Not enough room

Grit dog wrote:


You apparently have it bad there in PA. Hard to find LP and diesel?
How hard is it to get non ethanol, av gas and race gas?

I do live in a very rural area, closest small city is 25 minute drive one way, larger metro area is 1 hr drive one way.

Non Ethanol gas?

Nope, even though "Gas buddy" says I can, in reality the gas stations that is local to me that Gas buddy says sells it, doesn't so don't depend on Gas buddy as it is wrong.

Can't buy Non Ethanol gas in bulk, if I wanted to pay $20 for a single pint bottle for lawn mowers, sure but I am not paying $80 per month in fuel just to trim my yard.

AV gas?

Nope, not available to the general public, ALL small airports near me that have AV gas have it LOCKED behind fences so you must contact the airport manager to get access and unless you have a valid "tail number" the airport managers will not sell it to you.

Race gas?

Nope, not available to general public, the stations which are close to a popular dirt track (which is one of the World of Outlaws circuit) that have it will only sell race fuel to you IF you have a valid entry pass for that day of the race.

Reason why I know these things is I asked local fuel vendors back in 2011 when I was gifted a 100 plus yr old automobile at the time and I wasn't sure if the carb had a cork float (which is sealed using shellac and shellac is alcohol soluble). I started the car using Naptha which is also sold as Coleman fuel, paint thinner and for many yrs was the base of automobile gas. Eventually I got around to cracking open the carb and found I had a nice brass float.. No more messing around with finding Ethanol free gas.

If you wanted 100% true Ethanol free gas, you would have to own your own oil well and then you could pull the natural gas from the well head, compress it into liquid and walla, you now have Naptha, it is also known as "Casing head", "well gas", "white gas".. But, you CAN'T run that straight in your vehicles as it also have a very low Octane level of about 40.. Only works straight in low compression engines like Hit and Miss engines.

However, using that in your vehicle would also be considered untaxed motor fuel and that gets you on the wrong side of the law.. Oil producers that also produce excess well gas are supposed to add that back into the crude oil they pump out.

How do I know this?

I grew up working around oil wells in PA..

But in reality, Ethanol laced gas has been around since the 1930s or so, so much of the supposed harm to engines has been blown way out of proportion.

Even Henry Ford played with straight Ethanol as a motor fuel, was eventual dropped since producing Ethanol is much more labor intensive and far more expensive that refining crude to extract Naptha.. He figured since his auto was originally marketed to farmers they could make their own fuel using some of their crops.