# How Much Ethanol is Too Much?



## [email protected] (Nov 21, 2011)

Hard to find fuel with no ethanol in most places, and most of you know the problems with it in small gas engines, especially if left in the tank for a while. Honda has a new tool to help when troubleshooting possible stale fuel issues, a Fuel/Alcohol tester. Most engines will be fine with 10% or less ethanol, and this tool will give a good indicator of how much is actually in your tank:

Add a bit of water to the tube, then fill with the sample gasoline. Shake it up, wait a few minutes, and read the percentage of ethanol (alcohol) direct. Gasoline floats on top of water, and when shaken, the ethanol binds with the water and sinks to the bottom of the tube:








Honda part number 07AAJ-E85A100. Google the part number to find a dealer selling online, or find your local dealer with this link: 

*Find a Honda Dealer*


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## uberT (Dec 29, 2013)

That's pretty cool! How much is it?

I've got a friend at a car dealer and he said they're starting to do some random testing when cars show up with the CEL turned on. He says they've seen some samples where the ethanol content is far in excess of 10%. It's becoming a headache for the mfrs and they're trying to figure out how to deal with it and prevent long-term damage to the cars.


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## [email protected] (Nov 21, 2011)

uberT said:


> That's pretty cool! How much is it?


List is $40, but most dealers are discounting it quite a bit...


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## snow80 (Dec 31, 2012)

[email protected] said:


> a Fuel/Alcohol tester. Most engines will be fine with 10% or less ethanol, and this tool will give a good indicator of how much is actually in your tank


You can make one of these in a few minutes with a transparent bottle, a marker and a 1/3 cup measure. I've used a 1 quart/liter water bottle, but almost any transparent bottle will work that will hold 11 measures of water.

For a 1 liter bottle, pour in 1/3 cup of water and mark this first level. Pour in another 1/3 cup of water and mark this second level. Do this 9 more times (total 11/3 cups of water, which is just a bit less than a quart/liter) and mark that top line. To run the test, put in 1/3 cup of water (or fill to the first level line), then fill to the top 11/3 line with gas (10/3 cups of gas on top of 1/3 cup of water). Shake and wait. If the gas has more than 10% alcohol (i.e., it has more than 1/3 of a cup of alcohol in it), the dividing line between the water-alcohol and the gas will be above the second level line (i.e. above the 2/3 cup line you marked = 1/3 cup water and 1/3 cup alcohol that comes out of solution from the gas and into the water).


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## scipper77 (Dec 4, 2013)

I would think you could do this quite easily with a syringe. Just draw a few milliliters of water and then draw in the gas the rest of the way, shake and do the math. Am i missing something here??

If you draw in 10 ml of gas and end up with 8 you have 20% alcohol. The bigger the syringe, the more accurate the results. I would just want to make sure there is enough water initially to mix with all of the alcohol.


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## Kiss4aFrog (Nov 3, 2013)

Or one from Briggs and Stratton: 795161Â*BRIGGS & STRATTON GASOHOL TESTER item details $8.00 + shipping


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## Smolenski7 (Nov 24, 2010)

That's a great little gadget. Problem is though, what happens when the gas you test doesn't meet standard? From what I understand, most of the stations around here all get their gas from the same source, it's just the additives (ie detergents) that are different. Wouldn't that mean that at least most of the gas in the local area is "bad?"


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## HCBPH (Mar 8, 2011)

*Alcohol*

That is a neat item. I'm lucky in that I can get alcohol free gas at my local station. Costs more but definitely worth it IMO. If you're looking for some, try finding a station that carries gas for classic cars, most is non-alcohol. In my area, the pumps are listed as non-oxygenated fuel for small engines and collector cars.


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## [email protected] (Nov 21, 2011)

Smolenski7 said:


> That's a great little gadget. Problem is though, what happens when the gas you test doesn't meet standard? From what I understand, most of the stations around here all get their gas from the same source, it's just the additives (ie detergents) that are different. Wouldn't that mean that at least most of the gas in the local area is "bad?"


The tool is mostly for service shops to test the fuel in a customer's equipment and determine if the fuel is beyond the typical 10% ethanol content limit for most small engines. This can easily happen if the fuel is allow to age more that 60 days without any stabilizer or preservative-type additives. It is a way to show the customer what can happen to untreated fuel that gets too old, and can lead to fouled carburetors and/or fuel systems. 

By law, all automotive gasoline sold in the USA must state the percentage of ethanol at the pump. Using a tool like this to test fresh gas from a station would probably come up pretty close. 

You could also use the tool to test fuel stored for an unknown length of time. Say you had a neighbor with a 5-gallon can of fuel, but no idea how old it is. The tool would let you know if the fuel was acceptable (at least from a water/ethanol content perspective) to use or not.


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## snow80 (Dec 31, 2012)

scipper77 said:


> I would think you could do this quite easily with a syringe. Just draw a few milliliters of water and then draw in the gas the rest of the way, shake and do the math. Am i missing something here??


I think that should work, although the plastic seal and walls of the syringe may not like gasoline or alcohol. You might not get more than a single test. i use syringes for fine lubricating oil (watches, fine machinery) and find that the oil attacks the flexible seal of a plastic syringe after a day or two. Gasoline is probably a lot more vigorous in making that attack.

I should point out that the alcohol water mixture takes less volume than the individual components. Equal volumes of ethanol and water only make up 1.92 times the original volume of either, so this testing method is OK for getting a rough idea, but not for accurate testing. The testers designed for this job may account for that difference. They should, but I looked at one and it did not.


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## motorhead64 (Dec 15, 2013)

In the "old days," the only fuel-related problems were about "grade" and "dirt." With the addition of ethanol, now one has to consider water saturation issues and problems related to gasket disintegration. Can't wait until they up the legal limit to 15%. We will start seeing snow blower museums popping up! MH


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## Drift-King (Jul 29, 2015)

Have been UNABLE to locate any gas stations in NY that have zero ethanol. And - I believe our rocket science brained "legislators" are looking to increase the amount of ethanol currently added. Interestingly, I have found non-ethanol fuel in Florida (lots of lawnmowers I guess) but clearly not very handy for a snowblower.


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## uberT (Dec 29, 2013)

I was visiting the local Ariens dealer this weekend and my rep made a clever recommendation on the fuel issues. He suggested buying and partially filling the tank with the $32/gallon canned gasoline as you are putting away your outdoor power equipment for the season. This would be an alternate to using it all the time and having to bear the expense.

He says the vast majority of broken down equipment in their shop is related to carburetor issues and the tainted fuel getting old.


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## Kiss4aFrog (Nov 3, 2013)

I guess the canned gas just for storage wouldn't be so bad but it's likely cheaper and easier to just treat the gas with Marine Stabil.
Works on mowers too or anything with gas.


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## Town (Jan 31, 2015)

uberT said:


> I was visiting the local Ariens dealer this weekend and my rep made a clever recommendation on the fuel issues. He suggested buying and partially filling the tank with the $32/gallon canned gasoline as you are putting away your outdoor power equipment for the season.  This would be an alternate to using it all the time and having to bear the expense.
> 
> He says the vast majority of broken down equipment in their shop is related to carburetor issues and the tainted fuel getting old.


A better and much cheaper alternative is to drain all fuel from the gas tank and carb. When the season starts then use fresh fuel. Premium gas in Ontario does not contain ethanol so that is what I use now.


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## uberT (Dec 29, 2013)

I know there are lots of theories on storing dry vs. wet storage. I prefer to leave fuel in the machines...except the chain saw due to such infrequent use.

The canned gas seems to be good for 2 (??) years.


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## wdb (Dec 15, 2013)

Drift-King said:


> Have been UNABLE to locate any gas stations in NY that have zero ethanol. And - I believe our rocket science brained "legislators" are looking to increase the amount of ethanol currently added. Interestingly, I have found non-ethanol fuel in Florida (lots of lawnmowers I guess) but clearly not very handy for a snowblower.


This map appears to show quite a few.

pure-gas.org : ethanol-free gas stations


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## Kiss4aFrog (Nov 3, 2013)

HCBPH said:


> That is a neat item. I'm lucky in that I can get alcohol free gas at my local station. Costs more but definitely worth it IMO. If you're looking for some, try finding a station that carries gas for classic cars, most is non-alcohol. In my area, the pumps are listed as non-oxygenated fuel for small engines and collector cars.



Ya know, I get alcohol free too and now I'm thinking maybe it would be interesting to test it just to make sure it really is alcohol free :blush:


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## Kiss4aFrog (Nov 3, 2013)

Be careful with the "Pure Gas" sites. I had one on my phone and more often than not the station didn't exist or it didn't carry E0 any longer.
Same with E85 applications. I use it 75/25% premium in my Turbo and Supercharged cars. They seem to run a bit better on the Alcohol. Using the smart phone app a lot of the stations no longer carried E85 and the app didn't allow for editing/updating.


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## wdb (Dec 15, 2013)

Kiss4aFrog said:


> Be careful with the "Pure Gas" sites. I had one on my phone and more often than not the station didn't exist or it didn't carry E0 any longer.
> Same with E85 applications. I use it 75/25% premium in my Turbo and Supercharged cars. They seem to run a bit better on the Alcohol. Using the smart phone app a lot of the stations no longer carried E85 and the app didn't allow for editing/updating.


I've heard that turbo cars love E85. :smiley-whacky017::smiley-whacky017: I have an STi but have not tried it yet. 

As for the puregas map, I agree. It appears to be largely maintained on a volunteer basis and is likely to have stale data. But it's a start. There is a local station selling nothing but ethanol-free gas (at a premium) and I tell everyone I know about the place because I want him to stay in business!


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## cfuller3 (Jan 8, 2016)

I run an additive in all my small engines. One that keeps the water suspended in the fuel. Been seeing a lot of small engines eaten up with fuel kept in them. Do your due diligence and keep them dry till the season gets here and then run an additive for the junk they've added to the fuel. I personally use Amsoil Quick Shot......... there's probably other stuff out there too.


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## jermar (Dec 10, 2014)

Last year I added a fuel cut off valve and stored my blower dry. For 20 years I kept the tank filled during storage with Stabil. The big difference is that I started the motor every four months for a few minutes. That seemed to prevent the gas from gumming up the carb.


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