EPA support for 15% ethanol blends - bad news for HPFP

[Why Knot]

What it boils down to (no pun intended) is that we are stuck with the fuel for sale where we live. We can not change the ethanol content, and unless we have a very cooperative retailer we can not check for % ethanol before we purchase fuel, even if we knew how. All we can do is purchase "high quality" fuel and hope for the best. Very sad to have no control over the fate of our engines.

[Evice]

who cares... Things change all the time, it is important how you do to adapt to it. Don't make this a big deal.

[SnowTech.4]

Originally Posted by Add1ct

wow this is getting heated. anyway. I am in my 3rd and last year of law school and I will agree with you on something for sure. While, I think lawyers do some good for society, for the most part I am really believing now that they alone are or will be the single largest cause for the demise of this country. The problem as I see it is that most students that go to law school had some random or bs undergrad major which provides them no real understanding of how the world works, especially scientifically and even more so economically. Being a business major, the first year of law school was almost comical sometimes when these folks would make what they thought were economically plausible arguments, on human behavior for example. Then I realized... wow, no wonder everything's so F**ked up in this country. anyway, this has gone way off topic now, so I'm sure it will be closed down soon.

Hang in there. A freind of mine finished law today. And he does understand how the planet works because he had to work his tail off to do it. You are not alone

Regrading all the heated stuff, I'll just say this. I dont even watch TV anymore because it nothing but useless arguing. And even if everything said was true in that little clipping or whatever, it still re-enforces my point that there are some seriously smart and dedicated people in gov. service in this country. the people the clipping were talking about (truthfully or not) are not the engineers or the scientists, they are the administrators. Big difference. I am a cynic in many ways, but I do take a lot of comfort in the aulity of some of the people who work for us.

In other words, its not all bad, it just looks that way.

And whoever said that about diesel emmisions, I could not agree more. I should not even get started on DPF filters. We work with them a lot. They will get better, but right now its a lot like EGR and catalytic systems back in the late 70s. Primitive.

[WhiteOne]

Are any of the other cars with direct injection having HPFP problems?

Does driving without enough gas hurt the HPFP? (below 1/4 of a tank)

Will one tank of 25% ethanol kill your HPFP?

[ajshanny]

What bothers me about the prospect of an increase in ethanol levels in gasoline is that it is all about the corn industry. It's not about protecting the environment, as I don't believe that the added ethonol makes engines produce less greenhouse gas. The corn industry is the main lobbying force pushing for the policy change.

[jeremyc74]

Originally Posted by ajshanny

What bothers me about the prospect of an increase in ethanol levels in gasoline is that it is all about the corn industry. It's not about protecting the environment, as I don't believe that the added ethonol makes engines produce less greenhouse gas. The corn industry is the main lobbying force pushing for the policy change.

Part of the reason for adding ethanol originally was to remove the MTBE they were using previously, which was getting into ground water supplies and is known to cause cancer. I'm not sure what levels were actually needed to get that done though.

I'm not a huge ethanol supporter, but I don't see any real evidence that it's the reason BMW has so many fuel pump issues.

[spellbmw]

Originally Posted by bradford

lol.

This thread officially sucks.

Definitely sucks. I thought we were discussing the 1er, not political ranting and ravings against this or that political issue.

[jeremyc74]

Originally Posted by spellbmw

Definitely sucks. I thought we were discussing the 1er, not political ranting and ravings against this or that political issue.

The very first post in this thread suggested a political conversation:

Originally Posted by ajshanny

Looks like the EPA is likely to cave into the corn industry lobby and approve ethanol blends up to 15% sometime in the near future. If that happens, we may see additional fuel system failures, so it might be worth while to write the EPA and your congresspersons to express your opinion on this matter.

You can't start things off like that and expect politics to be left out of it.

[SnowTech.4]

Originally Posted by jeremyc74

Part of the reason for adding ethanol originally was to remove the MTBE they were using previously, which was getting into ground water supplies and is known to cause cancer. I'm not sure what levels were actually needed to get that done though.

I'm not a huge ethanol supporter, but I don't see any real evidence that it's the reason BMW has so many fuel pump issues.

Ethanol will reduce emmisions in two ways: One, it burns with far less CO2 emited, and two, it burns much cooler than any gasoline, which reduces NOX emmisions.

One of the mis-conceptions I see a lot is that because your overall mileage goes down when you add ethanol to the gasoline, it is resulting in burning more gasoline. This is not the case. You are burning more fuel, but less gasoline. The ethanol essentially does some of the work that gas was doing. But because of the lower stoichiometric ratio of ethanol compared to gasoline, you do need more liquid volume in order to maintain the same AFR for a given amount of air.


So in terms of the amount of stuff coming out your tail pipe, it does reduce emmisions despite worse mileage. The thing that makes me laugh is that if they would just setup a leaner AFR table in cars stock, then they could negate a ton of the mileage loss (if not all of it) because with the cooler burning ethanol and the high detonation resistance of all alcohols, you dont need to run as rich an AFR to be safe. Long story short, most OEM vehicles run overly rich when they have ethanol mixed fuels in them.

[jeremyc74]

Originally Posted by SnowTech.4

Ethanol will reduce emmisions in two ways: One, it burns with far less CO2 emited, and two, it burns much cooler than any gasoline, which reduces NOX emmisions.

One of the mis-conceptions I see a lot is that because your overall mileage goes down when you add ethanol to the gasoline, it is resulting in burning more gasoline. This is not the case. You are burning more fuel, but less gasoline. The ethanol essentially does some of the work that gas was doing. But because of the lower stoichiometric ratio of ethanol compared to gasoline, you do need more liquid volume in order to maintain the same AFR for a given amount of air.


So in terms of the amount of stuff coming out your tail pipe, it does reduce emmisions despite worse mileage. The thing that makes me laugh is that if they would just setup a leaner AFR table in cars stock, then they could negate a ton of the mileage loss (if not all of it) because with the cooler burning ethanol and the high detonation resistance of all alcohols, you dont need to run as rich an AFR to be safe. Long story short, most OEM vehicles run overly rich when they have ethanol mixed fuels in them.

I see your point about burning less gasoline, but the mileage does go down for a given tank, and they're not offsetting that with a comparable drop in the price, so the actual cost per mile goes up, and that's one thing that a lot of people don't like.

I don't believe that ethanol is damaging the fuel systems in these cars, but I also don't really believe that it's significantly reducing emissions if the entire production cycle (including planting and harvesting the corn) is including in the calculation. Everything I've read suggests that the whole thing is barely energy positive, and has its own set of issues, both financially (competing with food for farmland) and ecologically.

At the same time, I think a healthy farm base is a matter of national security, and I think that biofuels are a reasonable way to help maintain that if their use is properly balanced against other concerns.