$1.49 Ethanol Tester - Available locally!

[Mr. Obvious]

I picked up at the local Southern States a 60 cc plastic syringe for $1.49. You can go to your local feed store for animals that also sells animal medicines if you don't have a Southern States.

Don't need the needle either, just the plastic syringe. Its marked in 1 cc increments.

60 cc is nice since you can add 50 cc of gas and 10 cc of water. Then take the #cc increase above the initial 10 of water, double it, and that is the ethanol percentage. Agitate for 5 min to get the most accurate measurement.

You can suck in 50 cc of gas out of a cup and then suck in 10 cc of water out of another cup. Keep your thumb over the bottom to keep from any seeping out while you shake it. The top is sealed by the plunger.

Online I read that this type of test only is 60-80% accurate. My gas raised the level from 10 cc to 14 cc (4 cc increase) which is 8% Ethanol so it seems correct.

 

[JJuday]

Sounds like an quite ordeal just to have a rough guess of how much Ethanol is in your gas. Why not just mix it and run it? Don't tell me that you're in the Ethanol Conspiricy Theory Group!?!?! Are you?

 

[DANOAM]

Sounds like an quite ordeal just to have a rough guess of how much Ethanol is in your gas. Why not just mix it and run it? Don't tell me that you're in the Ethanol Conspiricy Theory Group!?!?! Are you?

Good idea to keep an idea on the ethanol content. They are pushing for 15 percent now, so to me, since now its 10 percent and gas is regularly testing upwards of 12-15 percent. How much will be blended in a "15" percent blend?

 

[Griner Bros.]

Sounds like an quite ordeal just to have a rough guess of how much Ethanol is in your gas. Why not just mix it and run it?

Is it an ordeal to maybe save a $500-$1000 saw ???
Thats rather accurate ......
One builder in Pa. had 5 saws in 2 weeks seized from 20%+ Ethanol ...
The 10% limit is NOT always accurate measure of what is in the pump !!

 

[DANOAM]

I understand that ethanol blended gasoline above 15 percent is death for automotive engined pre 1999.

 

[jeeptj19992001]

Sounds like an quite ordeal just to have a rough guess of how much Ethanol is in your gas. Why not just mix it and run it?

Is it an ordeal to maybe save a $500-$1000 saw ???
Thats rather accurate ......
One builder in Pa. had 5 saws in 2 weeks seized from 20%+ Ethanol ...
The 10% limit is NOT always accurate measure of what is in the pump !!

who is the builder in PA, and what is a builder using chainsaws for?

 

[J.W Younger]

who is the builder in PA, and what is a builder using chainsaws for?

run whatever you want its your ####

 

[Griner Bros.]

who is the builder in PA, and what is a builder using chainsaws for?

Dan Henry ....

This is a chainsaw forum .... Chainsaw Builder ....

 

[JJuday]

You guys do realize that Ethanol, Gasahol, Ethyline, call it what you will has been around in some form or another since the 70's!?!?!

What proof is there to support "it burned up my engine" claims? If I didn't know any better I would assume that Ethanol is bad for everything from chainsaws to marriages! Is nothing immune to the effects of this wonder brew?

I think there might be more evidence to point at poor tuning or straight gassing a saw than to point a Ethanol.

If that was the case though why have we not heard about more people having car and truck engines seizing up?

 

[blsnelling]

It's not the alcohol, it's the lack of proper tuning. The more alcohol, the more fuel is required. The carb must be richened up.

 

[stihltech]

ethanol

The problem with ethanol at 10% is that the saw may run lean. Over 10%, the fuel system is not designed to handle it. Put a little water in the mix (which ethanol attracts) and the alcohol just left the gasoline. Not a problem if the octane was high to begin with. But 89 just became 87 or lower, and 87 is now 85 or lower.
Checking your fuel occasionally could save some bucks in the end, and it is cheap and easy to do.

 

[WetGunPowder]

Ethanol tester

Briggs & Stratton offers one that is glass vile with a decal on it that shows the percentage of ethanol vs gas once it has settled out. Not only works to see how much ethanol your fuel has-It allows you see if your non-ethanol fuel is truly ethanol free. They retail for around $7.00.

 

[guff]

this is my 40:1 mix of stihl hp and bp fuel in north georgia.....says " may contain up to 10% methanol" after an hour, still not fully phase seperated and still cloudy.........way above ten percent on the vile......

now, i always check my fuel before i run it


a couple of puffs of dark smoke in the cut and shut her down to find a scored ehaust side.......she never sounded lean to me.......and i am more upset with myself for not being more careful or aware of what i had not seen to prevent such a kick to ones wallet.......

 

[JJuday]

It's not the alcohol, it's the lack of proper tuning. The more alcohol, the more fuel is required. The carb must be richened up.

The problem with ethanol at 10% is that the saw may run lean. Over 10%, the fuel system is not designed to handle it. Put a little water in the mix (which ethanol attracts) and the alcohol just left the gasoline. Not a problem if the octane was high to begin with. But 89 just became 87 or lower, and 87 is now 85 or lower.
Checking your fuel occasionally could save some bucks in the end, and it is cheap and easy to do.

E-10 is going to increase the overall octane rating by three points. E-85 alone has an octane rating of 105 and pure blends of E-100 can have up to 140 octane. So if you use 89 octane gasoline then you could expect 92+/-.
It may be more accurate to site the need for higher compression ratios becasue octane is relative to compression ratios.

E-100 is 25 to 30% less effecient than premium gasoline. It has 34% less energy per unit of volume than gasoline. So in a manner of speaking you would need 34% more E-100 to do the same amount of work that could be done on one gallon of gas.
By that, E-10 is going to be 3.4% less effecient than gas, but will have a slightly higher octane rating.

I don't think the problem is the how or if the fuel system can handle it, but how the engine is adjusted to get good performance. JJuday

 

[Mr. Obvious]

Where I live (300,000+ population) no pumps say anything about % ethanol. I thought they had to by law. When I travel up north its on the pumps, especially MN.

So I started asking locally at the stations and the person behind the counter usually gives a blank stare and then asks what type of doughnut do you want.

So had to test myself to find out the real story.

Was going to get the $5 Baileys tester but didn't want to wait to get it. Just passing a cheap idea along. More accurate than a magic marker and a canning jar.

Here's why. From the link below, my state and some others do not require labeling.

http://www.fuel-testers.com/state_guide_ethanol_laws.html

 

[Griner Bros.]

Ethanol DOES NOT blend with 2cyl mix ...

It is a solvent to oil mixes ...

Ethanol does mix with straight gas ...

 

[JJuday]

All of this info I just passed on to you is off of wikipedia.com and many other related sites. There are many good sites with tons of info. I surfed till I was blue in the face and still found no real examples of destroyed engines with honest to goodness evidence that ruled out everything but Ethanol. You will go crosseyed reading through all that tech info.

That is not to say that I won't have any concerns about it. I'll just be more careful and pay attention to how the saws run and listen for distinct changes.
Thanks everyone so far for the good info. JJuday

 

[JJuday]

Ethanol DOES NOT blend with 2cyl mix ...

It is a solvent to oil mixes ...

Ethanol does mix with straight gas ...

Ethanol is Ethyl Alcohol and Gasoline mixed together. Ethanol is a solvent and therefore it would mix better with oil. If you don't believe me go to wikipedia and type in solvent, scroll down to the section called solutions and solvation and read it. It gives a good Lehman terms answer to that.

Where there might be some creedence to the above is Ethanol has a greater tendency to attract water, which would explain cloudy looking fuel. Stabilfuel!JJuday.

 

[Aviator]

Ethanol is Ethyl Alcohol and Gasoline mixed together. Ethanol is a solvent and therefore it would mix better with oil. If you don't believe me go to wikipedia and type in solvent, scroll down to the section called solutions and solvation and read it. It gives a good Lehman terms answer to that.

Where there might be some creedence to the above is Ethanol has a greater tendency to attract water, which would explain cloudy looking fuel. Stabilfuel!JJuday.

Ethanol is ethyl alcohol, C2H5OH. Alcohols may be described in either form (methanol/methyl alcohol, propanol/propyl alcohol, etc.). "Gasohol" is a blend of gasoline (itself a blend of a lot of different hydrocarbons) and ethanol, usually 90%/10%.

Alcohols in general not only attract and mix well water, but mix well with oils as well. That's one reason they're such a problem: where gasoline and water would separate out, adding alcohol causes the water and the gasoline to mix. Alcohols in general are good solvents for this very reason.

(If anybody wants, I can explain the why behind all of that, but I'll have to dig out my old Chemistry book to do it.)

 

[ironman_gq]

E-10 is going to increase the overall octane rating by three points. E-85 alone has an octane rating of 105 and pure blends of E-100 can have up to 140 octane. So if you use 89 octane gasoline then you could expect 92+/-.
It may be more accurate to site the need for higher compression ratios becasue octane is relative to compression ratios.

E-100 is 25 to 30% less effecient than premium gasoline. It has 34% less energy per unit of volume than gasoline. So in a manner of speaking you would need 34% more E-100 to do the same amount of work that could be done on one gallon of gas.
By that, E-10 is going to be 3.4% less effecient than gas, but will have a slightly higher octane rating.

I don't think the problem is the how or if the fuel system can handle it, but how the engine is adjusted to get good performance. JJuday

Octane has nothing to do with the compresion ratios (pure octane has a rating of 100 and is a chemical in gasoline). It is a measure of a fuels resistance to compression induced ignition (pinging, dieseling) Fuel that is E10 and rated at 89 octane is still 89 octane its just that the base fuel without the ethanol started out at a lower octane rating.
Higher ethanol content means your engine needs more fuel to run properly but loses power due to ethanols lower energy content so you not only lose power but fuel efficiency. Ethanol also seperates out when it pulls in enough atmospheric moisture which leaves you stuck with a puddle of water in the bottom of your tank as well as a lower octane base stock.