Gas Choice

If you do the math, using real world numbers, not the EPA fiction, you'll find the gain in mileage using unadulterated gas is greater than the increase in price to buy it.

I work part time at a local airport. We sell a lot of 100 octane low lead avgas (100LL) this time of year to boat owners and people putting up their power equipment for the winter. I run this in my Briggs and Kohler engines. The Honda engines don't like the lead. The local old car museum sends a pickup with 5-35 gallon drums in the back every spring. The stuff has a shelf life stated at 2 years, but we regularly pull planes out of hangars that have been sitting for years and typically they start right up after a battery charge. Local mogas $2.30, 100LL $5.25.

I only use premium non-ethanol gas with Seafoam in all my small engines. I learned my ( expensive ) lesson about using ethanol in anything that sit for extended periods of time.

The issue occurs when the gas sits and the engine is not used. THe ethanol seperates and the carbs is gunked up. If you are somewhere where you have no seasonal usage you will not notice an ethanol problem . But if you use the engine seasonally you will need additives or take measures to ensure the engine runs when the season begins again. The issue is real.
So real many avoid the problem by paying more for ethanol free gas.

It takes me 2 or 3 years to burn 5 gal of Chevron in my mower. Works just as well at 3 years as the day I bought it.

fj12ryder wrote:
I've never paid any attention to what goes in the gas cans, and hence, what goes in the gas tank for the generator. I put some gas in there a couple-three years ago and added some Stabil. I don't use the generator any to speak of so that gas is still in there. The generator always starts on demand, which might be three or four times a year. I do drain the float bowl at the end of the season before the trailer goes into storage. It's only 6 years old so we'll see how it goes.

This is a built-in Onan 5500.

Regardless of what you put in, having your generator run great on 3 year old gas has more to do with luck than anything.
Really not a great idea.

ScottG wrote:
In my opinion having any amount of ethanol in gasoline makes it "bad".
It's lower in energy and hell on parts. It also doesn't store well and goes bad far faster than pure gas.

I don't like it, but for the dollar plus more they charge around here, I use it sparingly.
Ethanol fuel won't magically "ruin" anything, except in old/older engines it'll attack the rubber. And the other stuff Scott mentioned. It's "bad" in my book but it's not pure evil that some make it out to be.
I have probably 25 different engines around the house and they all get ethanol gas some or all of the time. Several engines in the 20-40 year old category.
However being prudent about long term storage is what needs to be done. On expensive things I try to get a tank of non e gas through them before off season storage. Like my snow machines and boat. And the residual fuel gets treated and run for a bit to get it through the fuel injection system.
Anything with a carb I try to do the same thing but then run the engine out of gas and or drain the carbs.
This has worked without fail for many years.
On a separate note you can smell the difference. Just like race gas smells different than regular pump gas both going in and coming out!
Always fun to mix a little left over old race gas with the yard equipment gas. Smells like your racing something rather than cutting the lawn!

Reminds me, I got about 10 engines to "Winterize" here soon.

I've never paid any attention to what goes in the gas cans, and hence, what goes in the gas tank for the generator. I put some gas in there a couple-three years ago and added some Stabil. I don't use the generator any to speak of so that gas is still in there. The generator always starts on demand, which might be three or four times a year. I do drain the float bowl at the end of the season before the trailer goes into storage. It's only 6 years old so we'll see how it goes.

This is a built-in Onan 5500.

OH48Lt wrote:


Ethanol fuel exists today only because of mis-lead politicians in the EPA and the farm lobbyists. It isn't there on its own merits.

It's not really mis-lead, it is vote buying with your tax dollars. Maybe we could just send cash to the farmers and politicians and they could just forget the whole scam.

Prior to ethanol, it was a standard practice to leave untreated gasoline in your small equipment engines (lawn mowers, chain saws, generators etc) over the winter and they always started up like they should in the spring. Now its suddenly become "abuse" because we are forced to use that crappy ethanol ?? Now the standard is to treat the ethanol fuel with some type of additive so you wouldn't have carb or fuel line issues due to the corn squeezins. I go through Techron in the spring, and Stabil in the fall to treat the fuel.

I bought a 6500W generator at an estate auction this past spring. It was essentially brand new, no hours on it. The previous owner bought it 2 years ago, put some gas in it, ran it once to make sure it worked OK, and put it back in the garage. When I bought it, no gas in the tank, so I put some in and fired it up. Ran for about 1 minute, then quit. What happened is that he used ethanol gas (all you can get around here unless you go to the airport and pay Big Money), it evaporated out, and left a granular residue that looked like sand, and it really messed up the carburetor. Lesson learned.

Ethanol fuel exists today only because of mis-lead politicians in the EPA and the farm lobbyists. It isn't there on its own merits.