Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Originally Posted By: oldhp
You would not believe the difference using 91 octane E-ZERO fuel in either vehicle. Some will say its the higher octane, but they run no different on 89/93 octane E-10 fuel.
Yes, I would think it would be the octane, and not the lack of ethanol, responsible for the performance difference.
We have a few E0 stations around here, but they sell only 87 octane E0. I tried three tankfuls in a row in my Ridgeline. Disappointingly, it ran like 87 octane E10. Which is to say, it runs "fine", but the engine has a real edge to it when you use 93 octane, and that's what we use all the time in both of our vehicles.
Unfortunately, 87 octane E0 was giving me the performance of regular at the price of mid grade. So I went back to using 93 octane E10.
It's that crazy butt dyno at work again. E0 should have given you better gas mileage because E0 has more btu's per gallon than E10. Ethanol has less btu per gallon so while the cost per gallon is lower, the mileage is worse. If you're close to the corn belt, the lower price of ethanol offsets this, but in other areas like the Northeast where transportation costs are high, it'd cost more to run E85 per mile than just E10. The BTU content of regular 87 vs 93 octane is the same and most engines aren't designed to take advantage of it. Either it's tuned for 87 or 91. If it's tuned for 91, you get worse performance with 87, if it's tuned for 87, adding 93 does nothing.
Originally Posted By: oldhp
You would not believe the difference using 91 octane E-ZERO fuel in either vehicle. Some will say its the higher octane, but they run no different on 89/93 octane E-10 fuel.
Yes, I would think it would be the octane, and not the lack of ethanol, responsible for the performance difference.
We have a few E0 stations around here, but they sell only 87 octane E0. I tried three tankfuls in a row in my Ridgeline. Disappointingly, it ran like 87 octane E10. Which is to say, it runs "fine", but the engine has a real edge to it when you use 93 octane, and that's what we use all the time in both of our vehicles.
Unfortunately, 87 octane E0 was giving me the performance of regular at the price of mid grade. So I went back to using 93 octane E10.
It's that crazy butt dyno at work again. E0 should have given you better gas mileage because E0 has more btu's per gallon than E10. Ethanol has less btu per gallon so while the cost per gallon is lower, the mileage is worse. If you're close to the corn belt, the lower price of ethanol offsets this, but in other areas like the Northeast where transportation costs are high, it'd cost more to run E85 per mile than just E10. The BTU content of regular 87 vs 93 octane is the same and most engines aren't designed to take advantage of it. Either it's tuned for 87 or 91. If it's tuned for 91, you get worse performance with 87, if it's tuned for 87, adding 93 does nothing.