Ethanol

The weather yesterday got up to around 80 degrees. I took off in the morning on the SV650 and headed south to run a couple of errands and to run some fuel through it so I could top off the tank and add some fuel stabilizer for winter storage.

I've been trying to address the issue of ethanol in the gasoline for all of my old motor vehicles. I always add Sta-Bil to the 5 gallon cans of gas for the tractor, mower, etc., but it doesn't seem like that's enough anymore. I put Sta-Bil 360 in the bike this time. I hope it works as advertised.

I also bought a bottle of this stuff. I don't know if it's better or worse than the Sta-Bil 360 Performance, but I'm going to add an ounce or so to the tractor and snow-blower every time I add fuel. I might try to find the BelRay product mentioned in the e-mail I received from Cycle World the other day. It had a really good article about the effects of ethanol, mostly dealing with bikes, as you would expect, but applicable to all small engine/powersports vehicles. It's my understanding that marine gas does not have the ethanol in it. It might be worth checking into that. There are a few marinas not too far from me at a couple of the lakes. The government is planning on upping the percentage of ethanol from 10% to 15%. The pump at the corner station already has it.

Here's what you get when you run the 10% thru a high performance big-block Chevy. Piston with 870 miles on it. It's not carbon build up but rather a sooty, gooey kind of deposit. Besides gumming up the inside of the engine, it fouls the spark plugs as well. 

Besides lousing up the gas formulations for those of us with old cars and bikes, your friends at the EPA have mandated changes in the oil formulations as well. Unless you have a roller cam in your old beastie, you're going to have problems with the new oil.

I bought some of this and some of this:

I need to do a little bit more research yet but I think one or the other of these should take care of all my old bikes, cars, small engines, and tractor. Seems like all the Preppers are stocking up on canned goods and ammo. I'm thinking I should be stocking up on oil that still contains the ZDDP.