.

[Caseknife]

I'm a tech at Colville Motorsports and we go through carburetors all the time.  I have no problem telling customers to use non-ethanol fuel in their small engines.  The extra paid for the fuel is way less than the cost of going through the carbs each spring if the machine sits a lot.  If you are going to burn the fuel out in a weekend, use regular pump gas, but if it is going to sit, use non-eth.  We also believe highly in Startron and sell a boatload of it.  Non-ethanol fuel doesn't seem to affect the newer fuel injected machines, that we have seen, but I am starting to have my doubts with drivability issues that can't be explained otherwise.

[bearpaw]

I have a huge inventory of motorized equipment for our business, we used to have trouble every year with engines of all types, autos, chainsaws, lawnmowers, weed cutters, snowmobiles, utv's, atv's, etc. We started using non-ethinol fuel about 8 years ago and putting startron in during storage. Another thing we do with most carburetored small engines is turn off the fuel and run the engine until the carb runs out of fuel and the engine quits. This combination of preventative actions has eliminated almost all our problems and has saved us a small fortune in mechanic bills.

[luckyman]

After rebuilding or replacing several small engine carburetors I went to non ethanol ONLY in small engines.
I have a car that has the average mpg screen, it always stay at 24.5. I tried the ethanol free in it to see how it ran since the price is higher then premium. It right away jumped to 16 and stayed there through a few tanks. Didn't seem to run any better that I could tell. After returning to ethanol blend it went down to 24.5 where it normally is.

That's because production vehicles have spark timing set for use with ethanol fuels. Ethanol burns quicker so spark timing and heat produced by the spark are all set to ignite the alcohol not the gas. If I remember correctly you would need to open the plug gap and retard the ignition point to see the difference. Otherwise you get partial ignition leading to poor mpg.

Sent from my LG-K425 using Tapatalk

Thats a typo, sorry should read 26mpg with non ethanol. An increase of 1.5 mpg but no noticeable throttle response improvement.

[Kittman]

I have a huge inventory of motorized equipment for our business, we used to have trouble every year with engines of all types, autos, chainsaws, lawnmowers, weed cutters, snowmobiles, utv's, atv's, etc. We started using non-ethinol fuel about 8 years ago and putting startron in during storage. Another thing we do with most carburetored small engines is turn off the fuel and run the engine until the carb runs out of fuel and the engine quits. This combination of preventative actions has eliminated almost all our problems and has saved us a small fortune in mechanic bills.

It sounds like your Campjacks are kept pretty busy.

[Kittman]

Conspiracy EPA theories aside, Ethanol in the fuel does have certain advantages as it helps to eliminate spark ping or knock which reduces detonation or pre-ignition which is very destructive to automotive engines.  Smoother running power makes engines last much longer than they used to.  You just can not let the stuff sit too long or the formulated gasoline begins to breakdown & separate then causes problems.