It seems Florida is going to E10 on may 1st. Now, how is this going to affect my GT, if at all? I would expect, that as a 07 it wouldn't be a problem, but it's not a flex fuel car as far as I know. As it is, she;s never had anything but preimium, but I don't know what this new blend is going to do.

 

E10 has less heating value than straight gasoline, so your mileage will drop a small amount. Be sure to replace your fuel filter at the schedule intervals, as the fuel will attract water a little more easily. Do continue to burn premium. The E10 should not hurt your car.

 

Is your car set up for premium fuel? CAI and tune? This was not mentioned.
Depending on where you live octane values change because of elevation(altitude) and different emission standards in your area.
Lately it seems the more junk they add to the fuel the worse the car runs.

 

We've been E10 here for years. I get better gas mileage than most people on here report. 10% or less of ethanol is not going to affect anything. You have nothing to worry about.

 

If you do not have a tune or other mods that specificly require the premium fuel, you really should not be running it. It will not produce more power or milage than 87 octane and may indeed leave additional deposits in your combustion chamber and valves due to incomplete burn.

91/93 should only be used in engines specificly tuned for it.

The 10% ethanol will not effect much except your billfold. It will likely rais the price of the fuel in your area 10 to 15 cents and saves our country nothing in imported energy.

 

We run 10% here in California, I get cruddy mpg compared to people in states who don't run it. 13.5 city only and 21-22 max mpg on freeway only. Around 15 combined freeway and city, if I'm lucky...

Other than that shouldn't cause any probs.

 

I gained about 2-3mpg when I installed my CAI and then promptly lost 2-3mpg when we switched to 10% ethanol so it does have a negative effect on MPG.

 

I dug up an old issue of Consumer Reports from October 2006, and on page 16 they summarize the difference in fuel economy for a Chevrolet Tahoe running straight gasoline versus E85. The chart shows:
City from ...... 9 MPG on gas to 7 MPG on E85 = -22%
Highway ..... 21 .." ....." ...." .." 15 .." ...." ....".. = -29%
150 mile trip 18 .." ......" ...." .." 13 .." ...." ..."... = -28%
Because they are only showing one digit of precision on the City values, we won't use them due to uncertainty of the percent drop. Using the 150 mile trip as the best indicator, a Mustang GT would see this sort of drop with E10:
25 MPG - 25 MPG * 0.28 * E10/E85 = 24.2 MPG
17 MPG - 17 MPG * 0.28 * E10/E85 = 16.4 MPG

As far as premium versus regular, the heating value and average molecular composition of the fuels is the same. It is the resistance to detonation of the unburned end gas which is different. Consequently, if you car can adapt to higher degrees of advance without knock, you will get slightly better fuel economy. Also, you can turn the engine slower without pre-knock grumble, thereby increasing fuel economy by allowing you to get into a higher gear sooner and stay in that higher gear at lower speeds. Finally, some fuel blenders add more cleaning additives into premium grades. Where I buy fuel, premium is only 15 cents more than regular. To summarize, too much octane won't hurt your engine, and at these prices, the slight differential in price pays for itself.

 

This seems very counter productive in a state where they are so concerned about the environment, also seems like a racquet...bring down fuel economy and make you buy more fuel and pay more taxes.

 

Yeah.

I have a cousin that is fairly high up in the Texas Highway Department. I remember a conversation about five years ago I had with him. He was complaining that because cars (and trucks) were getting so much better fuel economy, the net income on the highway gas tax had dropped off quite a bit.

They where looking at all kinds of ways to get around the tax drop off. Things like very high annual registration taxes, toll roads, GPS based "mileage" taxes, etc. They REALLY didn't want to just raise the fuel tax as that would drive more people to drive more fuel efficient cars and that would tend to drive the tax income down even lower...

At least he was TRYING to keep the roads in good order! There was a section of I-40 in New Mexico that was being redone near Grandma's house that we checked out on this visit as well. He was almost spitting and sputtering when he saw just how crappy a job those idiots were doing on that road!

 

In my opinion, I like the idea of toll roads instead of higher registration fees, GPS tracking, etc. That way, if you use a road, you pay to use it, if you don't use the road, you don't. That seems fair to me. I think this especially holds true for roads/bridges that cross the borders to other states.

For example, lots of people use the I-5 bridge from Oregon to Washington, with lots of people commuting from Washington to Oregon every day. A toll on this bridge would have the out- of-state people paying their fair share to maintain the roads they use every day, though they don't live in the state.

 

Come to Illinois all the tolls you want! Now it's all electronic so they can take your money at 65mph

 

I used to pay $2 a day for the privilege of crossing San Francisco Bay every day for 10 years so I understand what you mean....

 

I figured out that where I use to work it would have been over $700 a year just for tolls, and Cook county already has one of the highest tax rates in the country.

 

Maybe they should rename it to CROOK county

 

yep...hit the nail on the head. in order to meet the octane requirments for 89 and 92/93, addtitives are used to prevent pre-ignition. as was stated, those additives can definitely do more harm than good....even if the the engine is spec'ed for premium, if the motor isn't driven hard then there's a real possibility of deposits being formed in the c/c...stick with 87 and use a top tier fuel, such as shell...much better for the c/c, valves, pistons staying deposit free.


jackg
06 sts6

 

So is the "adaptive spark timing" pretty much BS?? Supposedly the computer is supposed to detect the higher octane and adjust the timing to take advantage of it and make a little more HP. I'm talking about a stock vehicle, of course.

 

Rob

Are you referring to the Steeda adaptive tune or Ford's Bullit tune? I've read the Bullit tune can detect the Octane of the gas use so it can provide Max spark advance. But remember, Ethanol still doesn't give the same power output as 87 octane. The Steeda version I think is similar in function but not sure if it really functions the same.

 

ahh, ok, I couldn't remember where I had heard that, but I think it was regarding the Bullitt.

thx

 

The I-5 was built with Federal tax money. It is maintained with Federal (and supplemented by State) taxes. ALL taxpayers have ALREADY paid for construction and maintenance of the road!!

It doesn't matter what state they live in!

Adding a toll makes it double taxation - the tolls are used for state coffers to pay for other welfare uses. The idea of tolls is disgusting. The government needs to get used to the idea of LIVING WITH THE MONEY THEY HAVE and stop fleecing us taxpayers!!

And now we return to our previously scheduled topic...