How does ethanol in gas affect 356 engine/fuel system?

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John Clarke
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Re: New Gas here in the UK from Today

#106 Post by John Clarke »

Thanks for the Heads Up Hugo. We have the Esso brand nearby.
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Jules Dielen
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Re: New Gas here in the UK from Today

#107 Post by Jules Dielen »

Fuels with ethanol suck when you car is stored during the off season (aka summer here in Phoenix). It will separate and will leave sludge in your carb bowls. Try to run a tank of 'non E' fuel before you store it
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Re: New Gas here in the UK from Today

#108 Post by Ken Tuvman »

How about mixing in some 100 LL Av Gas
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Re: New Gas here in the UK from Today

#109 Post by Graham Kerr »

Every tank of gas I put in my 356 or 911 gets a quantity of VP ethanol shield fuel additive. It may be just jungle juice but it doesn't cost a lot and it must help some way. Porsche under their classic parts now market a fuel stabiliser which I haven't tried yet, however if you get the premium fuel at the pumps I believe that will only have 5% ethanol in the mix. I buy my VP additive from Demon Tweeks up in Wrexham.
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Re: New Gas here in the UK from Today

#110 Post by Harlan Halsey »

I thought the ethanol foolishness was only here in the US, and only maintained because of the farm lobby. I thought that studies had shown that ethanol overall did not reduce carbon emissions, and was a colossal mistake. I wonder where the UK gets its ethanol? Surely they don't have the vast corn fields we do to drill for motor fuel.

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Re: New Gas here in the UK from Today

#111 Post by Robin Walker »

I run all three of my Porsches on alcohol containing fuel, all of them have the latest type of flexible fuel hoses and seem to run OK, although the 10% alcohol fuel in the 356C does seem to evaporate more quickly from the float chambers. All three cars are relatively low compression ratio of 8.5:1 apart from the 924 which is 9:1. The MFI 911S with half a tank full of 5% alcohol fuel in it was in store for 5 months last year and started on the button when I collected it.
All three cars have been driven in France over the past ten or more years using their 85E10 essence fuel and all have run well on it.

As a thought, what did the country of Brasil do to their VW Beetles when they had no option but to run on 100% Alcohol fuel as they had (still have?) no hydrocarbon fuels?

All I can say is, all speed to the development of the fully synthetic fuels made from atmospheric CO2 which if possible could solve the fuel problems for our automobiles and aircraft and help the global emissions of Carbon dioxide, time will tell, until then we have to put up with our Governments Gesture Politics.
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Re: How does ethanol in gas affect 356 engine/fuel system?

#112 Post by John Clarke »

As David mentions, that Ethanol 'Does Not Play Well' with gas. Can it be removed or filtered off using some process before filling our tanks ?
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Re: How does ethanol in gas affect 356 engine/fuel system?

#113 Post by David Jones »

If you feel very lucky you could build a still then heat it up to 78*C or 173*F and boil the ethanol off. I would not recommend it.
Last edited by David Jones on Tue Sep 07, 2021 4:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How does ethanol in gas affect 356 engine/fuel system?

#114 Post by Martin Benade »

Could be very exciting!
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Re: New Gas here in the UK from Today

#115 Post by Tim Dawson »

Graham Kerr wrote: Thu Sep 02, 2021 3:51 am Every tank of gas I put in my 356 or 911 gets a quantity of VP ethanol shield fuel additive. It may be just jungle juice but it doesn't cost a lot and it must help some way. Porsche under their classic parts now market a fuel stabiliser which I haven't tried yet, however if you get the premium fuel at the pumps I believe that will only have 5% ethanol in the mix. I buy my VP additive from Demon Tweeks up in Wrexham.
To clarify, Graham, do you use it with the 10% ethanol fuel? I have Tetraboost (from Classic Oils) for my vintage car, but haven't used it yet in the 356. It's about £35 for 945mls treating 120 litres, so about +20p per litre. It's also a lead additive and claims 'ethanol protection' too.

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Re: How does ethanol in gas affect 356 engine/fuel system?

#116 Post by Brian R Adams »

Tim,

Is there no ethanol-free petrol to be had in your region? That's the base to start with, even if you still add elixers. Since "blue gas" (the pump color code) arrived here, that's all I run in the 356, as it performs noticeably better in my stock Zenith-equipped Super engine. Here they add about a ten percent surcharge for it over the price of "regular" gas at today's prices.

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Re: How does ethanol in gas affect 356 engine/fuel system?

#117 Post by Tim Dawson »

Brian R Adams wrote: Sun Nov 21, 2021 2:24 pm Tim,

Is there no ethanol-free petrol to be had in your region? That's the base to start with, even if you still add elixers. Since "blue gas" (the pump color code) arrived here, that's all I run in the 356, as it performs noticeably better in my stock Zenith-equipped Super engine. Here they add about a ten percent surcharge for it over the price of "regular" gas at today's prices.

Brian
It's a bit confusing! At my local Esso garage it has 'E5' on the premium pump. When you read the Esso website it says that that fuel has no ethanol in it, so it's actually 'blue gas'. I've been using that fuel. But, it seems that the ethanol free fuel will not be available indefinitely. I was talking a bit hypothetically.....I was interested to know if we can we safely use E10 + an additive as an alternative. If you were touring in Europe and can't find E5 or 'blue gas', is there a safe alternative? Tetraboost, for instance, is both an octane booster and an ethanol protector, so in theory that should be ok?

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Re: How does ethanol in gas affect 356 engine/fuel system?

#118 Post by David Jones »

Tim, I am somewhat confused by your description of the gasoline you have available but to my knowledge as we have no "blue gas" in the states that I have seen I am going to assume it is just another marketing variation on unleaded gas/petrol. Does it say on the pump as it states on pumps over here that it "may contain" then the amount of ethanol? If so then the number quoted is as it says the maximum of w=ethanol it may contain. In general it should work just fine in a 356 except for the possible long term effects causing degradation of components in contact with the fuel that are not compatible with ethanol. One of the reasons that ethanol attacks for instance mild steel is because it is hygroscopic the water it absorbs can cause rusting of the inside of unprotected fuel lines and of course the ethanol dries out rubber lines that are not compatible. As far as it affecting the running of the engine it should not in theory do much of anything at 5% but at 10% it may lean ot the mixture enough that you may need to up the size of your pilot/idle jet.You amy notice a slight decrease in gas mileage as well. We in the USA have been dealing with 10% ethanol for 3 decades and personally I have not suffered more than a few instances of issues related to the ethanol addition.
You may also want to take not that petrol in the UK is still sold by the octane rating that has been in use there for many decades whereas in the US we us the AKI rating. If you check your drivers manual you will see that for instance in the 356C the fuel that is recommended is 94 ROZ for a "C" and 96 ROZ for an SC. Just substitute RON for ROZ and you are good to go. In the USA 99 ROZ or RON is equivalent to 93 AKI which is probably overkill for the majority of 356's. My big bore engines are happy on 87 octane and 35 * max advance.
I use no additives at any time, not even Stabil or the like in winter but if you contemplate long term storage it may well help but you would be better off finding a friend with an airplane and buying a tankful of avgas 100 ll, but fill the tank so there is less room for any significant volume of air that could contain moisture that would condense out and settle at the bottom of the tank.
Last edited by David Jones on Tue Nov 23, 2021 9:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How does ethanol in gas affect 356 engine/fuel system?

#119 Post by Brian R Adams »

David Jones wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 11:12 am Tim, I am somewhat confused by your description of the gasoline you have available but to my knowledge as we have no "blue gas" in the states that I have seen I am going to assume it is just another marketing variation on unleaded gas/petrol. Does it say on the pump as it states on pumps over here that it "may contain" then the amount of ethanol?
David, true ethanol-free gas is widely if not universally available in the USA. My common road trip traverses the states of NV, OR and ID wherein ethanol-free is easy to find. The "blue gas" moniker I admit is misleading, as that's the color code employed by the Maverik chain of retail stations, which seem ubiquitous in the western USA now. It is true ethanol-free gas, and I can tell the difference in my 356 even compared to "summer blend" E10 here in NV.

In the UK "blue gas" will have no meaning whatsoever, so I regret introducing the term here. FWIW I read that in the UK a green pump denotes gasoline, whereas in the USA green denotes diesel. Yikes!

Here is an interactive map presented by Pure-Gas.org purporting to show all the stations selling ethanol-free gas in the USA and Canada:
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Pure-Gas.jpg
Pure-Gas.jpg (361.39 KiB) Viewed 6751 times
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Re: How does ethanol in gas affect 356 engine/fuel system?

#120 Post by Martin Benade »

How is that identified? Here in Ohio all stations have only the choice of octane- three flavors, with some alcohol. Everything I run seems happy enough in spite of most other people’s hatred of alcohol in gasoline.
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