Originally Posted by TQ29m:
I can testify to the added heat, we fooled with it back in the mid 60's, and found out right quick, it wasn't for a commoner to mess with, we figured because of it's higher heat, BTU output, but still less than gasoline, and the fact that you could burn more of it, it should be faster, but in our short trial with it, it wasn't, and it hurt a lot of motors, before we decided it wasn't as good as alcohol, besides the afterbirth was like rubber, everything it dried on, was sticky, valves, intake runners, bad news. IMHO, if it is mandated, then it has been proven safer, so doesn't that leave someone's pea's open for litigation? Just Sayin! Bob!
I wonder why they are blending this fuel with 10% special additatives. Used to be if special stuff was found in your tank you were DQ'd on the spot. I do know that petro fuels blend better with ethanol than it does with menthanol because of the sp. gravity of the two are closer. I also remember when we ran gasoline in our micro's my dad looked all over to find nitro propane because it blended with gasoline and nitro methane would not. I know that when you blend any alchol with another fuel and you add water to it it will usually cause it to seperate and settle out. This could cause some special problems on damp humid days In April and May at the race track.
My dad usually kept a Mason jar of this ethanol stuff in the freezer. It did kind of look like Caro Syrup and I can still remember looking at it and watching it move in the jar kinda of slow. He was awful proud of this stuff and marked the jar telling me to not mess with it. When I was about 15 or so me and a couple of friends decided to try it out. That stuff burned all the way down and all the way back up too. To prevent him from finding out that I was in his stuff (I was real smart back then) I carefully took water and filled it back up right to his mark, At age 15 ain't no old man smarter than you are.
Things went along fine for a few days and I thought I had pulled one over on him, When on a Friday night I heard him hollering for me from the garage where the freezer was. Seems he went to take a nip of that stuff and before he did he shook the jar. That stuff came up looking like milk. We talked things over a bit and we decided on a suitable punishment being polotical correct and all. Sure was glad it was on a weekend because I was a little sour the next day. I'm not sure to this day if he was mad about the stuff we stole from his jar or the fact we ruined his whole jar of his Lightning.
Honest Dad himself
