E10 fuel and us.
Posted: Mar 6th, '20, 19:12
There's an in-depth article in this month's Bennetts 'Bike Social' blog on the UK Government's plan to up the ethanol content of our pump petrol fom 5% to 10% in 2021. Here's a short extract from said article, the full write up follows, just click on the link, it makes for pretty interesting reading IMO:
Among the problems with ethanol is the fact that it prefers to burn at a different air/fuel ratio than petrol. On a vehicle with fuel injection, a three-way catalytic converter and a lambda (oxygen) sensor in the exhaust, that’s not necessarily a problem, since the exhaust sensor can tell the fuel injection to compensate. Most cars have had such kit for the last 20 years, but on bikes emissions laws have been slower to catch up, so many didn’t adopt the same technology until around 2010. Since the average bike in the UK is 14.7 years old, a vast number come from the days before manufacturers had considered the use of ethanol fuels.
That’s not E10’s only problem, either. Ethanol is hygroscopic, which means absorbs and mixes with water, even drawing it in from the air around it. That’s one of the reasons it can cause corrosion, since it means parts of fuel systems that were never designed to be in contact with water are suddenly exposed to it. On top of that, ethanol is a solvent and that means rubber, plastic and fibreglass parts that were designed to be in contact with pure petrol can melt once exposed to E10. Since many bikes have plastic fuel tanks, that’s a worry. A few years ago, there were issues in America – where E10 has been in use much longer, with bikes including Ducati Monsters, Sport Classics and Multistradas suffering distorted plastic fuel tanks as they reacted to ethanol in the fuel.
How else can E10 fuel cause problems for my bike?
Although the water-attracting properties of E10 aren’t necessarily a massive problem if you’re constantly using a vehicle and running through tanks of fuel, they can be amplified when a vehicle is left unused with petrol in the tank.
That’s a particular issue for bikes, since many are either laid up over winter or used sporadically with long idle periods. During that time, E10 has a reputation for going stale and undergoing ‘phase separation’ when vehicles aren’t used. That means the ethanol falls out of solution with the petrol as it absorbs more water. The result could be an engine that won’t start until the fuel is replaced, and some suggest this phase separation can take place in as little as three months.
'BIKE SOCIAL' LINK: https://www.bennetts.co.uk/bikesocial/n ... d=63083565
Among the problems with ethanol is the fact that it prefers to burn at a different air/fuel ratio than petrol. On a vehicle with fuel injection, a three-way catalytic converter and a lambda (oxygen) sensor in the exhaust, that’s not necessarily a problem, since the exhaust sensor can tell the fuel injection to compensate. Most cars have had such kit for the last 20 years, but on bikes emissions laws have been slower to catch up, so many didn’t adopt the same technology until around 2010. Since the average bike in the UK is 14.7 years old, a vast number come from the days before manufacturers had considered the use of ethanol fuels.
That’s not E10’s only problem, either. Ethanol is hygroscopic, which means absorbs and mixes with water, even drawing it in from the air around it. That’s one of the reasons it can cause corrosion, since it means parts of fuel systems that were never designed to be in contact with water are suddenly exposed to it. On top of that, ethanol is a solvent and that means rubber, plastic and fibreglass parts that were designed to be in contact with pure petrol can melt once exposed to E10. Since many bikes have plastic fuel tanks, that’s a worry. A few years ago, there were issues in America – where E10 has been in use much longer, with bikes including Ducati Monsters, Sport Classics and Multistradas suffering distorted plastic fuel tanks as they reacted to ethanol in the fuel.
How else can E10 fuel cause problems for my bike?
Although the water-attracting properties of E10 aren’t necessarily a massive problem if you’re constantly using a vehicle and running through tanks of fuel, they can be amplified when a vehicle is left unused with petrol in the tank.
That’s a particular issue for bikes, since many are either laid up over winter or used sporadically with long idle periods. During that time, E10 has a reputation for going stale and undergoing ‘phase separation’ when vehicles aren’t used. That means the ethanol falls out of solution with the petrol as it absorbs more water. The result could be an engine that won’t start until the fuel is replaced, and some suggest this phase separation can take place in as little as three months.
'BIKE SOCIAL' LINK: https://www.bennetts.co.uk/bikesocial/n ... d=63083565
