If it was built before the 1980s, your vehicle was designed to
burn gasoline — and nothing else.
That’s what was sold back then, so it’s what the engineers
assumed when they designed the engines. Gaskets and seals were made
to handle gas, not alcohol. Air-fuel ratios, ignition timing and so
on were set assuming the fuel that would be burned would be …
gasoline.
But then the government — after being strong-armed by the
politically powerful corn lobby — began mandating that gasoline be
“oxygenated” (that is, adulterated) with up to 10 percent ethanol,
which is alcohol made from corn.
The theory put forward was that this would cut
down vehicle exhaust emissions by “leaning out” the fuel mixture
fed the engine. The actual result was it did no such thing.
Chiefly, because most of the cars in service by the time the
mandates began to go into effect in the 1980s were modern
cars.
And modern cars are built with computers and fuel
injection. They have the capability to self-adjust their air-fuel
mixture and so automatically compensated for the leaner (less gas,
more alcohol) fuel. Their emissions didn’t go down — but their
mileage did. Alcohol, as a fuel, contains much less energy
per unit of volume than gas, so the more of it there is in your
tank, the shorter will be the distance you can go before it’s time
to fill up again. Drivers typically experienced a noticeable drop
in fuel economy of about 5 percent when using “oxygenated,”
alcohol-laced fuels.
Older cars on the other hand (mostly models built before
the early 1980s) had mostly been retired from service as daily
drivers by the time the ethanol mandates began to go into effect.
Fewer than 5 percent of the cars in regular use by 1990 were older
than model year 1975. As of today, it’s unusual to see a car built
before 1981 (the first year GM cars came equipped with an early
engine computer) outside of a museum or a cruise night at the local
drive-in. They are a non-factor as far as emissions/pollution
issues are concerned — which means, there’s no longer any
legitimate to reason to introduce ethanol into the fuel supply
(especially in large concentrations). The “renewable fuels” prop is
just that — a prop. Yes, you can grow corn year after year, so in
that sense corn-based alcohol fuel is “renewable.” But it requires
more energy input — including petroleum-based fertilizer to
maximize crop yields — than you end up getting out of the stuff.
Plus, we’d have to turn most of the country’s agriculture
production over to corn production — not for food, mind you. But
for fuel.
So we’d starve, too.
Meanwhile, old cars.
Because they don’t have computers, they can’t self-adjust
for ethanol-laced fuels. So they run terribly on alcohol-laced
fuels.
They also develop potentially dangerous problems such as
fuel leaks, because the rubber fuel lines and gaskets used in their
systems were not made to handle alcohol, which is reactive and
corrosive. Serious problems have been reported with older cars’
carburetors when high-alcohol-content fuel is used in
them.
That was with 10 percent ethanol fuel.
What will happen when the Feds mandate 15 percent
ethanol fuel?
Apparently, that’s just what’s about to happen. The
Environmental Protection Agency is
expected to issue a regulatory decision this fall that will
require a 15 percent ethanol concentration in all “gasoline” sold
in the United States.
Up to now, concentrations higher than 10 percent have
actually been illegal — precisely because of the many known
problems that high-alcohol-content fuels cause — including high
exhaust temperatures, which in a late-model car can toast the
catalytic converter. (Many new car warranties contain language that
specifically states that coverage will be forfeit if the vehicle is
fed “gas” with more than 10 percent ethanol content for precisely
this reason.)
What will happen to an older car fed this 15 percent
alcohol concoction? If it’s still got its original fuel
lines/internals, major refitting will probably be necessary not
just to keep it running properly but to avoid potentially
catastrophic problems such as engine fires resulting from highly
combustible alcohol fuels leaching through hoses and seals not
designed to tolerate it.
At minimum, it will be necessary to re-tune the engine and
its fuel system to accommodate the high-alcohol-content fuel. The
carburetor will likely need to be torn down and rebuilt with
alcohol-compatible internal parts, including floats and accelerator
pumps/power pistons; they’ll need to be re-jetted and the mixture
adjusted to compensate. All rubber fuel lines will need to be
replaced with modern hoses rated to handle alcohol fuels. There
could be problems with corrosion in hard steel fuel lines and gas
tanks not designed to tolerate alcohol fuels, too.
All for what? So that the politically powerful corn lobby
gets to shove its pockets even deeper into the pockets of American
drivers.
And quite possibly, cost classic car owners a great deal
of trouble on top of that.
