The aircraft industry also uses a lot of specialty alloys. I suspect the fuel line could be one of those alloys and not just of the shelf aluminium tubing.

I don' believe what I went through to post the preceding entry. WoW!

In doing one 'EDIT' attempt the resulting re-post lost one paragraph and the lead-in to the next one. Yikes!

NoShortcuts
a.k.a. Charlie Brown
near Syracuse, New York

I highly recommend reviewing the information shared on The Carburetor Shop LLC of Eldon, Missouri, web site. It gets at numerous issues raised earlier in this thread and makes the point that ethanol laced fuels, specifically E-10 and E-15, have the ability to attack certain metals, especially aluminum.

Additionally, there is insight regarding the need for recalibrating carburetors to avoid ethanol fuels causing engines to run leaner with the result that they run hotter. Running hotter negatively affects a number of things one might not think of offhand.

In this to-the-point article, various carburetor modifications for engines running E-10 or E-15 fuel are recommended. These include increasing jet sizes, changing float levels, changing out accelerator pumps and foam floats, staking the seats of neoprene-tipped fuel valves, and modifying vacuum controlled metering devices such as economizer /power valves.

Web site navigation:

• address... www.thecarburetorshop.com
• categories at the top of the home page... toggle 'Articles'
• page that opens... part way down page... under heading 'General Information'... toggle 'Use of ethanol in older vehicles'

NoShortcuts
a.k.a. Charlie Brown
near Syracuse, New York

I've got 14,000 hours in them over 40 years & never worried much about it. Never had a problem with one

Doing Fords for 45 years. '56 Customline Victoria

E.J. in Havana FL

Yikes, another thing to worry about when take a flight.

Mark

1956 Mercury M100
1955 Ford Fairlane Club Sedan
Delta, British Columbia

Airplanes has miles of aluminum lines.. Cessna & other piston airplanes have aluminum fuel lines. They don't have to deal with ethanol (yet) though...... Some of the newer stuff has aluminum with teflon inside.... Big $$$ there...

Doing Fords for 45 years. '56 Customline Victoria

E.J. in Havana FL

You're the Charlie I was looking for! The mileage loss should be obvious. I forget the ratios, but I remember alcohol contains about 40% less energy than Gasoline. Doing the math means that it requires 50% more fuel for the same work. Scaled back to E15 it's still substantial. I wondered, as You stated if the sensors can read the correct mixtures with Ethanol.

For fuel, I like steel lines, I can buy brake lines for a reasonable amount and the Flare fittings work very well at sealing leaks. 10 or 15% Ethanol does not seem to corrode them much. I have a hand bender so installation is not a major problem, for me.

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart) 

Well, I'm a Charlie, so I'll give it shot.
The only issues I've heard of so far are incompatibility with rubber and aluminum, poor mileage and power loss of which, I have experienced none of the above in anything I own.
The fuel system is another plausible cause for concern. We know that with carbureted vehicles, when the switch from gas to alcohol is made, larger jets are required. I assume that means a larger volume of fuel also needs to be provided to the carburetor via the fuel pump. If the same holds true for ethanol, then it is possible that the injectors and fuel pump will not be able to provide enough fuel once a certain threshold is reached. Further, the 02 sensor may not provide the computer with the correct info for the alcohol content but I’m not sure if that will tend to be lean or rich.
I wold expect this to be easy to overcome in most newer vehicles. I would also suspect that most cars built in the last 10 years or so are designed for E10, so E15 really should not be a big deal for those. It is the older stuff that may have issues. That's my opinion.


Lawrenceville, GA

Besides the ‘safety’ factor going down significantly with the length of rubber hose being used for a fuelline, the rubber hoses have a real problem with ethanol laden fuels versus what you’ll find with aluminum tubing being used instead. In short, minimize the amount of rubber hose being used.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

There are 2 issues at work here: 1st, the materials used in fuel systems are engineered to withstand E10 except in flex fuel vehicles which can handle up to 85% ethanol. 2nd, anything over 10% ethanol will cause driveability problems and set a hard code (check engine light) on some vehicles because it causes a lean condition that the ECU can't compensate for by increasing injector duty cycle. It's beyond the limits of ECU programming. You might be able to reflash the ECU but you would still have the materials issue.