Racing fuels

[GrandpaRacer]

You can take the ethanol out with a little mixing and draining. Find a clear container with a drain on the bottom. Fill it to about 3/4 with gas and the rest with water, shake and let it settle. The water will suck out the ethanol and settle on the bottom. Drain the water off and you have ethanol free gas left. John Adams

[dwhitford]

Pure-gas.org lists 27 places in CA where non-ethanol gas is available, in octanes from 91 -110. Considering the size of CA, that's not a lot of availability, but at least it's some.

[GrandpaRacer]

I have only done it to test gas, it works for sure. Watch the gas water line as it moves up when the ethanol gets absorbed in the water. You will end up with 5-8% less gas depending on how much ethanol was in it originally. We have plenty of Granges here to buy good gas so I do not have to do this.
John Adams

[dwhitford]

This removal procedure is quite similar to a test I've used to determine whether any alcohol (of any kind) is in gasoline. I just never considered taking the idea to the next step of actually removing the alky. It certainly should work! In chemical terms, alcohol and water are ''miscible' which means they dissolve one another to become just one more dilute form of alcohol, which floats on the petroleum gasoline.

[DeanFHobart]

You can take the ethanol out with a little mixing and draining. Find a clear container with a drain on the bottom. Fill it to about 3/4 with gas and the rest with water, shake and let it settle. The water will suck out the ethanol and settle on the bottom. Drain the water off and you have ethanol free gas left. John Adams

John,

Does it remove ‘all’ of the ethanol? This is a really good idea.

Deano..................

[GrandpaRacer]

I have not calculated it based on the increase in water volume and decrease in gas vol. when I have tested gas this way the water volume increases dramatically and fast. So I assume if you shook it up a couple times it would get all the ethanol.

[MadProps]

This interests me, fuel is difficult for me to get as well...
Im going to get geeky in theory here, although we want low octane for our low compression race motors, when you remove the alcohol you are also lowering the octane rating of your blended fuel, if this tech trick infact works, it maybe better to start with a higher octane rated ethanol blended fuel so that when you remove the alcohol you are still at an acceptable octane rating with your remaining ethanol free fuel ?

I happen to have a separatory funnel for separating liquids and ebay sells aircraft gasohol testers for $11 to test and be certain you have removed the ethanol, I may investigate further

I just wish there was an easy way to test this octane rating theory

[GrandpaRacer]

The separatory funnel is the perfect tool to demonstrate the process. Take some photos and post them here please!

[MadProps]

The separatory funnel is the perfect tool to demonstrate the process. Take some photos and post them here please!

I will take photos gramps , I am going to use a sparklets water bottle inverted as the fuel settling container, with a hose connected to the separatory funnel

[MadProps]

Does it remove ‘all’ of the ethanol? This is a really good idea.

Deano..................

as well as the gasahol tester...... we can use 3A Molecular Sieve pellets to dry the fuel ... I need to do a little more research yet before I pull the trigger, I have everything but the 3A Molecular Sieve pellets and they are cheap enough, readily available AND REUSEABLE

with the distance I have to drive and fuel used to get to a facility that sells non ethanol, add in the additional cost of non ethanol fuel this is a viable option for me!

[ZUL8TR]

Removing ethanol from E blend fuel will lower the octane of the remaining base gas that usually start around 85 octane. The E based fuels use Ethanol to increase the base octane from to 87, 89, 91, etc. Ethanol has a high base octane around 113 so it is effective in raising the octane of base gas when mixed. But at a 10% Ethanol fuel percentage there is the same amount of ethanol per gallon regardless of octane. So to go from 87 E10 to 91 E10 they have to add other expensive chemicals to raise the octane thus increasing the cost/gallon from E10.

E free fuels use more expensive chemicals than ethanol to raise octane thus E free costs more than E fuel. Ex. I just bought 87 E free at $2.85/gallon compared to $2.28/gallon for E10 both at the same station, the primary difference due to non ethanol chemicals to raise octane .

When you do your ethanol separation experiment how will you determine the remaining E free octane?

[MadProps]

Removing ethanol from E blend fuel will lower the octane of the remaining base gas that usually start around 85 octane. The E based fuels use Ethanol to increase the base octane from to 87, 89, 91, etc. Ethanol has a high base octane around 113 so it is effective in raising the octane of base gas when mixed. But at a 10% Ethanol fuel percentage there is the same amount of ethanol per gallon regardless of octane. So to go from 87 E10 to 91 E10 they have to add other expensive chemicals to raise the octane thus increasing the cost/gallon from E10.

E free fuels use more expensive chemicals than ethanol to raise octane thus E free costs more than E fuel. Ex. I just bought 87 E free at $2.85/gallon compared to $2.28/gallon for E10 both at the same station, the primary difference due to non ethanol chemicals to raise octane .

When you do your ethanol separation experiment how will you determine the remaining E free octane?

I already touched on this and posted about this situation above

Im going to get geeky in theory here, although we want low octane for our low compression race motors, when you remove the alcohol you are also lowering the octane rating of your blended fuel, if this tech trick infact works, it maybe better to start with a higher octane rated ethanol blended fuel so that when you remove the alcohol you are still at an acceptable octane rating with your remaining ethanol free fuel ?

I just wish there was an easy way to test this octane rating theory

its my understanding there is NO way to get a surefire octane rating without very precise and expensive equipment and by some math formulas.
my thought is as I suggested earlier ....... since its recommended our outboard motors prefer lower octane fuels, I suggested start with higher octane rated fuel prior to the separation so you are still at an acceptable octane rating with your remaining ethanol free fuel ?

edit: I live on the water, and have several outboards to contend with, its not just race motors I have to deal with and why this interests me.
I actually was drying out the exhaust chamber of the neighbors chainsaw today, he couldnt pull start it, seemed locked up unless you remove the spark plug, it was the exhaust was blocked with water from bad fuel, the motor couldnt breath and I do find I have to rebuild more carbs from water issues, not everyone uses fuel treatment grrrrrrr despite E15 is pretty much the option, just like the OP's situation in Calif where he cant buy non ethanol

so if it comes down to a little lower octane or water and alcohol in the fuel, its no real contest in some situations.
if I started off with highest octane prior to separation, I dont know that it would even be necessary but I've read articles and there are octane boosters that have been dyno tested by HotRod Magazine and others that do infact increase octane and help to prevent detonation.

Im no chemist, only know what Ive read but I'm willing to test and although I wont go this far, I suppose to get really geeky one could have a sample sent to the state labs for octane testing

[ZUL8TR]

Yes I see that now and credit is yours for posting first, so I just added a bit more.
Rather sophisticated test to determine octane in fuel.

[Dave Cofone]

My brother's son is involved in collegiate rowing, when he was rowing in highschool we were involved with repairing the rowing shells and also helping during practice. For those that may not know you run specially designed chase boats that are powered by outboards. The fuel situation got so bad that they actually started buying spare carburetors. The fuel would actually collect more water just sitting in the tanks because alcohol attract moisture. Sitting in a marina there is no lack of moisture. They would swap out a clogged up carb with a spare and then rebuild the bad carb. That carb would then go into a rotation to keep the chase boats running. Ethenol has no place in boating of any kind....

[MadProps]

ethanol extraction experiment

[GrandpaRacer]

Excellent report! Thank you.
John Adams

[GrandpaRacer]

It would be interesting to use a club’s fuel tester to determine if the drying step is needed. Maybe take samples before and after drying to a race for testing. Another test would be after removing the water and alcohol in the separator tube, let it sit for another 24 hours to see if more water settles out in the bottom.

[MadProps]

It would be interesting to use a club’s fuel tester to determine if the drying step is needed. Maybe take samples before and after drying to a race for testing. Another test would be after removing the water and alcohol in the separator tube, let it sit for another 24 hours to see if more water settles out in the bottom.

agreed might not be necessary....in this state looks no different than looking in our fuel tanks and seeing beads of water in the bottom, it was mention earlier in the thread that drying was required so you know if I didnt test drying it would be considered the failure point of the experiment.
I will look into testing the samples to see if the drying is really required

[KG4]

I used to use sunoco 110 in my 102 and she loved it.