The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk reg vs premium gas

I have always put premium gas in my 1946 chevy truck...it has a 1980's 350 v8 with solid lifters....Any issues with using gas below 91 octane?

Appreciate your insights
Bakerman

I use premium since the lower grades have ethanol. If regular gas did not have ethanol, that what I would use.

I do the same but now the cost difference is 80 cents a gallon....

All grades of gasoline, including premium, have 10% ethanol. The sign on the pump says so. Unless it's advertised as "ethanol free" you're just paying extra for slow-burning gas that isn't needed in any engine with less than 9.5-10 to 1 compression. 1980's engines, unless they have been highly modified, were built to run regular, but exactly NONE of them came from the factory with solid lifters. What's the gauge pressure you get on a compression test? If it's less that 175 PSI or so, regular will work just fine. You might need to make a minor adjustment to the ignition timing.
Jerry

Speak for your own jurisdiction. That's not true here.

Our local Casey's has both premium with ethanol and without. But as mentioned, the price difference is quite substantial, especially at today's prices.

Rich's Toys You should try some 105 octane ethanol free LPG good for 12 to one compression start,run, ride and drive never vapor-lock. Don't have to rinse your cylinders every morning with liquid fuel 1.89$ last Friday.Can use new parts instead of fight worn out antiques.

As HRL noted, all gas here is with ethanol except rec fuel, and that is typically $1 more.

Here, in upstate New York, we can buy ethanol free premium gas at the pump, at a premium price, but to me, it’s still worth it, not having the issues caused by coagulating ethanol. I run it in everything but my daily driver.

Missouri has both types, I run regular w/ethanol, truck will set for weeks and still run just fine. Mine is a garage that stays constant temperature.

E10 in the original tank has to be used up or if months old, drained.
I'm senior and lazy.
I may forget how old the E10 gas is, or forget to drain it or don't want the hassle to catch and recycle the old gasoline.
Non-ethanol is nearby in my area and is used regularly. Farmers and anyone who has older equipment swear by it.

Nearly a year of not riding my Harley due to medical issues has trashed the carburetor. Good thing I've got a spare to rebuild and swap out so I can do some riding this summer!
Jerry

Leave it to ethanol to foul another carburetor.

Thanks to each of you for reponding to my question...It appears that I will continue to use ethanol free....this just means my costs will go up but driving my truck is a special time for me


Hope to see some of you at Back to the 50'd in 2 weeks
Again Thank You
Craig

The ethanol or not discussion has been going on for decades. There are lovers and haters. Here in my area of Eastern Tennessee most stations have a pump with ethanol free premium, but as others stated, about $1 more. I run regular E10 in everything including the lawn mower, and did in my 50 Chevy 216 years ago – with no problems. Your mileage may vary.

Cut and paste, not my words:
Because of ethanol's affinity for water, gasoline oxygenated with ethanol is generally not transported in pipelines like traditional motor fuel. Instead, it is added to gasoline tanker trucks at the terminal level in order to keep its possible exposure to water at a minimum.

All gas stations that sell Ethanol gasoline have issues to deal with, again not my words:
Why is phase separation a problem?
* Phase separation sinks to the bottom of your tank and, if undetected, can be pumped straight into your customers' vehicles, causing stall-outs at your site and costly repairs for which you may be liable for.
* The corrosive nature of phase separation can result in the need for expensive tank repairs and remediation. The costs of purging your system, replacing dispenser filters, and disposing of contaminated fuel can easily run more than $10,000.
* Ethanol boosts octane levels, but when ethanol mixes with water to create phase separation, the remaining gasoline is depleted of ethanol, lowering its octane level and making it ineligible for legal sale.

My point is that if gas stations can have problems with Ethanol you can bet your "Sweet Bippy" that old steel truck tanks can have problems too.

Why not use a water separating fuel filter like I have on my boat and my Dodge/Cummins if you have concerns? The latter is part of a FASS fuel system and has a spigot to drain any aqueous phase now and then.

The FASS system would work if you also had a fuel tank that is Ethanol resistant. On your boat and Dodge/Cummings, most likely all components downstream of the fuel tank is made to run on the modern respective fuel. I think everybody here knows that the rubber lines, fuel pump diaphragms and carburetor diaphragms (at least Carter) will dissolve if not upgraded to Ethanol tolerant. So after doing all this upgrade you have a superior system that is able to run Ethanol gasoline. It's the owner's choice. I choose to run non-ethanol so that I don't have to upgrade.

Maybe additives in our tanks. Like Heet and STA-BIL.

They absorb any extra water such as from when fuel separate begins and moisture from the atmosphere, but there is a limit on how long this absorption works.
Theoretically you would eventually run your engine and burn it off.
If left unburned you have water absorbed by the Ethanol and water absorbed by the additive that breaks down to even more water.
Think of it this way, if additives were the ultimate answer, it would be added-in at the terminal where the Ethanol is added to the non-ethanol gasoline.

I have much less problems in my old trucks and my boat if I use ethanol free gas.
I found this website which has a list of gas stations that sell ethanol free gas. I wish there were more stations that sold it.
https://www.pure-gas.org/

Thanks JD1.

Rich's Toys Our local Casey's had ethonol-free and about the time I wanted to fill up for winter they stopped having it !! Another way is gas up at the airport on 100 octane lo-lead no ethanol but would be expensive. I have used that in 2 cycle stuff and it worked fine,it's about double pump gas prices so that kinda bombed for now.

Since E free fuel has been offered in the PNW, I've used it in everything I have in WA and MT. Saves hard starts, draining bad fuel and carb rebuilds on everything.
About 40 cents a gallon more, but even high octane could give me a pre Ignition knock every once in a while, but I also get a bit more MPG now.

I use non ethanol exclusively in my 2 stroke equipment. I will use ethanol blend in the zero turn during busy summer months when I know it won’t sit more than a few days at a time. But switch back to the non E in the fall.

The 51 truck gets nothing but non E.

I do the same thing JW. We are lucky to have a Casey’s in town that has a separate nozzle for 91 non ethanol.
Other than daily drivers, I use that in all the rest of the toys my wife made me buy.

Don

This is for fun.
So you drive up to a gas station in your original AD truck.
You want gas without Ethanol but which button do you press?
Remember what "Hot Rod Lincoln" told us.

Maybe this will help (if I counted correctly):
E85 (two buttons)
E15 (three buttons)
E10 (twelve buttons)
Non-Ethanol (one button)
Diesel (one button)

New to the Stovebolt website, hello to all. When my 67 GMC Super Custom with 305E V-6 was running prior to the spun rod bearing which put it out of commission i ran regular w/ethanol also with no problems. I use to add lead substitute when I filled it up sometimes when it was available, made me feel better. Sometimes Id put in higher octane fuel for the same reason. Since my GMC is not running I'm driving my 66 Power Wagon w/318 using the same fueling habits -the lead substitute and it runs good. Makes sense to me that condensation could cause problems throughout the fuel system over time, hope the carburetor kits for these trucks are still available in the future.

67superc Welcome to stovebolt,used to take care of a fleet of Gimmy's ,I thought GMC was pretty sharp to put one little valve in the floor of the intake to get crankcase ventilation. you probably know to watch out for rocks getting thru the spark plug holes in those manifold pockets.

67superc Welcome to stovebolt,used to take care of a fleet of Gimmy's ,I thought GMC was pretty sharp to put one little valve in the floor of the intake to get crankcase ventilation. you probably know to watch out for rocks getting thru the spark plug holes in those manifold pockets.

...I use to work in a printing plant where we used alcohol based inks. Occasionally when I filled up I'd dump me a half gallon of ethyl in the tank to get rid of the condensation....and if I didn't have some K-1 kerosene I've dumped it in my diesel when I owned one. Never a problem in any of them.
We also use to swap alcohol to a dealer for a free oil change...and air filter!

just saying....

Thanks for the welcome to this sight. Look forward to everyone's insight, and hope I can contribute when I can.

I just read a story about a guy living in a remote location (wilderness). His chainsaw wouldn't run well on Ethanol gas but where he lived there was no non-ethanol gasoline. To solve the problem, he adds X amount of distilled water to a 5 gallon can of fresh Ethanol gasoline, shakes it up, pours it out in a wide mouth container and waits a few minutes. The Ethanol absorbs the water very quickly and both fall to the bottom of the can. He scoops the good gasoline off for his chainsaw and the remaining water/Ethanol he uses as a cleaner.

Don't go there. Don't try this. It's not safe. But it is interesting to know what happens as far as a chemical reaction.

Using distilled (or deionized) water is going too far. This sort of procedure is used all the time in chemistry labs to get all the water soluble stuff out of a solvent that doesn't dissolve in water. There's even a "separatory funnel" to do the job but maybe not at the 5-gallon scale.

The discussion has focused on ethanol vs. non-ethanol instead of regular vs. premium gas. I agree on avoiding the ethanol but I have to disagree on the need to run premium. If you can get non-ethanol regular you will save some money and you really gain nothing going with premium unless you are running a high performance engine in your truck/car. A standard engine does not need premium to operate efficiently.

The topic discussion says "Re: reg vs premium gas". It does not specify Ethanol or non-Ethanol.
Stovebolt is an old truck forum for discussion about old trucks that were not designed to run any grades of Ethanol.
The proper fuel to use, in an AD truck for example, is regular non-Ethanol. End of discussion.

Maybe the question to ask is, if I must run Ethanol gasoline, which gas station button selection gives me the least amount of Ethanol (if non-Ethanol is not available)?

Depending on where I go, I can get either regular or premium with no ethanol. The newer daily drivers get regular with 10% ethanol. My old trucks and all outdoor equipment (new or old) get regular without ethanol. Late summer and early fall I start adding Sta-Bil.

John

The only non-ethanol gas available at our station is premium. I was using it last year, but since the massive price increases this year I've gone back to regular with 10% ethanol. If prices ever get back down to a sensible level I'll probably start using the non-ethanol premium again.

My daily driver is a '70 C20, 350, auto. This is what I have learned:

Ethanol blend fuel boils at a lower temp than EF. Up to 10% blend was bad enough, now that we are at 15% in most blends, it is worse. Higher percentage = Lower boiling point. A mechanical pump puts out ~7psi which is not enough to compress the bubbles,. This results in cavitation leading to misfires and possibly vapor-lock on hot days.
Ethanol eventually breaks down to sugar (like that nasty High Fructose Corn Syrup we are told to avoid) and water. If your rig sits long enough, the water will rust out what it can; the sugar will plug what it can and you are left with a rig that wont run. Inline filters eventually gum up and you can get stalled on a cooler day.

So, Spend more for EF (now over $1 more/gallon in my area)
or install an electric fuel pump which puts out about 40psi. This will compress the bubbles. However, if you don't drive a lot, you still have the break-down issue from old fuel. (Some of us can remember the days when a rig could sit for years and you could head out with a fresh battery; the handle from under the seat, or a push down the hill, and crank it right up!)

Best
RE