Gas mileage/how to increase gas mileage on a 72 Maverick grabber 302

sounds like canada is not doing enough corn subsidies for you guys!!!:16suspect

 

I wish ethanol was more common around here too I would be more then happy to use it.

Granted since ethanol has a lower energy content then gasoline you find a 15-20% decrese in fuel economy in comparison to gasoline on an flex fuel vehicle, but you also average a 15% decrease in cost for ethanol so you really arent loosing much over standard gas. But you are getting a better octane rating then standard gas also.

And unlike gasoline the more we invest in it and the more efficient it becomes the cost of it goes....down. And most importantly we dont have investors worried about a war a couple thousand miles away to dictate how much it costs to fill up at the pump.

 

Ethanol creates a ton of problems up here in the cold weather. I believe thats why we dont have a big push on it up here. The car makers dont like it in the vehicles. Creates very unhappy customers. Bit of water sitting in your fuel tank then add ethanol and freezing temps. Not good and hard to diagnose. We fight with it every winter. Our so called 10% limit in our fuel is crap. I've measured over 20% in a customers car.

 

Then explain why the price of corn has gone thru the roof since we started using the stuff in our gasoline ? Sure, it may not be made from the same corn, but you've conviently left out the fact that acreage from food stuff corn is now planted in feed corn now to produce enthanol. It's not pipelined due to the fact that pipelines aren't water proofed enough to gaurantee water not getting into the ethanol. It's got nothing to do with the economics of running a pipeline for it. That and the uncertainty of the subsidies combined are why it's not pipelined. The only pipeline ever subsidized for oil and oil products was in WWII when the first long distance line was run from Texas to New Jersey to do an end run on the German sinkings of our tankers off the east coast. Even then I've never heard that it was. Our government now certainly isn't subsidizing petroleum pipelines, right now they're blocking a major pipeline from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast that would all but end our dependence on foreign oil. Corrosion in an engine from ethanol blends is due to the material used in the fuel system being corroded from the moisture in the ethanol. To say that this never happens is ludicrous. If a fuel system is designed from the get go for ethanol blends, that's one thing. But using it in one that's not is another story.

 

Oh and I just used ethanol blended gasoline in the wife's 2008 T&C minivan (4.0 Liter V6, 6 speed transmission) while towing our small camper(2400 lb) this weekend. MIleage? 7.5 mpg GREAT STUFF !!!

 

This high grade fertilizer is polluting the water table down stream to highly dangers level killing animal and plant life.

 

So how much of a blend was it?
The 4.0 engine for 2008 is not a flex fuel vehicle so it is not tuned to run E85 or E50 so if you did a large ethanol percentage like that it would show you where the horrible fuel economy came from. The only chrystler T&C engine in 2008 that is a flex fuel vehicle and designed to run ethanol in large ammounts is the 3.3L

Of course there is the little fact that there is a 10%-20% blend of ethanol in any fuel you buy nationwide. It has been in there since before 2008(this is a result of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007)
So now how does this blended fuel differ then your normal blended fuel? Sorry just trying to help your arguement?

 

Around here it's anywhere from E15 to E85 and it's rerely if ever labeled on the gas pump. The refinery where I pickup fuel for our bulk plant has either E85 or conventional gasoline (less than 5% ethanol) They tell us our gas has no ethanol but in reality, any blend less than 5% is considered "conventional" straight gasoline. But if you leave it in a pan in the open air while it's humid here, it will turn milky white in a few minute's time from the ethanol absorbing the moisture. The small company branded fuel is the only fuel that's not mandated to have ethanol mixed with it, for the time being. All the major's fuel is an ethanol blend now.

 

The reason food prices have risen - like clothes, cars and everything else is because the fuel prices have risen. Transportation costs have had a dynamic effect on consumer prices across the board (with the exception of housing)
There are pipelines that run all over the USA that carry gas and oil products. They were laid down in the 30s with all the other jobs made to end the depression. One of them blew up in Washington (the state) a few years ago leveling an entire neighborhood. It was being used for gasoline at the time.
All the pipes are supposed to be airtight - they hold several hundreds of pounds of pressure per square inch so yes, they are air tight - until they fail and then people die.
I have seen no evidence that farmers are converting acrage from food stuffs to ethanol production - do you have a source?
Was towing the extra weight what caused the fuel consumption or the use of ethanol in a vehicle that is not designed for it?
Your computer was looking for less oxygen at the sensors and kept feeding alcohol to get mixture it was looking for from gas.
Are you going to flush out your fuel system so it doesn't rust away now?

 

Pipelines were ALL laid down in the 1930's ? Actually, very few even existed then. Corn prices rose well before fuel did. And at the same time ethanol requirements came into play. The van's mileage was both a result of the trailer towing and the ethanol in the fuel.

 

Rthomas, the fertilizer from ethanol production is not polluting anything - it is completely safe - even if you dumped it into the stream - the fish could eat it.

Baddad, you need to look up the history of the pipelines in the USA. Between 1901 and 1907 president Theo. Roosevelt broke up the monopoly of Atlantic oil Co. The Hepburn Act of 1906 brought the pipelines that had existed since the last of the 19th century under the control of the ICC. In 1941 the ICC valuation of the pipelines brought fees under the control of the Feds. Later in the 1940s the Atlantic Refining Consent Decree unified the oil supply so that if catastrophy hit one company the others could pick up the flow of products.
Yes, there are later pipelines that have been and continue to be unpopular but most of the infrastructure is buried and forgotten about until one ruptures.
You know as little about the oil and gas infrastructure as you do about ethanol. NASCAR has been making 800+ HP for the last two years and getting similar mileage to the racing fuel they were using before, all in the same 358 cu. in. engines.

 

I've forgotten more about oil and gas infrastructure than you'll ever learn. Pipelines are unpopular ? Really ! They probably are in Washington State. Not here. We're still builing them down here, I know of at least 6 major pipelines that have gone in in the past4-5 years, here and elsewhere. You cannot drive more than 5 miles on any highway before crossing one. Put all that product being transported on the road in trucks and you'd never get thru the congestion. Pipelines are the most economical way to move petroluem products, period. I haul fuel, oil and chemicals. I've worked around drilling rigs, frac jobs. Worked offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. The pipelines you referenced ? Those have long since ceased to be used, they out lived their usefulness 50 years ago. Theyre still in the ground, rotting because it's too expensive to dig em up. Bottom line is, remove the ethanol subsidies and mandates and lets see where the market takes it. It will not go far before it's out of the marketplace. It like steam locomotives are far too labor intensive to be economical without subsidies. The corn has to be grown, harvested, transported, processed, loaded into railcars, transported, transloaded into trucks, transported (again) unloaded into tanks, then finally mixed, then transported (again) to the gas station you but it from, there it's very likely to get some water mixed with it while sitting in the tanks before you buy it. With gasoline, the well is drilled, placed into production, the oil mostly flows thru a pipeline to the refinery (most but not all) processed, then most, flows back into a pipeline (like those that run from Texas to New Jersey as one example) to a tank terminal where it's loaded into a truck, then transported (less than 50 miles in most instances) to the gas station. And all of the jobs involved with oil and gas pay well above what those do involving ethanol.