I've been using it in my Moke for the last year or so, no problems at all, In fact I prefer it, the moke knocks less and doesn't run on.

Tim

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1951 Morris Commercial J Type Van
1955 BSA C11G
1961 Morris Mini Traveller
1969 Triumph TR6R
1977 Leyland Moke Californian

i have a mate who runs his GT on Ethanol and reckons its great stuff nothing wrong with it, my other mate tried it in is Cooper s which sometimes pings with normal fuel and no pinging at all

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Seeing that ethanol fuel is usually only 4c per litre cheaper at the most, and you get worse fuel economy, corrosion of fuel system components, swelling/cracking of non compatible hoses and seals (all that are usually in a Mini!) I can't really see any benefits of using it, only headaches!

Andrew

And that is while it is subsidised

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David L


My greatest fear in life is that when I die my wife will sell my Mini and tools for the price I told her I paid for them!

I've been using Liberty Red Boost Ethanol blend for the last 18 months exclusively. I use BP6 sparkplugs and have an unmodified pulsar dizzy advanced as far as it possibly can go, (the oil line gets in the way) and a 1.25 SU. To date, touch wood, I have had no problems. It doesn't ping, but runs a little hotter than it used to at 150-160 degrees. It used to run at about 140. It gets up to speed easily enough and has the right amount of power for a 998. It starts first go and doesn't run on.

Before I started using it I changed all the engine fuel lines for new.

Caltex is dropping Regular Unleaded down here. They will only have E10 and Vortex.
The BP at Marulan has also dropped Regular Unleaded.

I have run E10 in my wifes Telstar a couple of times. The reduction in economy was about 12%

I've noticed Caltex up here are changing some Vortex 98 pumps to the dreaded E10...
Makes it harder to find 98 for my beast, it won't run on 95... C/R too high.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Just in case anyone is thinking it, dropping of products has nothing to do with quality.

To add a tank into an existing site costs a f'king fortune, big dollars. Its easier to remove one product and modify/replace the bowser to suit. Bowsers which pump ethanol use different vanes.

Vortex 98 is a slow mover, in a BIG way. Low volume movement means bugger all profit. Now in a falling market, you have old product dropping in value by anywhere up to 3 cents in a day. If you look around at Caltex sites, the Vortex 95 is always 8 cents above the unleaded, and then 98 is X cents above that.

A lot of sites will have ended up selling their Vortex 95 and Vortex 98 at a loss over the past several weeks...depending on their stock holding.

I kick myself when I get 80,000 litres of diesel into our depot...and then I get a notification that our buy price is going down 1.5 cents the next day.

From my experience with the sites I organise fuel to, I see the order of top to bottom sellers as -

Unleaded
Diesel
E10
Vortex 95
Gas
Vortex 98

I'm happy to stick to the premium fuel now, as $25 fills mine up.

So why are they dropping the top selling petrol?

A few reasons could be....

Cheaper to hold, meaning a business is holding stock that is 3 cents a litre cheaper to buy.

Low socio economic area ? Cheaper product means they get people in still. They need people to keep buying product and coming into the shop to buy stuff...as the money is in the shop sales not the fuel!! High income areas aren't really going to be hit when fuel prices creep up.

Competing with other servos ? Places like liberty, metro & BP. BPs up here only have ethanol unleaded. You can't compete selling ULP with a servo selling ethanol blended fuel, the margins are too tight.

Lots of reasons, but you wouldn't know unless you spoke to the person who owns it/runs it. Is it an independent Caltex servo ? or company owned ?

The servo is owned by the local distributor, they have two servos in Goulburn plus the depot in Goulburn and servos at Yass, Camden and St Marys. They said that the decision was made by Caltex.
My theory is that they are next door to a Liberty and in the same street as a Coles/Shell and a Woolies/Caltex and they are trying to compete.

But that does not explain why BP has done the same thing at the twin truck stops on the freeway at Marulan.

Apparently the ethanol blends are only cheaper because of government subsidies, this is due to the amount of energy that is required to be put into turning grain/sugar cane into ethanol. This cost may become more apparent as energy becomes more expensive and ideas like carbon trading are thrown around...

It takes more energy to produce 1L of ethanol than the energy contained therein.
Hence the need to burn fossil fuels of one sort or another to make it.
It'll be interesting to see how costs stack up once the subsidies go...

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

That is interesting....because 12 months ago there was a veritable drought of 98 RON fuel everywhere...Nobody could get hold of it and everywhere had sold out. In Canberra at least, it is the fuel that sells out and it is reasonably normal to see pumps closed that have 98 in them more than anything else

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1969 Morris 1100 S Automatic

ahhhh......the interior smell of an old British car....

A while back here in Sydney there was a racket going where they would shut down the 98 pumps on cheap cycle days.
Why??
Why discount it if you don't have to...
The racket was exposed when somebody used the pump anyway regardless of the "SORRY not in use" sign.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.