I have been running denatured alcohol in my car for the last year or so, but I'm sick of paying $8/gallon. I can get E85 or E98 pretty easily here in MN for $2-$5/gallon. Are there any drawbacks to running this, versus straight denatured alcohol?

 

C'mon, anyone?

I bought 2 gallons of E98 ($4/gallon) last night and mixed half-gallon of it with denatured alcohol that was left in my tank. Logs indicate everything normal, but the car kinda feels like it has more in it now. Side note, E98 smells like tequila, and really makes me nauseous ( I HATE tequila!!).

 

E85 = 85 ethanol + 15 gas

the gas part will damage the wetted polymeric parts in the injection system.

 

We have had 3 pumps go bad recently, all of them were running E85. We tell our customers not to run E85. I would suspect that shurflo pumps dont work well with it. I have not had the pumps back to look inside.

David

 

I have an aquamist kit, how is it the pumps can withstand methanol and not gasoline?

I'm trying out E98, only 2% gasoline. This should reduce the risk to damage to the pump, no?

 

the parts affected are the valves(EPDM) and diaphragm(santoprene) in the shurflo pump and seals in the solenoid valve

methanol and ethanol = alcohols - R-OH
gas = hydrocarbon

 

Noooo! Talk to Richard_L. This is a no-no because of incompatibility with the EPDM internals on the kit. I ran some denatured alcohol through my HFS-5 kit that had trace amounts of gasoline in it (probably from a contaminated drum pump or the drum itself) and it swelled the seals in the HSV and caused the kit to stop working in the middle of a road course session. Richard was able to revive the HSV by flushing it with methanol and running compressed air through it, but it still stopped the kit cold. Thank goodness for the failsafe. Nothing but 100% meth from a sealed container for me after that.

 

Well I did more research, and I thought forever that the Klean-strip SLX Denatured Alcohol that I have been running for the past 16 months was 99% ethyl alcohol, but in fact it is even better!

45-50% Methanol
45-50% Ethyl Alcohol
1-4% Methyl isobutyl ketone

No wonder I love this stuff so much, I'm dumping out my E98 blend and going back to just straight alky. Thank you for the advice guys!

 

Actually, SLX isn't recommended either for Aquamist kits:

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...ed#post4846096

 

Good to know, but I ran it in my SMC kit for about 14 months without issue. Those are not even supposed to see methanol, so I'm feeling fairly safe using it now.

The main issue for me is Methanol, I cannot get it anywere that is remotely convenient for me.

 

the flojets in the smc will work fine for methanol. they are just designed for used in high pressure applications like meth injection

 

Scheides,

I cannot recommend using antyform of hrdrocarbon (at any %) with the HFS-xx system. The HSV is a very expensive part to replace.

EPDM has tendency to absorb hydrocarbons and swell up. The loft of the HSV is around 0.020", any swell will either reduce the flow or cause complete blockage.

Check this link on chemical compatibility on rubbers:

http://www.fluoro.co.jp/product/material-e.html
http://www.coleparmer.com/techinfo/t...ableGloves.htm
http://www.polymerprocessing.com/polymers/alpha.html
http://mdmetric.com/tech/rbrcompat1.htm

 

which pumps are compatible with hydrocarbons

 

This is a pretty old thread...you're running E85 in your alky tank? Or in your gas tank, i.e. 100% of the time?