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Posted

Hey y'all, Turbo here.  3 years ago sold my Avid. Now flying Corvair-powered Sonex.  Can't complain about 3.5 gph at 125 mph.  I only land on tarmac, though.

When I had the Avid, I fed it ethanol-free premium, like I feed my chainsaws.  All went well until my first set of Bing carb floats sank!  I bought  new ones, but even they eventually sank!  And I noticed that my epoxy gas tank was softening!  I started wondering what bizarre chemistry was in that fuel.  Got a clue much more recently, which I feel compelled to share.  It could be due to ethanol!  Many times, so-called ethanol-free gas really isn't, not due to any oil company shenanigans, but simply because many gas stations dispense  ethanol-free gas from the same hose as the other grades, and the last guy who hosered up may have inadvertently left some 10-% ethanol, 87- octane gas in the hose!  My advice (really from Chicanic) is to, after selecting the ethanol-free stuff, first put a half- gallon of gas into your car, then start filling those gas cans.  This clears out the hose.

FWIW, Guys. Take care, and fly safe,

Turbo

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Posted

Another point is don't trust the gas station not to have alcohol contamination in their supposed clean fuel.

An easy way to test is with plain food coloring.  Put a sample of fuel in a clear container and add a couple drops of food coloring and mix it.  If it turns the fuel colored that means thee ethanol dissolved the water based die.  If the food coloring just makes a droplet in the bottom and doesn't mix, you have clean fuel.

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Posted

Duuh! Just asked Google if ethanol dissolves epoxy.  Answer is Yes!  We all know it's bad for 2-strokes.  So put that first half-gallon to full gallon in your car's tank first!  

Turbo

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