What is the best brand of fuel, is ethanol safe to use?

[KillingMachineOne]

Okay, I am getting about 21-22 mpg in my '90 Camry, I am using a local gas station that claims to not have Ethanol in their fuel. I have been using this station because the last car I had, 93 Ford Crown Victoria would not run on any gas that said "May contain up to 10% ethanol". Now I do not run around with the overdrive on all the time because I can not stand how it acts "coming off the line", I have read where people suggest that to increase mileage. My question is, what is the best brand of fuel, Grade to use for efficiency and if it is safe to use ethanol in my Camry and also if any kind of cleaner would help. Any advice would be helpful, Thanks.

[white90dx]

Originally Posted by KillingMachineOne

Okay, I am getting about 21-22 mpg in my '90 Camry, I am using a local gas station that claims to not have Ethanol in their fuel. I have been using this station because the last car I had, 93 Ford Crown Victoria would not run on any gas that said "May contain up to 10% ethanol". Now I do not run around with the overdrive on all the time because I can not stand how it acts "coming off the line", I have read where people suggest that to increase mileage. My question is, what is the best brand of fuel, Grade to use for efficiency and if it is safe to use ethanol in my Camry and also if any kind of cleaner would help. Any advice would be helpful, Thanks.

It shouldn't matter much which gas you use in your Camry. As long as it isn't pinging, use the lowest grade that works. Gas with small amounts of ethanol might lower your gas mileage a bit, but should run just fine (I use 76 on my cars, which in CA uses ethanol as the oxygenate).

Unless you are driving around town all the time, there is probably something else wrong with your car. Check the other threads around about bad gas mileage to see what you can do about it... (like, spark plugs, wires, cap, rotor, fuel filter, replace clogged cats, tire pressure, alignment, etc.)

Also, the "O/D Off" button shouldn't effect how the car takes off from a stop. All it does is keep the car out of 4th gear and should only affect highway mileage. The "PWR" button simply holds gears a bit longer and will lower gas mileage slightly around town but not on the highway.

-Charlie

[aych]

speaking abuot ethanol gas, and since you're here charlie. if i turbo up my camry, it should need 91-94 octane right? however, can I use some 89 or even lower octane with blended ethanol?

[white90dx]

Originally Posted by aych

speaking abuot ethanol gas, and since you're here charlie. if i turbo up my camry, it should need 91-94 octane right? however, can I use some 89 or even lower octane with blended ethanol?

You are going to spend hundreds/thousands to turbo your car and then you are going to try to save <10% on your gas by cheaping out on the grade? Bad idea. Enough old Camrys ping on 87 octane that I don't think you can consider running less than 91 octane with a turbo on there.

-Charlie

[Kep]

The politicians got us on the ethanol gas. The 10% should work just fine in your car but, if you're like me, you will notice a greater than 10% reduction in your mileage (I figured out once that I used about 1.2 gals of 10% ethanol to go the same 30 miles that I used to go on 1 gal of "pure" gas. That's about 1.08 gal "pure" gas + 0.12 gal ethanol so I was using about .08 gal more gas plus paying for .2 gal fuel. Wasting both gas and money!! )

By the way, the E85 stuff will not work in your engine. Some of the newer cars are specially timed and calibrated for it but not us.

Kep

[jasonck08]

Sorry Kep, but if you got 10% less mileage with a 10% ethanol blend, that isn't because of the ethanol its for some other reason. Ethanol contains 35% less energy than the equivalent amount of gas. So if its a 10% blend, then you should be seeing a 3.5% decrease in MPG, no more, no less.

I have been doing a few MPG tests over the past month. So far I have used crappy gas stations (like the cheapest around) and I've also used cheveron a couple times. Both times I have used chevron, I seem to get about 1-3MPG's more than with cheap gas. I'm still testing everything though...

Also, there is no difference in the actual gas. The difference is in the fuel additave. Cheveron, 76, texico, shell and a few others are known as the "top tier" when it comes to gas. They use higher quality fuel additives and exceed government regulations. Using these companies fuel will keep your engine cleaner over the long run.

[Kep]

I see your numbers and I can't explain mine. I would love to be able to get 30 - 40 gals of straight unleaded gas here in Houston to run a few tankfuls and verify.

Kep

[white90dx]

The <15% ethanol gas that is out there is for cleaner emissions, not for better mileage or to get us of 'foreign oil' or whatever. All cars since the mid 80's were mandated to be able to run on up to 10% or 20% ethanol without damaging the fuel system. Of course, that doesn't mean that they have to run as well on it though...

California could use MTBE instead of ethanol until it was found that it polluted groundwater. Gotta love our government and government agencies...

-Charlie

[Kep]

I did have one other thought on this today. While the amount of energy in the blend is only 3.5% less, the engine is "tuned" to run on "pure" gas. When you change the detonation characteristics of a fuel you should also change the timing of the engine so that the spark occurs at the appropriate point of compression to maximize utilization of the energy in the fuel. So not only am I running a 3.5% less efficient fuel, my engine is not timed to use it efficiently so it further reduces my potential mileage (hence the 10%+ loss that I seem to be experiencing.

Sharkbite86 had a thread (Bad MPG and hesitation on 90 4cyl help!) where this came up before. atobe pointed out that the 3sfe had a 9.3:1 compression ratio and that ethanol ran better at an 11:1 ratio. white90dx replied that if you bumped up the ignition timing about 2-4 degrees that it might do better (but listen for knocking and reduce if necessary).

Just out of curiosity, does anyone reading this happen to live where they can get either “pure” gas or the 10% ethanol blend? It would be great to get some real life numbers from the same car in a close time frame.

Kep

[jasonck08]

Hi, that is possible about the engine timing but a little hard to believe that it would be giving you 10% worse gas mileage. You have to remember ethanol is a higher octane fuel, so is essentially boosting the octane of the fuel altogether. Ethanol itself is usually rated at ~110 octane.

The higher the octane the more pressure required to explode the fuel, so it should be giving your more compression and power (very slight bit) similar to dumping a bottle of octane booster in your gas.

I'm unaware if the gas companies use lower octane gas and mix it with higher octane ethanol to get the standard "87, 89, and 91" octane ratings. But if they do not, the 110 octane blend at ~10% mixed with 87 octane gas would give you about 89 octane fuel.

I remember someone saying that "76" gas stations only use 5% Ethanol. If this is true, their gas will give you more MPG than others using 10-15%.

If your thinking about advancing the timing, I would do it a very little bit at a time. Not from 9.3 to 11:1.

Hope this helps!

[white90dx]

Originally Posted by jasonck08

Hi, that is possible about the engine timing but a little hard to believe that it would be giving you 10% worse gas mileage. You have to remember ethanol is a higher octane fuel, so is essentially boosting the octane of the fuel altogether. Ethanol itself is usually rated at ~110 octane.

Whoa, lots of misinformation here... Octane has nothing to do with the energy content of the fuel. Water has a very high octane rating - how much energy do you get out of it when it burns? Higher octane fuel only give better gas mileage if the car is designed to take advantage of it.

Originally Posted by jasonck08

The higher the octane the more pressure required to explode the fuel, so it should be giving your more compression and power (very slight bit) similar to dumping a bottle of octane booster in your gas.

Higher octane does not necessarily require higher pressure to ignite. The main issue is the speed that the flame front travels. Octane booster will not add to your gas mileage unless your car is designed to take advantage of it and you do not already have the right fuel in there. Also, most octane boosters only add 0.1 to 0.3 'points' to the octane rating.

Originally Posted by jasonck08

I'm unaware if the gas companies use lower octane gas and mix it with higher octane ethanol to get the standard "87, 89, and 91" octane ratings. But if they do not, the 110 octane blend at ~10% mixed with 87 octane gas would give you about 89 octane fuel.

Ethanol blend fuels take into account the ethanol content of the fuel when mixing for a certain octane rating. 87 fuel with ethanol will have the same (R+M)/2 octane rating than 87 octane with another forumulation. Also, ethanol octane rating is much worse when mixed or in lower concentrations - that is, it does not give quite the expected octane boost you would get by just doing a weighted average of the ethanol and gas mixture.

Originally Posted by jasonck08

I remember someone saying that "76" gas stations only use 5% Ethanol. If this is true, their gas will give you more MPG than others using 10-15%.

The ethanol content changes depending on the seasonal blend and state/local regulations. Be careful of making any statements like this.

Originally Posted by jasonck08

If your thinking about advancing the timing, I would do it a very little bit at a time. Not from 9.3 to 11:1.

Hope this helps!

You are confusing compression ratio with timing. You cannot change the compression ratio of a motor without changing internal engine components. You can change the base timing of a motor by simply adjusting the distributor. A stock 3s-fe runs 10* base timing and 9.3:1 compression ratio. Running higher octane fuel with more timing advance might give more power or mileage, but it depends on many factors...

Hope that helps.

-Charlie

[Kep]

Charlie, any chance that you know whether a 5SFE has the same 10* base timing and 9.3:1 compression ration?

Thanks,
Kep

[jasonck08]

Originally Posted by white90dx

Whoa, lots of misinformation here... Octane has nothing to do with the energy content of the fuel. Water has a very high octane rating - how much energy do you get out of it when it burns? Higher octane fuel only give better gas mileage if the car is designed to take advantage of it.

I know Octane has nothing to do with energy content. I never said anything like that, I was just stating that ethanol has ~35% less energy than gas, but is 110 octane. And I agree, if the engine has the right compression then higher octane does make a difference, otherwise its wasted money.

Originally Posted by white90dx

Higher octane does not necessarily require higher pressure to ignite. The main issue is the speed that the flame front travels. Octane booster will not add to your gas mileage unless your car is designed to take advantage of it and you do not already have the right fuel in there. Also, most octane boosters only add 0.1 to 0.3 'points' to the octane rating.

Originally Posted by http://news.carjunky.com/gas_mileage/octane-feeling-the-pressure-cdh126.shtml

“The octane rating displayed on gas pumps tell how much fuel can be compressed before it randomly ignites. This ignition by compression rather than a spark is a hazardous thing because it can cause an engine knock, and this knocking can damage an engine extensively. The lower the octane rating, the less amount of compression it can handle before igniting.”

I never said octane booster will add to your gas mileage. I don’t know where you get that from. I was simply stating that adding ethanol to fuel would be similar to adding octane booster, because both boost the octane by a couple numbers. Please read my statements more carefully.

Originally Posted by white90dx

The ethanol content changes depending on the seasonal blend and state/local regulations. Be careful of making any statements like this.

I am very careful about making statements like this. That is why I said someone else told me they called 76 and they said they add 5%. I’m not stating that is 100% fact, but it is possible. It might vary from area to area or season to season.

It seems like you interpreted a lot of what I stated incorrectly. Read things over carefully next time…

[white90dx]

Originally Posted by Kep

Charlie, any chance that you know whether a 5SFE has the same 10* base timing and 9.3:1 compression ration?

Thanks,
Kep

It does have the same base timing, but the compression may have been bumped up to 9.5:1.

-Charlie

[white90dx]

Originally Posted by jasonck08

It seems like you interpreted a lot of what I stated incorrectly. Read things over carefully next time…

You did get a couple things truely wrong - I'm sorry for letting that cloud my judgement about the rest of your post.

Keep in mind that an engine without adaptive spark control (like the 3s-fe) could very easily loose efficiency with higher octane. Also, the octane rating system we use in the US doesn't always capture how fuel will release energy on a particular motor. You can't just say that the same octane rating will have the same results. I guess my overall point is that this is a complicated problem - the answer is "it depends"...

I wouldn't put C16 race fuel in my stock 3s-fe Camry, just as I wouldn't put 89 or 91 in there unless it was pinging. I wouldn't put anything less than 91 in my JDM 3s-gte, and 100 octane pump gas makes it run perfectly but that fuel would cause huge problems in my 3s-fe Camry... If I was building a high-revving high-compression Honda motor, I would be using VP C16-import, designed with high octane (anti-knock) but faster burn characteristics than its 116 octane rating would indicate. If I was building a supercharged big-block Chevy, I might use 112 octane leaded race gas - slower burning for a low revving motor... different fuels, different purposes...

So, in the end, try it out - if it works for you, keep it up - if not, try something else.

-Charlie