Ethenol has been in our gas for about a year or more now who revived this thread? Invigorate's the new BP slogan for some Crap they are mixing in it now!

 

Thought you weren't suppose to run ethanol with the Z?

 

i thought a vehicle had to be engineered specifically to run on ethanol. Guess i need to get out from under this rock more often

 

There is a difference between E85 which is mostly ethanol and regular gas with 10% ethanol. Gas with 10% ethanol has been around for years, before many of you were born. It is E85 that needs to go into special cars. GM's Flex fuel cars come to mind. While some will contend that Gas with 10% Ethanol is not good for your car in the long run, most will say it is perfectly safe.

 

well there's no choice where I'm at. All gas stations in the Chicagoland area have a sign posted "May contain up to 10% ethanol". At least there is 93 octane.

 

It’s federally mandated and has been for years..... We have been putting it in our cars for several years.

It is only for the winter months generally and only applies to urban areas.

 

Well don't know bout Texas but if we've been running 10% for years I guess there should be no worry about putting it into our Z's. By the way, most if not all of us will at one point replace the engine (or rebuild, for you performance junkies out there) way before the 10% ethanol damages the engine, and that's if it even does

 

In Missouri it just became manditory in 2008 I believe. It's been a law for years that gas stations didn't have to label it, and there fore the switchover to E10 being mandatory had no effect because people weren't aware and still aren't.

I read an article stating that E10 produced almost 4% less energy than regular unleaded gasoline. I'd rather get 100% gasoline that makes more power and gets better mileage and won't cause any damage or corrosion...but everything in MO is E10....why can't we just drill oil in frickin Alaska already?!

 

https://my350z.com/forum/the-lounge-off-topic/362416-ethanol-more-hurt-than-help.html

 

Not surprised...I've seen cars at a Nissan stealership with fawked up injectors, oxygen sensors (more common), and even a fuel pump, from using E85. E10 probably isn't as bad, but still more corrosive than regular gasoline! I never knew about the carbon build up though...POS ethanol

 

Isn't E85 85% ethanol? That is only for flex fuel cars. I can't imagine anyone using that in a Z.

 

i can. there are some misinformed people out there that actually think this makes the car perform better.

poor Z's

 

Very true... it's rather sad. But I was actually just referring to Nissans in general. I Think I only saw one Z suffering damage from E85 and it had a bad oxygen sensor.

 

Characterizing them as misinformed is far too lenient.

 

Because the manual specifies no more than 5% ethanol, I've been seeking out stations that do not have "The sticker" So far, the only stations that do not claim 10% ethanol are on the conoco-phillips distributorship.

 

People would probably try to stick diesel in there too -- if the hose/nozzel wasn't a different size!

 

Most BP stations here in MD don't add ethanol to their gas (or at least, they don't tell you about it). They do put in 'Invigorate' but that appears to be a type of detergent.

 

Ethanol is perfectly safe for the Z and other cars out there as E10 mix. Ethanol is very mildly corrosive. You guys are probably thinking about methanol which is very corrosive. Either one is perfectly fine for performance. as long as your fuel system components can handle it. In fact, ethanol boosts your effective octane since it has much higher octane than regular gas. Generally, when you run ethanol, the parts that you should be concerned are plastics and certain kinds of rubber that can swell from exposure or dissolve. But the ethanol content would have to be pretty high. Since Ethanol is a highly oxygenated fuel, it's good for performance. Your economy takes a dip because of the extra oxygen content. The ECU delivers more fuel to maintain the correct AFR. Over time as you drive, the ECU determines long term fuel trims and adjusts the open loop fueling to match the fuel you're using so no, you won't run lean with it, maybe for a brief initial moment after the ECU reset and that is if you do that and go WOT immediately after.

You most definitely cannot run E85 on a stock Z. The injectors are probably too small and the ECU would most likely max out the closed loop fuel trims trying to compensate. You'd run uber lean and probably break something under moderate load. As for E10, just pump it and don't even worry about it. It's actually has good knock suppression so running it in warm months of the year is beneficial when you will probably have higher likelihood of detonation. Also, alcohol is a good internal engine cleaner. That's another nice benefit. It actually cleans your fuel system as it passes through. Pretty cool.

 

in fact ethenol helps on carbon not building up due to it's cleaning factors in the engine as well. only factor that Ziggyrama mentioned are the facts that it can eat its way through plastic or certain kinds of rubber if it were more concentrated. thats about it.

 

Anyone who supports turning our food supply in to fuel needs their head checked.

But politics aside, E10 will run fine in any consumer automobile that demands regular gasoline. It still has to meet the octane specifications.