[Glenn Nigh]

I have been flying with a friend here in the USA. He has reminded me that fuel from the auto gasoline pumps here and at home are not good for our model gasoline engines. The addition of alcohol will damaging the rubber parts of the carburator. He said we need to use fuel sold for use by boat motors. Have any of you found this to be true?
Glenn

[Hughes500E]

I think the issue is gasoline with Ethanol. Many just ignore it while others are concerned. I thought of running boat fuel or white fuel myself; if there is a chance of damage why take the risk. I like the idea of less scent using white fuel!

[scaleguy]

Originally Posted by Hughes500E

I think the issue is gasoline with Ethanol. Many just ignore it while others are concerned. I thought of running boat fuel or white fuel myself; if there is a chance of damage why take the risk. I like the idea of less scent using white fuel!

By "White Fuel" do you mean like Coleman Camp Fuel? What octane is it?

[volksman]

the walboro kit comes with a fiberglass pump section, that may be why

[luv2flyrc]

i've never run into problems because of ethanol in the fuel. Some gas stations offer fuel that "contains no ethanol" ie Sunoco's high octane brand, if you are concerned about it.

think about it though, it runs in cars, motorcycles, lawn mowers, weed wackers, etc. why would model airplanes be any different?

Mike

[hifly2104]

Originally Posted by Glenn Nigh

I have been flying with a friend here in the USA. He has reminded me that fuel from the auto gasoline pumps here and at home are not good for our model gasoline engines. The addition of alcohol will damaging the rubber parts of the carburator. He said we need to use fuel sold for use by boat motors. Have any of you found this to be true?
Glenn

My thought would be this is how Urban Legends are started one person or a few agreeto this and then its spread like the Holy Grael.As someone said it may be or have been harmfull to rubbers in the carbs. Hopefully the manufacturer has caught up with the ethanol and cured that problem.
Wonder if you know that more people wher kicked to death by donkey's in 1957in the USA than where killed by airplane accidents

[twm]

Originally Posted by luv2flyrc

i've never run into problems because of ethanol in the fuel. Some gas stations offer fuel that "contains no ethanol" ie Sunoco's high octane brand, if you are concerned about it.

think about it though, it runs in cars, motorcycles, lawn mowers, weed wackers, etc. why would model airplanes be any different?

Mike

There is no ethanol in canadian premium gasoline, with the exception of 94 octane product.
If you are concerned about ethanol in any small gasoline engine, you have the option of using premium. As the provincial ethanol-in-gasoline mandates roll out across the country the result is typically this: regular (87) octane has 10% ethanol, mid-grade (89 octane) has 5% ethanol and premium (91 octane) has 0% ethanol.

[scot]

It hasn't damaged my DA-100, DA-150, ZDZ-80, car, motorcycle, lawnmower, snowblower - I'm sure it'll be fine.

[swixtt]

Run AVgas!

[kip51035]

According to the ultra-light community Shell Premium is the only auto fuel that has no ethyl alcohol, that is because their regular has twice the ethyl alcohol content and gives very poor mileage. Regular gas has a lot of non essential products homogenized into it. The top of the line is avgas. These engines are designed to run on all kinds of gas, in countries all over the world. Probably the only difference you will find is the carbon build up will be more from the cheaper gas-bar fuels.

Kip