Hey, guys. I usually just lurk, absorb the (often extremely) useful information I run across here, and take the rest with a grain of salt. I was also on vacation so might have missed part of this conversation, However, having spent a great deal of time with methanol/ethanol in racing, I thought it might be helpful to some readers to mention a thing or two. As stated, alcohol does readily absorb water. On a race car, as long as one takes some care with fuel storage, this is not an issue, but with aircraft which can often sit for long periods of time, a person would want to be very cognizant of that fact. Keeping fuel tanks completely full if stored would probably be a good idea, and if the plane was going to sit over the winter I?d recommend an additive and possibly consider draining/replacing the fuel prior to resuming use. Oh, and it is VERY corrosive of aluminum, so unless you can guarantee a perfect anodize or other protective barrier, I would be nervous about that. I?ve never seen steel fuel tanks in aircraft. There are undoubtedly suitable composites and/or sealers that would be safe with it, but remember all the other components in your system have to be fuel safe, too.
Secondly, as was mentioned alcohol is a great, industrial cleaning agent. Before you get too proud of that fact, though, realize that it does the same thing to your cylinder walls during running, washing the oil off of them and creating significantly increased wear. Again, on a race car that would only run a couple hundred hours tops between teardown (and much less at full power), it was something that could be dealt with, but one would really want to do some research on how much one?s TBO would be affected. Also, because of these properties when running rich it can and does get by the rings and into the oil, leading to milky, compromised oil. Alcohol has just about exactly 1/2 the energy of gasoline, so while its octane is nice, don?t forget you?ll be running almost exactly twice as much of it. It weighs about a pound a gallon less, if I recall, but the increased capacity required to run something on significant percentage of alcohol will be a problem. Also, ?cheap? alcohol tends to get more expensive when you need twice as much of it. Lastly, a desirable quality for ground-level racing on hot summer days is that the evaporation qualities of alcohol (and perhaps a bit its hydroscopic properties) is that it will positively ice up a manifold as it runs through it, greatly cooling the charge which, again, is nice for racing. However, I have no idea how this might play on a plane that was not injected, which have to watch for icing even on gasoline. Again, something I would want to know a lot more about. Just food for thought. > On Jun 6, 2016, at 5:06 PM, billjacobs386 at yahoo.com via KRnet <krnet at > list.krnet.org> wrote: > > > Andrew,The information that you provided is sincerely appreciated. People > may have different opinions. BUT you cannot argue with the that much solid > data.Thanks again. > Bill Jacobs > > > ------ Original message------From: Andrew Sugg via KRnet Date: Mon, Jun 6, > 2016 1:17 PMTo: krnet at list.krnet.org;Cc: Andrew Sugg;Subject:KR> Ethanol > ContinuedTony- Even full aircraft can be modified for ethanol use. Our fleet > was donated or purchased aicraft. We simply pull what components we needed > and anodized the alluminum, and replaced natural rubber with teflon.- The > water issue is another reason we did the test. Ethanol is ******
