In a cold motor it does raise emissions but its other emissions that are not regulated. It lowers CO2 but raises NO2. Fuel for Thought | Straight Story | Air Quality: Ethanol a clear net benefit

Even when you agree with me your not nice. There is 2 sides to this but because you dont understand it you got to be defensive and resort to name calling.

Here is what the US department of energy thinks about 20 some years ago. http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/DOE/_...533_minner.pdf

 

Your statement:

Is poorly phrased and contains invalid information.

If you want to say "Ethanol Is added to gasoline to reduce emissions during cold starts," you could, but it would be wrong.

Ethanol is mandated to reduce CO at normal operating temperatures. It burns more completely resulting in greater quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) instead of carbon monoxide (CO).

Your statement:

Contradicts your first statement.

If you wanted to say "In a cold motor ethanol raises emissions. Cold start emissions aren't regulated," you could, but it would be wrong. Cold start emissions, whether unburned gasoline or ethanol pollute the same.

If you wanted to say, "In warm engines ethanol lowers CO2 [sic] but raises NO2," you would be correct. But I think you mean CO, not CO2. It actually raises CO2 as the product of more complete combustion owing to the extra oxygen atom in alcohols in a trade-off with CO.

How any of this affects cold starts has not been shown. The number 172F is the boiling point of ethanol. By itself this is meaningless. Gasoline has a boiling point between 100 and 400F. I think summer fuel has a boiling point higher than 200F or it would boil in your tank or in float-bowls on non-EFI cars causing vapor lock. Alcohol's tendency to evaporate/boil is greater than gasoline, not less, giving rise to concerns about vapor lock.

I think there is an argument that pure alcohol requires a different air/fuel mix than gasoline alone. This might be a reason for harder starting using alcohol. In a cold engine running "open loop" the fixed ECU parameters for gasoline could tend to make it harder starting when running 100% alcohol. But at 10% mixtures (E10) I don't think it makes a difference.

Sorry for the use of the term "crap." This was crude and offensive. It seems to have rubbed off on me from DSM's posts.

 

Steve, You can have more emissions and still have lower CO/CO2 because the other emissions are not regulated. Which means the government dont care about them. This subject on ethanol is bigger than premium vs regular. There are 2 sides and its all about money with the emissions being the excuse.

You dont under stand that fuel is sprayed in the motor and only the light ends burn for the first few minutes. You are only burning a percent of the fuel injected until the engine temp get higher to vaporize all the fuel. Ethanol cools and wont vaporize until the boiling point of 172. That is why its hard to start when cool because there is not enough light ends and the fuel trims are set lean because of a hot motor at shut off and the temp correction will not add enough fuel to start so a stumble and 2nd or 3rd crank happens.

I was reading and I see what your trying to say. I still stand by what I said. Flash point of the fuel is the lowest temperature the fuel will produce vapor that is ignitable. Ethanol has a flash point of 61 degrees but that dont mean all the vapor ignites and burns because ethanol cools. Flash point - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Autoignition temperature - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Boiling point - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Ethanol has a much higher flash point than gasoline and is relative to the amount of water it contains...more water, higher flash point. Depending on the variables it will more than likely be the gasoline that starts the car and not the ethanol, especially when it is cold.


A problem with ethanol is it's ability to absorb water.

 

Ethanol is a terrible thing that has been inflicted on the public - it isn't just our engines that suffer, but we pay for it in tax dollars that goes to ethanol subsidies, and we pay for it in food inflation too. Plus our water resources are being consumed in the production of ethanol. Burning our food source up, when we still have other options is just not a smart thing.

Meanwhile, we're finding new sources of oil (which is creating new jobs for people in the country!), and we have plenty of natural gas and coal. Cars are getting more efficient and cleaner (with conventional combustion). There is no need for these crazy emissions standards, when other countries are polluting at will, we all share the same planet. If only government would be responsible with proper energy policies, we'd be all a lot better off.

I point everyone to the bankrupt state of California, so much for CARB and other regulations, that is the worse state in the whole nation financially. All these laws and regulations are not good for jobs or business. A practical approach is what's needed, not all these politics and idealogy that gets us nowhere.

 

Correct, and the cool mornings will cause hard starting and its related to ethanol. Just think about the cold winter mornings when its 0 out side and the car still starts. There is more light end and very low aromatics but in summer blends there is a lot less light ends.

http://www.tsme.org/tsme-icome/tsme-...AEC/AEC018.pdf

 

Other emissions ARE regulated. It's just that in some locals CO is too high requiring oxygenated fuel to reduce CO (and as a result raise CO2). Everything is a tradeoff.

Care about what? CO2, NOx? Of course we care. Everything is a tradeoff.

While I agree there are strong financial motivations to use ethanol, especially from corn producing states, emissions are not an "excuse." Before ethanol was used widely, MTBE was the compound of choice to reduce CO. Your 20 year old cite sings MTBE's praises. But this was before it was discovered contaminating ground water. Everything is a tradeoff.

This might have relevance running E85 or E100 but not E10.

"Fuel trims set lean because of a hot motor at shut off" have nothing to do with cold starts. See DSM's posts. I agree with him.

Bingo: "flashpoint" is the single property that affects cold starts. By itself the flashpoint of ethanol is meaningless, but compare it to the flashpoint of gasoline at -45F. It can be seen from this why starting a car at less than 61 degrees running pure ethanol might be a problem. E10, not so much. Even E85 seems to start OK in cold weather (the 15% of gasoline makes it volatile enough to start cold).

 

Agreed, Ethanol is a touchy subject and in the investigation of ethanol they found out that higher octane gets better mpg. Butanol is a alcohol that can be made from any source and helps mpg. I dont see them requiring it. We dont have a energy policy except use more ethanol before they investigated the problems. The good thing is there is still ethanol free blends and E15 is going to take time to come out and needs a separate marked pump which most stations cant supply. Maybe that's why gas is so high, they need extra money to rebuild the stations and refinery's.

 

"Quote"
"Fuel trims set lean because of a hot motor at shut off" have nothing to do with cold starts. See DSM's posts. I agree with him. "Quote"





The modern ecu is capable of using different fuels and operating conditions. DSM is right to a point but the last known settings is the long term fuel trim used for open loop operations which is full throttle and no throttle and start up. When you tune a car your tune is your fuel trim. That is why Hondata never came out with a tune because the ecu will de-tune it because max power is richer than 14.7. Not saying it cant be tuned but you usually have to add a piggy back ecu or chip connected to original ecu.


Flash point does not mean vaporizing. Its the temp that the fuel can produce a vapor in a controlled environment. The faster the fuel vaporizes the better the mpg because less is wasted. Gasoline has a flash point of -43 which means it can be started at that temp. 61 is not that cold so when its 60 out ethanol wont even produce a vapor.

 

Have to disagree. My reading (and DSM concurs), at cold start, in open loop, STFT and LTFT are not used. The ECU defaults to cold start open-loop maps until it warms up enough for the O2 sensor to work. WOT at operating temperature is a different case.

Personally I think the cold start settings are very lean in the Fit. Didn't someone say something like that in this thread?

Too bad about the gratuitous premium fuel comment. I agree though.

 

If fuel was vaporized before being injected into the combustion chamber we would have extremely efficient cars.

 

http://www.stealth316.com/misc/obdii_fuel_trim.pdf


Its based off the LTFT with temp correction adding, this keeps it lean so not to flood the motor.

I only have a few issues starting, my wife has it every time with regular. I get 40 or so mpg compared to 32 wife's car driving the same route. Same type of car and motor.

 

Vaporizing the fuel before injected is called vapor lock. Heating the fuel under vapor lock will help be more efficient. http://www.legendarycollectorcars.co...clusive-video/


There is new tech that sprays fuel directly into the chamber under extreme pressure that gets better mpg.

 

Thanks G. That's pretty wild and the fact hot rod magazine tested it adds credit to it. I've heard of the magic carb. before but this is different.

 

Smokey Yunick was the master of engine tech, Him and a few others were the pioneers of everything automotive and what we have to day is from some of there works. Henry "Smokey" Yunick -- Fuel vaporizing carburetor system

 

You don't think different cars/drivers might have something to do with it? naw... too simple.

 

Other than saying nothing about cold starts, your link specifically states during open loop fuel trims aren't used.

Would you please read your damn cites once in a while?

Here:

[not nice]Are you blind or just reading impaired?[/not nice]

I will be unpleasant if you continue to post crap.

 

Hey - get off your vendetta.

 

Steve, tell me how the ecu knows what fuel is being used then? Do you get a check engine light when running premium? LTFT are corrected by start up maps and others but its part of Random access memory and a part of start up and all engine operation.

I could of found better info. So yes it needs to be updated. What are fuel trims all about?

 

The engine doesn't know what kind of fuel is being used. The rest of your statement is nonsense.

Lambda (via the O2 sensor) and knock detection are two variables that affect fuel mix and timing. Neither are used at cold start; the O2 sensor doesn't function, and knocking isn't an issue.

Your current cite, while mentioning cold starts, does not show a relationship between LTFT and the fuel mixture used at start up.

Try again.