Chainsaw Repair
How To Basics - Carb Fixes + Mods - IPL and Service Manuals => How To Basics and Fixes => Topic started by: Cut4fun . on July 20, 2012, 02:05:49 pm
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Marathon and Speedway issue small-engine fuel warning for gasoline
Advisory from Marathon Petroleum, essentially stating that consumers should avoid using their gas for anything with a small engine. At least for awhile.
Apparently, the Findlay, Ohio-based petroleum refiner got too much ethanol in its gasoline formula, which might cause implement such as mowers and leaf blowers to run hotter than they’re designed to handle.
Marathon Petroleum – Small Engine Fuel Advisory
Marathon Petroleum has identified a product quality situation at one of its terminals resulting in gasoline containing more than 10 percent ethanol in the counties surrounding the greater Louisville area, excluding Jefferson county. Adjacent counties in southern Indiana have also been impacted. Fuel with excess ethanol has the potential to cause small engines such as chainsaws, leaf blowers, generators, lawn mowers, snow blowers, etc., to run faster and hotter than normal, which may result in safety-related issues.
This fuel should not cause drivability or safety issues with respect to automobiles.
If you purchased gasoline since March 3 from Marathon Brand or Speedway locations Marathon Petroleum recommends that you do not operate small engines containing this fuel.
Marathon Petroleum is continuing to identify other retail locations in the impacted areas that may have been supplied with this gasoline and will provide additional information as soon as it becomes available. If you have a concern regarding your gasoline, please contact the retailer to determine if it was supplied by Marathon Petroleum.
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An indication that you suddenly have more ethanol in your gas is that the chainsaw or power tool will run lean.
I doubt it would hurt anything if you could get the tool to run like the mixture was set correctly?
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biggest problem with ethanol is you have to use a oil that will mix with it and most oils will not mix with ethanol , just for a joke get some E85 and mix your normal oil with it and watch what happens ;D, the snowmobile industry has been telling the gov't that once gas hits E15 they are pretty much finished as the oil they are using now will not mix with that much ethanol
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Don't you believe it!!!
My Dolmar dealer recently tested the fuel in a saw returned to him for diagnosis and warranty work and the ethanol was 60%!!!
That's right folks. SIXTY per-cent ethanol in fuel from a local Marathon station.
Marathon didn't hesitate on blink.
Fix it and send us the bill.
He submitted the invoice online, went to pick up lunch for the crew and when he got back (20 min. max) the funds were in his account!
Mike
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I've never encountered it but I would imagine you could tell almost instaintly as to how the saw runs .I think it takes something like 40 percent more per volume than gasoline to get the same power .
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Al, I have played alot with ethanol in saws , you can tell just by the colour of your fuel if its got much ethanol in it , stuff like E85 which is 85% ethanol unless you do some major carb work you will not get the motor to even partly run and if you ever got it up and screaming unless you got the tip on your sparkplug cut it would not shut down either until it was to late , ethanol acts alot like methanol but on jetting its about the middle between gas and methanol
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biggest problem with ethanol is you have to use a oil that will mix with it and most oils will not mix with ethanol ,
Thats why I still use oil that mixes with Methonal and Nitro still. Klotz tech told me it will be no problems with the KL-200 Original Techniplate and KL-100 Super TechniPlate but he warned to stay away from R50 as it will not stay mixed with ethanol at 10% let alone anything over that.
KL-200 Klotz lubricant is for use with 2-stroke and 4-stroke engines with methanol alcohol and gasoline fuels. Biodegradable formula. Superior film strength and Anti-Scuff protection. Cleaner burning reduces carbon and residue build-up. De-gummed formula reduces ring sticking. Klotz Red color for easy mixing and castor racy odor. Blends with gasoline, methyl alcohol, and nitromethane. Contains rust inhibitors.
KL-100 For use with 2-stroke and 4-stroke engines with methyl alcohol and gasoline fuels. Blended with 80% TechniPlate Synthetic Lubricant and 20% BeNOL Racing Castor Oil Superior film strength and Anti-Scuff protection Cleaner burning reduces carbon and residue build-up De-gummed formula reduces ring sticking Klotz Red color for easy mixing and castor racy odor Blends with gasoline, methyl alcohol, and nitromethane Contains rust inhibitors
R50 is a pure synthetic lubricant designed exclusively for use in all sustained Hi-RPM 2-stroke racing engines. R 50™ film strength is comparable to castor oil with the benefits of Clean Burn™ technology. Klotz R 50™ will challenge and outrun the competition in the following ways: TechniPlate® lubricity system for superior film strength and anti-scuff protection Extreme Load Carrying Capacity to eliminate bearing and ring wear Clean Burn™ technology reduces carbon and residue build-up Contains familiar Klotz Red for easy mixing and racy odor Anti-Oxidation protection against rust and corrosion Power Valve formula
You notice R50 says noting about mixing with alcohol and the head tech I spoke with dont recommend it for ethanol gas let alone anything over 10% at all. Told me to stay with my 200 or 100 I used in racing days.
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I use KL 200 to mix my methanol and ethanol
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I use KL 200 to mix my methanol and ethanol
Thats what I use too.
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I wonder how Marathon screwed up so bad with the formula ? In the past I spent a lot of time working in refineries and they don't screw up as badly as that as a rule .
Just speculating but I'd imagine that fuel came from Elk Grove Ill .
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15% coming EPA approved. Which will mean higher. Because I have seen 12%-15% doing the simple guesstimate method in a glass measure when suppose to be 10%.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/12/will-e15-tank-my-ride
http://newsroom.aaa.com/2012/11/new-e15-gasoline-may-damage-vehicles-and-cause-consumer-confusion/
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/12/25/0220228
http://ethanolproducer.com/uploads/posts/magazine/2011/07/13113433586437.jpg
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Interesting read https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/ethanol-environment-damage/
EPA Says Ethanol Damages The Environment — Isn't It Time To Kill The Program?
Energy: Amid all the media hoo-ha over President Trump's latest tweets, tariffs and the Russia investigation, you might have missed a significant report — the Environmental Protection Agency says ethanol made from corn and soybeans and added to our gasoline has become an environmental disaster. So why do we continue to make it?
The devastating report — based on, yes, actual "science" — shows that the forced addition of ethanol to the nation's gasoline is making our air dirtier.
The irony, of course, is that ethanol's entire rationale is that it would make our air cleaner.
Why do we keep doing this? The farm-based ethanol lobby not only wants current standards of up to 10% of our fuel made up of ethanol (the "E10" standard), but would like to see it rise to 15% (E15). And, unfortunately, President Trump seems open to the idea.
Is ethanol really that bad? Well, never mind that there's a significant amount of evidence that it's bad for your car, boat or motorcycle engine. That's bad enough.
But the damage isn't just from using the ethanol in our fuel; it's in the entire process involved in radically altering our agricultural sector from growing food to growing an energy supplement.
The increase in ethanol has been significant. In 2008, the U.S. produced roughly 10 billion gallons of ethanol; by 2016, that amount had grown to 16.6 billion barrels, a 67% rise.
One of the most unexpected developments of the ethanol experiment is the loss of millions of acres of natural habitat to grow corn and soybeans, not for the dinner table but for the gas-station pump.
Do we really want to use millions of acres of land for no reason other than to satisfy the farm lobby?
Equally bad is the use of agricultural nutrients and chemicals to grow the crops. Much of those fertilizers end up in runoff that ends up in our rivers and lakes, causing algae blooms and other negative effects. You pay to clean that up — not those making billions from these crops.
Again, that's not a side-effect that politicians or the Environmental Protection Agency discussed when they first foisted the ethanol-content rules on us.
But by far the worst is the unexpected finding that making ethanol and using it produces nitrous oxides in the atmosphere. Once there, nitrous oxides plus oxygen plus sunlight becomes ozone — a major pollutant.
As it turns out, this is not "green energy" at all, as its proponents say. It's "brown energy." The only green is the money that lines the farm lobbyists' pockets.
As American Enterprise Institute fellow and economist Mark J. Perry noted in IBD all the way back in 2015, "countless independent studies have shown that corn ethanol is far worse from a greenhouse-gas emissions perspective than traditional fuels."
Private researchers and economists have known this for a long time. What's new is that the EPA is recognizing it for the first time.
What's truly disturbing is that this EPA report was delayed by four years, thanks to political maneuvering during the Obama era. By law, the EPA is supposed to produce a report every three years on biofuels. It didn't.
It's not hard to see why. Ethanol is politically popular. For that reason, it's a tough program to kill.
But there are clear and convincing reasons for doing just that.
As a Yale report last year summarized: "Higher-ethanol blends will produce significant levels of air pollution, reduce fuel efficiency, jack up corn and other food prices, and have been treated with skepticism by some car manufacturers for the damage they do to engines. Growing corn to run our cars was a bad idea 10 years ago. Increasing our reliance on corn ethanol in the coming decades is doubling down on a poor bet."
By the way, one of the main rationales for ethanol — often used to convince free-market conservatives — was that we needed it for "energy security."
Proponents said it was better to produce energy on U.S. soil than to buy it from questionable Middle East suppliers.
That argument is now largely moot. With the fracking revolution and the continued gains in car fuel-efficiency, that argument no longer holds water. Thanks to amazing new technologies, we're basically self-sufficient in energy today.
The Politics Of Ethanol
Even so, many cornbelt politicians, including a significant number of Republicans, support the so-called E-10 standard, part of the U.S.' Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program.
First put in place in 2005 then expanded in 2007, it's now apparent RFS has become an environmentally damaging and costly white elephant, serving as a lightly disguised subsidy program for corn and soybean farmers.
Yet, as we mentioned above, President Trump is considering not only keeping the program, but mandating a 15% standard — E15. A costly waste.
This might get Midwestern votes, but it's bad policy. President Trump has done a bang-up job draining the Washington swamp. He should now turn his attention to draining the ethanol swamp, too.