Hey Clifford, I didn't know you were an A&E. I've had my private license since 1968 and Commercial and Instrument rating since the early 90s. You mentioned C-172s. I have around a 1000 hours in them mainly flying S&R for CAP. One question though about octane. Since octane is the addition of ethanol and it burns cooler than gasoline, how does it make an engine run hotter? BTW I've only run 87 octane in my '08 RS since new and it does fine. I had a fuel injected car with a GM 3.1L in it. It started hesitating on acceleration and after the dealer couldn't guarantee they knew how to fix it, I ran a tank of high octane in it and it cleared up. I assume the higher octane with more ethanol in it cleaned up an injector or two. What do you think? Also would you recommend any injector cleaner in the newer RS with EFI?

The lead has been replaced with other stuff for octane, but ethanol is not part of the "stuff". The fuel manufacturers have nothing to do with the ethanol, it is added at the distribution centers before delivery to the stations. All ethanol does is make the "tree huggers" happy! There is nothing good about ethanol as to the operation of an engine; it eats some kinds of rubber hose (talk to someone who has antiques), it eats some kinds of plastic (carb floats); it doesn't produce the BTUs of gas, you have to open the throttle a bit more to get the same power which means higher fuel consumption and less mileage. YOU CAN THANK AL GORE FOR ALL THE "BENEFITS".

Clifford

I work in the service department of a Mazda-Hyundai dealership & have noticed customers telling me that their fuel mileage has dropped about 10% since Mississippi went to ethynol-"enriched" fuel. Actually, the Mazda RX-8's rotary engine absolutely HATES it. It washes the oil away from their apex seals & causes them to lose engine compression, which makes them very hard to start sometimes. I've been advising my customers to use non-ethynol fuel whenever possible. It can be had at a few stations around here, but is a little more pricy. A friend of mine at work who bought my old Hyosung GT motorcycle had to rebuild the carburetors due to ethynol damage & it's an '04 with only 10k miles! Ethynol sucks, but I guess the corn farmers love it!

There is still 1 station here in Brandon that doesn't add ethanol. I just hope they don't start. I'm sure they will change at some point, too.

BBB, I've worked in dealerships myself since '82; in parts. Mainly Nissan but Hyundai, Mazda, Isuzu, Suzuki and GM too. I started out as a tech but never enjoyed the temps in the shop. LoL

Clifford wrote:
The lead has been replaced with other stuff for octane,

it´s benzol

a s%$* nasty chemical, and a damn site more harmful than lead.

but hey! our kids may get tumors, but at least they don´t die stupid

BigBoyinMS wrote:
There is still 1 station here in Brandon that doesn't add ethanol. I just hope they don't start. I'm sure they will change at some point, too.

BBB, I've worked in dealerships myself since '82; in parts. Mainly Nissan but Hyundai, Mazda, Isuzu, Suzuki and GM too. I started out as a tech but never enjoyed the temps in the shop. LoL

The temps are ok in the winter with the heaters going (as long as the salesmen keep the doors shut! The summertime is when it gets unbearable! We demoed some waterfans from Napa for a week & it dropped the shop temperature about 12 degrees, but the owner wouldn't buy them for us (he stays in his climate-controlled office on those days ).