I was reading that you can use a 10% blend in any gasoline engine without modifications or losing the warranty. Has anoyone used this in the Fit and if so what are the pros and cons? Thanks

 

Yes, those of in Massachusetts don't really have a choice but to use 10% ethanol(that I know). Every station has it printed on the pump as 10% Ethanol. I believe it will decrease your mpg slightly, but other than that I do not know of any real cons.

 

Minnesota has had it for several years. Pros are that you'll never have water in your fuel. Con is very slightly lower mileage - unnoticably so.

 

by the way, ethanol is highly corrosive, if you didnt know that. But dont worry about it guys, the ethanol content in current fuels is too low to cuase damage to newer cars. but if you were to run E85, which is rougly 85% ethanol, and 15% gasoline, you would have to replace all your fuel lines, injectors, fuel pump, and fuel tank with materials that are corrosion resistant, ie stainless steel fuel tank and fuel lines, anodized aluminum fuel rails, etc...

other than fuel delivery, stock internals on most engines will run ethanol, gasoline, and even hydrogen gas!(mythbusters ftw!) I have no personal experience with hydrogen, but I've played around with ethanol in small engines. AS mesabe mentioned, running E85 will give you a noticeable decrease in fuel economy, and also a noticeable increase in horsepower. If you check out the specs on the new Chevrolet trucks that are 'flex fuel' vehicles, which can run E85 or gasoline, it specs 2 different sets of mileage, depending on fuel type.

If you're that interested in so called 'flex fuel' vehicles, try googleing "flex fuel" "E85" or "ethanol" and you'll find enough websites and what you to get you busy reading for at least a little while, lollerz

 

Sounds like a pain in the @$$! and not worth it.

 

E85 is garbage it taked about 1.678 gallons of E85 to exqual one gallon of gasoline for BYU output. I was excited about it until i did my research we are better off with the fit and oil than E85 sadly to say.

 

Today (and probably forever), Ethanol makes no sense. The only reason we are forced to use it is agricultural lobbies. Ethanol only has 70% of the energy that gasoline has, which is why you would see a slight MPG decrease with 10% ethanol gasoline.

By the way, there is a good article on Ethanol in the July Car & Driver.

 

The BTU content of alcohol is approximately 25% less that an equal volume of gasoline. What that means in the real world is that you are getting about 2.5% lower fuel economy. On a 40 MPG vehicle that translates to about 1 MPG (no biggie). E85 is an entirely different matter, it results in a 21.25% reduction in fuel economy, suddenly your 40 MPG car under E85 will get 31.5 MPG.

 

It's possible you're putting 10% ethanol into it now and just don't know it. That's the way it is around here. They phased out an additive called MTBE for environmental reasons and ethanol replaced it.

It is possible to run cars completely off of ethanol (they do it in Brazil) but I don't think the US supply could come anywhere close to meeting the demand it would take and thus prices would be much higher than gasoline. Brazil makes it out of sugar cane which has a much higher output than the corn we use.

 

Alcohol has approximately 25% of the BTU content of gasoline. Doing the math, your mileage will suffer about 2.5% with 90% gasoline/10% ethanol mix. The 90/10 mix is mandated by the clear air rules, since the former additive MTBE was found to contaminate ground water supplies and is a known carcinogen. E85 translates to a 21.25% mileage reduction. Your 40mpg car suddenly gets 31.5mpg and doesn't have as much power. There is no such thing as a "free lunch". In terms of fuel BTU values, pound for pound, gasoline is king and this is why it is so hard to displace it with another fuel.

 

Every new technology starts with large subsidies and lobbyists. The technologies are improving as they are finding ways to convert ANY biomass into ethanol. I'm glad people are looking into it. Maybe to run other things like room heaters or something?

After looking around it looks as though on average vehicles get around 25%-30% worse mileage with E85 than on regular unleaded.

 

ethanol also has a higher octane rating than regular gasoline. it is equivilant to 100+ ocatane of regular gas.

heres a great article about the uses of ethanol in racing.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12740848/

in the top gear koenigsegg ccx review, jeremy clarkson says if the car is tuned to run bio-fuel (i am assuming ethanol) it can make over 900bhp.