[Healeys] Cross Country & Ethanol

Oudesluys coudesluijs at chello.nl
Tue Jul 19 13:21:11 MDT 2011


Ethanol has been around in petrol since the introduction of lead free 
petrol in the 70's and 80's to boost octane rating. At the time it could 
harm some rubber parts, but these should have been replaced by now. I 
have never experienced any problems with petrol blended with alcohol and 
in fact, as alcohol absorbs water, it may prevent corrosion in the 
petrol tank.
I am afraid these disaster stories are possibly brought about by people 
having an interest in certain fuel additives.
There may be some isolated incidents, but in normal use there are no 
problems.

In the late seventies I worked for a company developing conversions of 
diesel and/or petrol cars to run on pure alcohol (and LNG, H2, LPG). For 
pure alcohol it mainly meant re-jetting and slightly modifying the 
carbs, also on some the CR was raised considerably. Pure alcohol caused 
some damage to exhaust systems, due to the acids formed in the exhaust 
gases. It also caused some corrosion of the aluminium/zinc alloy in carbs.
I often drove these cars and they drove just the same or better as any 
petrol car.
Kees Oudesluijs
NL

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