Car Hesitant- I Fueled Up With Super Unleaded/99RON

[Cyker]

Yeah, the UP TO is the key.

E10 can have anything from 0 to 10% ethanol, and is usually 5-7%.

E5 can have anything from 0-5% but seems to usually be 2-4%, although Esso's is well known to have 0% in most areas (At least up to September, when the'll be falling in line with everyone else)

 

[Guest]

I usually buy local Shell E5 (up to 5%) for my 60+ years old Classic, and being fussy with too much time on my hands, use the mixing with water method to extract the Ethanol (not in the fuel tank, but 5 litre glass jars!).

Once the contents have settled out, two jars, shaken, not stirred, left overnight, there's barely any Ethanol in the fuel. What there is can actually be seen in the interface between water and Petrol. It's awful looking stuff.

[Trewithy]

On 6/28/2023 at 6:57 PM, Paul john said:

I always thought E10 was 10% Ethanol and E5 was 5% Ethanol. 
thank you for the clarification. 

The 10% and 5% figures are the maximum allowed ethanol content but the actual concentration may be less than this.

[Cyker]

On 6/29/2023 at 10:32 AM, olonas said:

I usually buy local Shell E5 (up to 5%) for my 60+ years old Classic, and being fussy with too much time on my hands, use the mixing with water method to extract the Ethanol (not in the fuel tank, but 5 litre glass jars!).

Once the contents have settled out, two jars, shaken, not stirred, left overnight, there's barely any Ethanol in the fuel. What there is can actually be seen in the interface between water and Petrol. It's awful looking stuff.

Are you adding some sort of octane booster to that? Removing the ethanol will lower the octane rating of the fuel, so be careful!.

[Guest]

18 hours ago, Cyker said:

Are you adding some sort of octane booster to that? Removing the ethanol will lower the octane rating of the fuel, so be careful!.

Yes, Millers VSPe, adds  two Octane numbers, allegedly.

 

[AisinW]

On 6/30/2023 at 9:33 PM, Cyker said:

Are you adding some sort of octane booster to that? Removing the ethanol will lower the octane rating of the fuel, so be careful!.

No, it has nothing to do with the ethanol contents.  Either E10, E5 has different rating of octane depends on the quality of the petroleum itself.  If it has 100% Iso-octane, than it is AKI100 without the need of octane enhancher, but most gasoline contains Heptane that lower the octane number.  There are many kinds of octane improval and much better than Ethanol, but more expensive.  So, even ethanol has higher antiknocking index, it has 30% less energy, and can cause lean burn if it is too much and the ECU cannot compensate. Lean burn increase engine temperature, NOx, and offcourse not good for the head gaskets, catalytic converter, etc.  That's why many manufacturers including Toyota rejects the 15% ethanol, E15 damage that are sold in some states in the USA.  It benefits the subsidised Corn Farmer in the USA-CORN-BELT Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Michigan Minnesota Missouri Nebraska North Dakota Ohio South Dakota Wisconsin.   I must empty the gas tank on all of my gardening tools or the carburator and fuel system will be corroded and damaged over the winter from ethanol corrosion effects.  More ethanol = worse fuel. 

Do not buy any snake oil/ Octane booster. It often contaminate the spark plugs, catalytic converter, and often not good for the injectors.  Octane booster is a thing in the past when we do not have catalytic converter, ECU, and other kinds of emission controls.  It is way cheaper to get Premium fuel RON 105 or Shell V intead of any additives.  The detergent in Shell-V and premium fuel sometimes double than the Super95, it can offset the hard to burn/higher octane if our car is not designed for it.  So, just get the cheapest Super95 that many people refuel on that stations.  Newer fuel is always better than old standing stock fuel. 

[Guest]

19 hours ago, AisinW said:

catalytic converter, and often not good for the injectors. 

On a 60 years old car?

 

19 hours ago, AisinW said:

So, just get the cheapest Super95 that many people refuel on that stations.

On a 60 years old car intended to use 4 star, or higher, Petrol. 5 star was available back in the day too? https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/august-1978/85/five-star-petrol/

It's E.C.U. really struggles with 95RON. I wonder if that's because it uses valves (vacuum tubes)?

[AisinW]

Only fools these days adding snake oil like octane booster.  I occasionally filled my old lexus ES that required AKI89 with regular AKI87 and it worked just fined on normal acceleration. Only at full throttle gorilla mode, i can feel a bit less pull.  But no knocking or pinging.  The ECU can handle it. 

[Cyker]

Well it depends - It'd be pointless adding it to my Mk4's tank or an Aygo or something, but my friend's old Subaru needed high octane fuel because of its tune, so he'd always carry some octane booster just in case he couldn't get any super. With older cars, esp. using fuel with the ethanol removed, some octane booster or lead-replacement additive is probably a good idea since the ethanol *is* the octane booster now.

It's funny, as if not for the stupidity of those in charge and greed of industry at the time, we likely would have been using ethanol as the octane booster all along - It's only because of the people pushing tetra-ethyl lead as being a superior and safe alternative that we ended up giving everyone minor brain damage well into the 1990's...!

That almost all of them died from lead poisoning was rather ironic I though...

 

[Rhymes with Paris]

My old 1979 Moto Morini 500 Strada motorbike needed miller's lead replacement and octane booster to run right ,after the only petrol station  selling 4 star leaded had to stop.

But then it was only used sparingly on high days and classic runs.

For the bikers, and ex bikers on here,it had right foot gear change, and left foot kick start, bit tricky for a right footed skinny bloke.

It was a in line V twin,air cooled.

No ring de ding ding two stroke piloted by bootless, gloveless,shorts and trainers and giant helmet wearing,foot dragging, monosyllabic young gentleman on these.

 

[Guest]

John is correct, call me foolish, but an Octane booster should not be needed for a modern car.

I am referring to a 60 years old car that is designed to run on 4 star fuel. As Paul points out, that is no longer available. And as Cyker has correctly written, removing the vegetables lowers the Octane rating. Hence, why I add a "booster" to the fuel sans vegetables.

"Fuel economy

Ethanol contains approximately 34% less energy per unit volume than gasoline, and therefore in theory, burning pure ethanol in a vehicle reduces range per unit measure by 34%, given the same fuel economy, compared to burning pure gasoline. However, since ethanol has a higher octane rating, the engine can be made more efficient by raising its compression ratio"

https://mnbiofuels.org/media-mba/blog/item/1511-octane-and-ethanol-for-beginners

I also add lead substitute because it's been removed from the fuel. Older engines, with "softer" valve seats need the lead to protect them. Conversion to lead free is possible by having hardened valve seats fitted. However, it's cheaper to use the "snake oil" than the cost of that.

 

[Guest]

And this old banger does need "snake oil" that this "fool" supplies.

No diagnosics from that control unit either.

The stray red and black wires are a Battery maintainer. Shock horror, positive earth too. Maybe that's why a code reader doesn't work?