Certainly easier to pour into a chainsaw fuel tank too.
STIHL MS261C chainsaw and TruFuel
- Thread starter Philbert
- Start date
Help Support Arborist Forum:
BLR
ArboristSite Lurker
There's an app called Pure Gas that will tell you where to get ethanol free gas.
"I have been told"
There is only one way to have fresh fuel. Use it up in 90 days. ALL gas will attract moisture from condensation. Ethanol definitely attracts water faster if stored for a longer period. Ditto on issues with true fuel.I still would only buy what can be used up.
You just need to see what we pour out into the glass jar in a day. 75% or more water in fuel in one day.
And your non ethanol out of the tank at the station is just as bad as the ethanol.
USE IT UP!
Just saying what I (and many other shops) are seeing.
There is only one way to have fresh fuel. Use it up in 90 days. ALL gas will attract moisture from condensation. Ethanol definitely attracts water faster if stored for a longer period. Ditto on issues with true fuel.I still would only buy what can be used up.
You just need to see what we pour out into the glass jar in a day. 75% or more water in fuel in one day.
And your non ethanol out of the tank at the station is just as bad as the ethanol.
USE IT UP!
Just saying what I (and many other shops) are seeing.
Stihl specifically states in their manual E10 max and to run the equipment dry if not used for 30 days.
People can say they've gone longer with no problems lettingE10 sit for longer, they've just not had any problems yet.
I've tore enough small engine carbs apart on friends/family equipment that has sat too long to know better.
Ah, sorry, I was thinking you lived near the pa/Ohio border. Didn't think about Michigan.
It's hit and miss if the info on it is correct/updated regularly.
I store my fuel in airtight metal cans and noticed fuel doesn't go off as fast. The oldest fuel i have is 2 years old and it is treated with PRI-G and everything runs fine.
I only use canned fuel in my 2cycle equipment. I haven't tried Truefuel, but have used Stihl Motomix, VP, and Echo Redarmor. All work well. I think my saws seem to like the VP, and it certainly smells better to me than Motomix, but I have noticed if I'm storing the saws for a bit they start a little easier with Motomix than with VP. I haven't used red armor as extensively. I recently sold my MS180 and I don't think I had used it since I bought my 400c, so a good year with Motomix and it started right up at home and a couple days later when I met the buyer he started it second pull with the same tank of fuel.
Butane is blended with all gasoline to aid in starting. More so during the winter months.
Any gasoline is always a blend of products snd pump gas "recipe" changes daily. It's all about blending good and bad to hit your parameters. One reason refiners like ethanol is because it allows them to blend crappy stocks with it and still hit octane numbers.
With respext to your Petroleum Engineer friend(Pet Engineers drill and dont get involved with refining typically)Alkylate is not 100 octane except in theory, which is why 100LL avgas, which is about 100 octane on the R+m/2 scale you see on the pump is a blend and contains alot of lead. The reason for this is it is very expensive to run an iso stripper hard enough to get close to making 100% iso octane.
I am looking at lad results from the alkylation unit as I type this. 92.4 on the RON test.
That's a thing. Some of the light ends will escape through the plastic of a gas can.
VP is an alkylate blend like most of the rest. It's good stuff.
Alkylate starts off as c3,c4 olefins made in a FCC AKA Cat cracker. From there it goes to the alky unit where it is reacted with an acid, most typicaly HF or HC. When it leaves the alky it's not pure iso octane, but it's typicly in the low 90's octane wise.
So in reality it starts out as dino squeezing like everything else.
In modern refineries straight run gasoline off of the atmospheric distillation unit are a small part of the refinery output. Cracking,platforming, and a host of other processing is what is used to make much of what goes into pump fuel.
They changed the rational from pollution control to renewable fuels. It was pretty much always a scam to prop up special interest groups of one sort or the other.
MTBE isn't that nasty. It's problem was it has a strong smell and taste. So when it leaked out of old metal storage tanks it was easy to detect in ground water.
I really like ETBE and MTBE doped racing gasoline.
SteveSr
Addicted to ArboristSite
Apparently I have gotten the job title wrong. Actually this guy, now retired, traveled the world installing, upgrading, and fixing refineries. If you are in this kind of work you may have met him at one time in your past. His name is Danny Thomas, just like the comedian. He also mentioned that there were very few refineries that could make alkylate fuel.
I work in the industry.
Most engineers in refining have a backfround in chemical on the process side. The maintenence side are typicly mechanical with some civil.
A majority of the refiners in the US have alky units. Roughly 90% of the US refinery capacity involves such units. However most are not going to sell the stuff as it's too valuable and needed in house. In the US Lyondell-Basell and Phillips are two that have in the past made and marketed specialty fuels. VP is a subsidiary of L-B. I am not sure if Phillips is still in the game as they discontinued their race gas business some time ago. Tru-Fuel is a subsidiary of Calumet, but I am not sure if they are producing alkylate for sale or just packaging someone else's. In the oil industry it's not unusual for one refiner to market lubes, greases, etc that they don't produce. The company I work for has a full lineup of lubes and greases and doesn't make any of them.
Don't Calumet make (repackage) Echo Red Armor?
Distilling alcohol from corn here is and has always been a net looser and without the usual government subsidies, no distiller running shelled corn can survuve. Not like we have extra funds to piss away anyway. Country is going down the toilet and DC don't care. The USD is about to be replaced as the benchmark currency as well.
At least Europeans have some brains. The chop the ENTIRE plant and distill that. There is and always has been more alcohol producing starch and sugars in the stalks and leaves that there will ever be in the kernels. Problem is, American farmers are combine stupid though some of them are actually chopping now. Remember, I farm and have for years. I do not grow e-corn and never have. I have in the past, feed DDG as a supplement when we had cattle but those are gone now.
At least Europeans have some brains. The chop the ENTIRE plant and distill that. There is and always has been more alcohol producing starch and sugars in the stalks and leaves that there will ever be in the kernels. Problem is, American farmers are combine stupid though some of them are actually chopping now. Remember, I farm and have for years. I do not grow e-corn and never have. I have in the past, feed DDG as a supplement when we had cattle but those are gone now.
I have no idea.
I want to say last I looked it was very similar in composition to VP.
In reality it doesn't matter. All of the canned fuels I tried are good and they are all formulated the same way with minor differances.
