Targett3997
YaBB Newbies
Offline
'04 Thumper Humper!!!
Posts: 12
Jackson, GA
Gender:
|
Ok, so I am in the business of selling wholesale gasoline.
Fact: E-10 will corrode plastics and rubbers. It occurs mostly in vehicles older than 1980, but it does not crystallize. It will clean metals though. The inside of gas tanks have to be cleaned or very closely monitored for this, most stations utilize ethanol filters in the pumps which will slow almost to a stop the flow of gasoline if trash or phase separation is starting to form or occur. It helps the stores keep you from getting bad product.
On the other hand high octane branded fuels have a lot of additives in them. These can crystallize over a long period of time. This usually happens in vehicles or gas cans that sit over a long period of time.
If you leave a carb sitting over the entire winter without cranking it, you can have several things happen. One the additives will start to gum up and allow things to stick, it isn't the gas that is going bad but rather the additives.(you can actually smell the difference in the gas, the gas itself is still good and will burn) Two you can get moisture in your carb from condensation and this will cause crystals to form inside the carb. Last time I saw this was with a boat carburetor, and it looked like two black potato chips were in the bowl.
Also, Ethanol WILL mix with water. When this happens it will cause phase separation. This is bad and WILL cause problems. The problem is that the ethanol in gasoline does not 100% bond with all the gasoline in the mixture leaving some ethanol to be able to bond with other molecules, most commonly water. If this happens then the ethanol that is mixed with the gas will fill in the gaps of the bonding with water causing it to be heavy and fall out of the mixture too. This looks like having oil and water in a jar, and hence the name phase separation. The stabilizers take up this space left for molecule bonding, it won’t prevent it completely, but it will help. There used to be a you tube video of someone doing an experiment with this, not sure if it still there or not.( I have an experiment that I do for customers, I will take some pictures of the process of phase separation and post them when I get a chance.)
My suggestions (opinion only) are, over the off-season fill your tank with a lower octane rated gas that has fewer additives. I also like to use an ethanol stabilizer, like the marine sta-bil.
If you are going to leave it sitting without starting it, then it might be a good idea to put some “no fog solution” in the carb. Anyone have thoughts on this? I haven't done it to my bike before, but knowing what it does, don't think it would be a bad idea, but I ride my bike year round.
Hope this at least helps everyone understand a little more about the gas thy use…I prefer to use a higher octane just because of the cleaning properties, but every few tanks I go back to an 87. This pattern seems to run well in my bike.
|