Sunbeam Alpine: The truth about Ethanol

[Tim R]

I'm not sure if this will be of interest in the U.S. or not but here in the U.K. they are forcing ethanol into our petrol. Currently we tend to run our Alpines of E5 (much of which actually has zero ethanol in it and all of it is less than 5% ethanol). Mainstream fuel is E10 and in Europe they use E15.
We had an interesting time speaking with long term Alpine owner and petrochemical engineer Trevor Hibdige (Exxon / Esso) about ethanol in our fuel. Trevor has a history of racing Triumph TR3s and Lotus Europas and has had his Alpine for over 12 years. As a result of what he told us we will store classic cars differently in future.
My own worse experience with the stuff was when ethanol 'inundated' the float in the carb and caused it to sink. When the float sinks, the valve stays open and petrol just keeps on flowing......not good.
Tim R

 

[Alpine 1789]

Very interesting, Tim. Thanks for posting this. For many of us in the States, E10 is all that is readily available and it has been that way for quite some time. There is a very handy app and website called PureGas.org that tracks stations offering non-ethanol fuel, but availability can be spotty and - at least where I live now - it is very expensive. Almost all pumps here say the gas can be up to 10% ethanol, but there is no way to know what the actual content is. Interestingly, I was in Wisconsin a few weeks ago and noticed a sign at a pump that said all premium fuel was ethanol-free, along with the usual 10% sticker. I only run premium in my SV but have no idea whether that is generally better from an ethanol perspective or not.

 

[spmdr]

This may not be related to the ethanol content of gas BUT...

The timing fits,

A while back, I concluded the gas has changed.

In the early days, you could count on gas "gumming up"

the fuel system, if it sat for a long time.

Then gas became "more pure", in that it no longer "gummed up"

the fuel system, at least to the degree it use to.

If you let it stand open to the air, it would evaporate

quite completely, in fairly short order.

These days, gas tends to "gum up" carbs again!

It tends to evaporate quickly AND leave a residue

that "gums up" moving parts.

So, YES, run your carb as dry as you can when parking

the car, if you can.


Leaving gas in the carb can be a considerable problem with Webers,

That have accelerator pump pistons that are spring

loaded and cannot be forced to move by the throttle movement.

YMMV

DW