Maybe. Personally I've tried an experiment similar to Jon's and unless you are trying to get the stuff to crawl up the side of a glass jar (and it will but not very far), you'll find it will creep up more porous metal freely. Worse than non-ethanol gas? I don't know. We don't get non-ethanol here. I can tell you VPM Naphtha will creep and spread on metal in almost the same exact fashion and maybe more so. I wasn't able to find anyone who claimed naphtha was hygroscopic. But denatured alcohol, acetone and compounds like lacquer thinner don't creep nearly as much, if any at all.

About 3 years ago I set out to find out all I could about ethanol-laced gas and why most people consider it to be the rap music of auto fuel. I wanted facts, but after a point they're not easy to obtain. And it is devilish irritating because the word "spread" will bring up lots of investment news, the term "wicking" will bring up information on Coleman stoves, bunsen burners, kerosene lamps and stuff like that. The term "creep" will bring up a lot of hoo-hah about metal creep and stories about crankshafts becoming pretzel-shaped if they're not stored upright. And more. Go try if you're curious. If your work parallels mine, you'll find some people think of the term "wicking" when they're talking about ethanol gas drawing moisture out of the air (which a few people actually believe does not occur). Bottom line is I think ethanol causes gasoline to spread more, but I was unable to find anything factual to support that idea. It is hygroscopic (absorbs water) and gasoline is hydrophobic (repels water). The ethanol gas you get at the pump will have 10% corn liquor in it and that lets it hold a small amount of water in suspension. And when the water that is absorbed gets to a concentration that is too high (and temperature has an effect on this), you get what's called phase separation. The extra water (along with some ethanol which bonds to it) sinks to the bottom in that case and that's when the real fun begins. Your fuel pump picks this water/ethanol cocktail up from the bottom of the tank and sends it off to your engine.

But back to wicking, crawling, creeping or whatever term you use, yes...I think the ethanol causes that to be worse but as I said I can't tell you why. I have a friend who is a retired doctor of chemistry. I should probably ask him why this is or isn't so.

~ Jon
1952 1/2 ton with 1959 235 | T5 with 3.07 rear end