burton9010

I was trying to make it down to Aero tanks to get a larger 30 gal tank before my trip next month but it doesnt look like I am going to be able to get off work for a few days to do that. So anyways yesterday I dropped my tank to clean it and it was way worse then I thought. And the guy who sold it to me told me he just changed the fuel pump which I found out was a complete lie but the 1/4 inch of rust on the fuel pump that was in there. So while I was dropping my tank I had noticed the line the breaks away for the generator fuel supply goes up and sits higher then the tank. The generator I just got is just a gravity fed carb and I was planning on just hooking this fuel supply to the fuel tank but now I dont see how this would work. Did the generators that were in these have fuel pumps on them to pull the fuel from that tank or am I just overlooking something?

I dont understand. It's an article about oil companies that are mixing in ethanol with their gas before they export it to get the ethanol criedt from the goverment and working the system. How does this down play ethanol as a fuel? This is just another example of why it's a good thing we are cutting the ethanol subsidy.

The US is the largest producer of ethanol in the world. We produce twice the amount that brazil does and we even export ethanol. Ethanol is a fuel and can be made number of different ways. As it is now in the US it's well known to come from corn but as other sources get larger the corn ethanol will become only a fraction of the total output. Again cellulosic ethanol began is 2010 and will out produce the corn market in the next few years. Cellulosic ethanol is made from bio waste and not from a food source. So your going to bring up a mudslide that "could" have been started by these biodiesel plants? How about the gulf oil spill????? I just get this picture in my mind of someone telling you a candy bar is bad for you while they are smoking a cigarette. Again there is much more to it then just BTU numbers. The gas engine is only 16%-18% effencient so there for your not using anywhere close to the full number of BTU's for power. If you rise the number of effencieny, which you can with a fuel like ehtanol, you can use a lot more of those BTU's. The more complete burn of the fuel you can get the better effencieny rate you will have. There are guy's that will run CNG kit's on their diesel trucks to work with the diesel. It mixes in at the intake of the engine. Some of these guys are getting upwards of 40 MPG out of a full size diesel truck that would usally get around 20 MPG. The BTU rating of CNG is about 1/4 of diesel so how could that be. It's because it lets the fuel burn more completey. CNG always works very well in diesel engine's because of the high compression because CNG is around 120-130 octane if I can remember correct. Even if you want to do a test for yourself try mixing some ethanol into your tank you have now at a ratio higher then 10%. I know with my 2007 jetta I get the best MPG at around 5/8 of a tank of gas and the rest topped off with E85. Even though this would give it a overall lower BTU rating then regular gas this still gives the best MPG and my engine is just a stock engine set to run on gas so just think if this engine was built to take better advantage of the ethanol. So I doubt they flunked science class you just have to look into it deeper.

I found someone online that has already done the e85 conversion to their toyota motorhome. He is at the bottom of this page: http://www.fuelflexint.com/pages/comments.htm I wonder if he is on this site?

The fact that they did not renew the subidy is great news. All that money was doing was going to the oil companies. The oil companies could cut their gas with a cheaper ethanol and get paid .45 a gallon for it, it just wasnt making sense. This also helped them because they could make a poor quality gas and mix in with ethanol to bring it up to the legal minimum. I dont think this is going to be the end of ethanol at all, like I said all they are doing is talking $6 billion from the oil companies $85 billion a year profit. How do you figure it will not be around till gas is $6.00 a gallon? Ethanol is still cheaper and the oil companies will still cut it with gas to save money they just wont be getting paid for the goverment to do it now. 10 years ago E10 was only around in the big cities to cut down polution but when oil spiked 10 years ago that's when everyone start mixing e10 because it was cheaper. I just wanted to show you that ethanol in avation is out there. I too work in the avation industry now. I am a jet engine mechanic for the U-2 and global hawk airframes so I do know a thing or two about fuel preperation for high altitude as our planes fly to 70,000+ feet.

alright well this is an aurgument that just keeps going back and forth now. the energy in to energy out ratio of ethanol is 1 in to 1.3 out. The energy in to out ratio of gas is 1 in to .87 out. You name all that stuff about what needs to be done for ethanol, how about the process for oil. If there is enough demand to build a platform in the middle of the ocean and drill down miles deep just to get the raw product seems like a lot of work to get that energy. Like maineah said look at brazil has done to fuel their country on ethanol. I understand they have sugar cane there which has much more sugar content then corn but it just shows you can run a country on ethanol. We cant really do much to change the process of how the goverment has run the program up till now but what we can do is use the fuel. If the demand goes up for this fuel then it will enter the private sector more. The same situation I just talked about oh how the demand of oil have made drilling in remote places worth the expense could be the same drive that would take place in the ethanol market. Waiter have you herd of AGE85 fuel? Its an avation fuel and containes 85% ethanol. One of the main selling points they say is it helps fight off icing in the fuel lines. When water get's into ethanol is has the ability to be able to spread in out even and pass through the system with no problems. When water gets in gas in get's together in pockets and can cause problems when it hits the system all at once. If you ever used the additive dry gas all it is doing is grabing the water and spreading it. It uses alcohol to do this.

alright well this is an aurgument that just keeps going back and forth now. the energy in to energy out ratio of ethanol is 1 in to 1.3 out. The energy in to out ratio of gas is 1 in to .87 out. You name all that stuff about what needs to be done for ethanol, how about the process for oil. If there is enough demand to build a platform in the middle of the ocean and drill down miles deep just to get the raw product seems like a lot of work to get that energy. Like maineah said look at brazil has done to fuel their country on ethanol. I understand they have sugar cane there which has much more sugar content then corn but it just shows you can run a country on ethanol. We cant really do much to change the process of how the goverment has run the program up till now but what we can do is use the fuel. If the demand goes up for this fuel then it will enter the private sector more. The same situation I just talked about oh how the demand of oil have made drilling in remote places worth the expense could be the same drive that would take place in the ethanol market. Waiter have you herd of AGE85 fuel? Its an avation fuel and containes 85% ethanol. One of the main selling points they say is it helps fight off icing in the fuel lines. When water get's into ethanol is has the ability to be able to spread in out even and pass through the system with no problems. When water gets in gas in get's together in pockets and can cause problems when it hits the system all at once. If you ever used the additive dry gas all it is doing is grabing the water and spreading it. It uses alcohol to do this.

I do understand what your saying and I am all for getting programs off the goverment money. I too grew up on a farm and in an area where you worked hard for your money. I'm now in the military in CA located in a city that is always top 5 on the unemployment ratings in the country. It's sad this state puts out $90,000,000 a day for unemployment. Like I said I agree with you 100% about getting this program and most other programs off the goverment it's just there are 5000 other things I would cut from the list before I cut this one. I'm not saying food prices didnt go up I am just saying that only a fraction of the increase of the price your paying at the store is because of this. Yes when the price of corn goes up all the other crops go up as well. Again I dont see this as a 100% bad thing. You have to remember that the US can produce some of the cheapest food in the world, so cheap that it puts other countrys out of business because the can't compete with the world price of food. The price is so cheap but yet the goverment shells out money to farming. Why dont we let the price of food go up so the farmers can take care of themselfs and this will also spark business in other parts of the world to grow more food. As far as animal feed that is a whole different argument. I myself am a supporter of free range farming which has a much higher cost at the store in the first place over these other meats that are mass produced. Dont think I am a hippy or a extreme green party guy because I am not I dont pick one side of the goverment and base all my thinking with them I take each issue and put my own thoughts into it. I believe we have gotten so use to everything being so cheap and the second the price of something goes up we think the world is going to end. If you go to wal mart and buy a box fan for $5 and then you in a ace hardware and see a box fan for $30 you think wow that is a rip off. When the one box fan was produced in china paying cheap labor and the other one built by a factory in the US. We do the same thing for our food. We go to wal mart and buy all this food the is coming from these food factories that hire illegal workers under the table and have unsafe conditions with dieses outbreaks in food etc. And then we are in shock when these stories come out in the news about outbreaks. Do you know how much work is involed in the whole food process? Well I assume you do if your a farmer haha but anyways, if you add it all up that is the price your paying for top notch food such as free range meats and etc. It's not that that kind of meat is expensive it's just that is the price that meat is sposed to be, the other stuff just cuts a bunch of corners and sells it for 1/3 of the price but people now think that 1/3 is the normal price it should be. So yes your box of cheerio's has increased 45% in the last three years but my price of gas as increased 300% and it would have increased even more without ethanol. We dont have the oil in the country to support our demand, Well unless you count shale oil but the goverment and the modern day public will not let us go that route anyways. What we do have right here and right now is ethonal. We already have the technology to use it more effient it's just that car builders are not going to build a car that's main selling point is ethanol when 99% of the public say's that's stuff is crap it will eat through your engine block, that stuff is only 85 octane, that stuff only gets half the MPG. etc The real problem is not with the fuel itself the real problem is with the public backing or really just public knowledge about the product. For the ethanol production layout until 2022 (which I dont 100% agree with myself) has corn ethanol maxed out in 2015 but leveled off in 2010 so there is not going to be much more of a drive on the corn market then there is right now. Cellulosic ethanol started up in 2010 but only brought in about 1,000,000 (because there was only one plant built) in 2011 though there is going to be 25x that amount of cellulosic ethonal. With the layout plan they have they have cellulosic ethanol bringing in 16 billion gallons a year by 2022 and corn staying at 15 billion gallons a year.Now what they didnt add into this plan is alge ethonal which I think is an even better idea. Alage and reproduce it's self 10x in one day in a sunny area. They have plans laid out that they could produce enough ethanol for this country just by building these alage plants in the deserts of nevada. Now I now that is not realistic but with the sources of the rest of ethanol already I believe it would take a huge chunk of our oil that why buy from other countries. So yes the structure of how they are doing ethanol in this country right now being run by the goverment is worng I agree with you. But to say the structure is not there for ethanol (not just corn ethanol) to become a main stream source of fuel and not just a trendy green hippy fuel is just not true in my opion. There are so many options out there to make more ethanol with not using corn but these companies are not going to build these plants if the corn ethanol plants that the goverment built (like the one you talked about) are not even being used because we are not using the fuel as consumers. So like I stated earlier the main probelm I see is not with the fuel itself, it's with the public backing and more knowledge about the product. Wow this thread has gotten a little off topic from fuel types haha.

Yes ethanol gets .45 a gal from the goverment but like I had stated before this is not even needed if the price of oil is over $60 or somewhere around that. As far as food prices the cost of what your buying that is going towards the food is less then 20% of the cost of the item. When food prices go up and everybody blaims ethanol most of the cost spike is not. When the price of oil goes up everything goes up including the cost of food. This has a much larger impact on the price then the price of the corn. There are a couple of ethanol plants that's this has happened to. I bill came out stating how much ethanol production we need to have per year all the way up to 2022. The problem is that bill was projecting making ethanol faster then we can build up the pumps to sell it. If they would mix it at e30 then we wouldnt have a probelm but as this thread is a perfect example of the what the public thinks they know about ethanol. If we would back this plan and would also push car makers to produce these ethanol effienicent engines we would have a lot stronger economy and a much more stable fuel supply.

The price to produce ethanol is cheaper then gas when oil is around $45-$50 a barrel. At today's price of oil at $98 a barrel yes ethanol is cheaper to produce. When oil is at $50-$70 ethnaol beats oil even without the subsidy even taking into account the 2/3 energy loss that today's engine produce from running ethanol. This is also with today's ethanol production efficiency rates right now which are getting much better every year. Farmers are goverment subsidized wheather or not they are in ethanol production. With the ethanol market is rises corn prices so there is not a need for farming to be subsidized. So no if you stop goverment subsidies farming will go away but not ethanol because that seems to be their money maker. And do you really want to get started on what the goverment has to pay to make sure we have a source of oil?

I know what your saying about BTU rating and energy rating but there really is more to it then that. They have done many studies with cars on straight gas, e10, e20, and e30 and compaired MPG and e20 and e30 for a lot of cars get better gas milage then or e10 or straight gas even though the e0 and e10 have a higher BTU rating. I has to do with the chemical reaction of the two and having a more complete burn. If you would like to read a story on in here is a few. http://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmgmt/ACE_Optimal_Ethanol_Blend_Level_Study_final_12507.pdf As far as price was ethanol is cheaper to produce then gas and also has a higher output rate. There are plenty of people out there that talk about how you only get 1.3 units of energy of ethanol for every 1 unit put in the thing you dont here is gas is .84 units out for every one unit in. With using corn for ethanol they only use the outer shell of starch and the rest can be used for food. There are plenty of other ways we can make ethanol in the country it's just the demand needs to be there from the consumer. when we learn how to use it right it will be there.

I agree with you that the 10% ethanol fuel at the pumps is crap. I believe we should have a choice of gas also in using blender pumps. With blender pumps you can choose from straight gas all the way to E85. With E10 you do lose MPG but not all of that is from the ethanol a lot of it has to do with that it's a lower quality gas that they use to cut with the ethanol. 10% is also a very bad ratio to mix with gas. 30% ethanol is a much better ratio to mix with and you will get better MPG on 30% ethanol then you will with 10% ethanol as long as it is a quality mix and not E30 gas that is rated at 87 octane. As you had said you losing MPG when using 10% ethanol but keep in mind ethanol is also keeping the price of gas down about .50 a gallon. Not sure what you mean as far as a winter blend and also making your engine last as long.

alright thanks just wanted to make sure.

I forgot to look last night and I am trying to order one now. Is the overhead hood vent on top of the stove 12v power?

All I am trying to say is there is a link between running higher octane fuels and being able to controll engine temps not just in cylinder pinging. I have a buell motorcycle which has a air cooled harley motor in it and they are known for there down flaw off having a hard time of getting rid of heat. If you are ever in traffic or low speeds the cooling fan would run non stop trying to cool the motor. When the bike was tuned on E85 it ran much cooler and the cooling fan would almost never kick on. Yes for the everyday driving on your motorhome you will be fine running the cheap grade gas as long as you dont get any ping out of the motor. I am just saying if your in for a long day of driving with big hills or high outside temps it might help you running high grade that day even if your not experiencing pinging.

I understand what your saying about in cylinder temp's and having to do with coolant temps. I know that it's not the largest impact on the overall coolant temp but it does affect it. If you look at a lot of air cooled motorcylces they suggest running higher octane to help keep the heat down. This is the same thing just air carrying the heat away instead of water. Everything is cooler on E85 the EGT's are around 200 degrees cooler. Less heat everywhere add's up. As to not being able to get better MPG or more energy out of E85 I highly recommend you read that link that I had posted it's a great write up. Yes the energy BTU rating is still lower then gas I know what you saying but you can build motor's that are smaller then motor's ment for gas and build them with more power so that they make the same power as the larger gas motor. Let's say you have a truck that runs on gas and has a v-8 engine and makes 250hp. What if you make a v-6 engine setup of e85 that made 250hp. rough outline of where I am going with this but that is what I am saying about getting more out of ethanol.

You are right by saying that higher octane fuels will not give you more power but it's not the fuel that's holding you back it's your engine. Yes if you have a bone stock motor run the lowest octane it can handle but also remember that higher octane helps keep down the heat. So if you are thinking about driving across death valley (which I am in a month) and you camper already has trouble staying cool you might want to bump up to high grade that tank. Yes most of the 10% ethanol gas at the pumps today is crap. This is most of the reason why ethanol has a bad name. What happens is the oil companies are mixing in 10% at the factory and putting it into the pumps as 87 octane. Ethanol at 100% is 115 octane so if you adding 10% into regular gas that is a really good octane booster. So really there are cutting corners even more and really taking like a dirty 84 or 85 octane gas and putting 10% ethanol in and there you have it thats the cheap grade and just about every pump in the country. Oh and even better the rich oil companies are the ones that get the gov tax criedt for mixing in bio fuels, win win for them I guess. The only kind of pumps you will not find this setup at is blender pumps. These are getting more popular but still mostly in the midwest now. What a blender pump is is it has one tank of staight gas and another tank of straight ethanol underground. On the pump you can select e0, e10, e20, e30, e50, and e85. The thing with this is the e0 still has to be 87 octane by law if it says it on the pump so if you select e10 from there you will be getting a much better quality e10 fuel then a non blender pump and also the oil company doesnt get the tax criedt and that money can be used to build new blender pumps. Now with E85 it is 105 octane and burns much cooler and cleaner then gas. In the summer time it is at full 85% ethanol 15% gas. They also have blends for colder areas of e74, and e70. It will still say e85 on the pump but in the winter time your getting one of those two blends. Yes flex fuel cars have larger fuel injectors and maybe a few other parts but are just about the same as a non flex fuel car. It cost the car makes less then $100 more to make it a flex fuel car. The problem is we are wasting the energy. There is already companies out there that make motor's that can run on both gas and ethanol but if run on ethanol have much more power and in return get about the same MPG as when run on gas. Here is a great paper on this subject its a little hard to follow at times but if you know a thing or two about motors you should read it. http://delphi.com/pdf/techpapers/2010-01-0619.pdf waiter I will keep you posted on the E85 update for my 1985 dolphin. If I get my interior done by next weekend I am going to drive to southeren CA to drop off my dolphin to aero tanks to get the larger 30 gal installed. It does cost a little bit but I need to either clean or get a new tank with mine as it is because it was sitting for 5 years and the guy told me he already had to drop the tank once because the rust cleaned the fuel pump sock. So I would really just like to get a brand new tank and with taking this 8000 mile + 30 day trip next month I am trying to use E85 as much as possiable so a larger tank would help for sure.

thanks for the offer maineah but I live in CA haha. Now that I have been looking around at all the new ones I think I am stuck on getting one. The look so much nicer and say they dont rattle when driving. I only took mine 20 miles down the road to camp out on a lake but that was the one thing I did hear was that old stove making a ton of noise.

I found a wedgewood dealer here local and he said he could tell me the replacement I just need my old model number. I went to look on mine but the plate is so rusted I can't read it. Can someone look at their stove in their dolphin and tell me the model number of their stove?

Well now I see that wedgewood is still around just under the company atwood. I guess 21 inch is the size because thats still the size of the ones they sell now. I'm going to look into their models for replacement since that seems easy.

thanks for the reply. I was hoping to keep the oven. Here is the one's camping world offers. http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/product/magic-chef-rv-oven-ranges-and-cooktops/1803 I am looking around now but cant seem to find another size stove/oven.

Its getting down to crunch time on my dolphin and I am trying to figure everything out so I dont go into panic mode at the last min before my trip in three weeks. I would like to make sure the hot water system works in my 85 dolphin. I can turn the water pump on and I get water pressure and the toliet and sinks work but nothing comes out when I try to turn the hot water side on. I just removed my stove so I turned the whole gas system off. I did not try to start the water heater yet and now I cant try it because I have an open gas line. Shouldnt the water still come out the hot side of the sink even though the burner is not on? Also I am confused about the waste tank setup. Is there two tanks one for the toliet and another for the shower and sinks? If so are there two different spots you need to empty them? I have read the dolphin manual but it only talks about draining the toliet's waste tank.

My 1985 dolphin has a worn out wedgewood stove and oven in it right now. I pulled it out because we are redoing the whole inside right now anyways. I was just going to try to clean it up while it was out but this thing is in really rough shape. I was wondering which models replace this one? I see camping world has a 16" and a 22". I measured mine last night and I got 20" wide and 21" wide at the lip on the top so I am not sure if this is an odd ball size for a stove or what. I am also putting new counter tops in right now anyways so I guess I could just do some redeising and make another one fit but I would rather not do that. I have enough on my plate with the project as it is and about 3 weeks to get the work done. So if anyone has replaced their stove in the dolphin please let me know which model you put in there. Thanks

I have had some experience tuning with E85 in the last few years and have had very good results in just about every setup I run it in. I am a big fan of ethanol so I tend to lean that way on most issue's. As far as runing my 1985 toyota on E85 yes I plan to just purchase a converter from change2e85.com I have run these kit's before with nothing but sucess. I do understand these kits are not tuning for max power on a dyno or anything but they do run your engine in the safe zone so there is nothing to worry about there. I have herd all the stuff out there, ethanol eats all rubber, ethanol with melt right through your engine block, ethanol attrachs water, etc. Yes this stuff might be somewhat true in some setups it does not effect anything 99% of the time. I am really big into the performance jet ski world and have a few high performance ski's right now and all of them run on E85. As far as ethanol sucking up water like a vaccum if I run it in a stand up jet ski which is most likely the most water setting for and engine to run in, ethanol would have no problem running in a car. Yes in a lab does ethanol suck up water but so does gas. I believe that it's even better that ethanol does this becasue all water that does get in your fuel system ethanol seperates in so that it doesnt go through your engine all at once. The same theroy the product dry gas does when you add it to gas. As far as rubber parts being eaten by ethanol this is ture with cars and trucks from the late 70's and back. As after the first gas shortage american began mixing ethanol with fuel so all fuel system's can handle ethanol. If you have a early 80's fuel system is it a good idea to freshen it up with at least some fresh fuel lines? Yes the system is 30 years old and is most likely due for and upgrade no matter which fuel your running. Now there are a few reason why I really like E85. First it is a far better fuel then gas no matter what all the people that hate it out there. E85 does have a lower btu rating then gas it doesn have an octane rating of 105. In america right now we do not use this fuel properly at all. All we do is take an engine that can run 87 octane in the safe zone and just dump e85 into the system and yes it runs. This makes everyone just hate ethanol and say it stinks and they lose a lot of MPG. There is already engine's out there that have different valve timing to rise or lower compression in an engine that is a flex fuel engine. With these engine's they can run on gas or ethanol but when ethanol is added the engines computers can make major adjustments. Advance the timing a lot more, not just a few degrees like today's engine's, and also rise the compression up into the 13.5/1 or 14/1 range. This is going to give this engine a huge HP boost and will in return rise the MPG rating back even to that of gas. This is something that would also make buyer's want to buy E85 over gas as you would gain somewhere in the 50HP range. Besides the fuel being a much better fuel over gas I also like the idea of where it comes from. As of right now ethanol is america comes mostly from corn grown by american farmers. As most people now this is not a markety that is filled with rich people. I grew up in a farming town and I was there with ethanol really took off in the early 2000's. The corn price went up 4X in a matter of a few year's. This was a huge boost for farmers who barely get by every year. New barns started going up, new tractors where bought, etc. Yes I know this does drive up food prices some but this also keeps gas prices down somewhere around 50 cents a gallon. So what your spending at the store your saving at the pump and the best part is the money stays here in a industry that needs it. Corn is a very small part for the future of ethanol as there are better ways to get more ethanol from sources such as cellulosic and alge ethanol. The technology is up and coming for american made ethanol it just need's to be driven by demand. Like I said right now ethanol in america is used the wrong way. If we change the way we use it and drive the demand up ethanol pump's will become the new standard and will also drive a glod rush in the ethanol technology industry. For my generator all I did was retune the carb by drilling the main jet out a little bit so it will run on E85. Most small engine's will "run" on e85 but they are running on the lean side and will not run right so you need to get it a little more fuel. If you have an older generator with a tuning screw you can just open that up to give the engine more fuel. If you have a newer engine you will have to drill the main jet out to provide more fuel. Here is a video of someone that just added oxytane to e85 in a small engine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIAb5WQr1xU if you need to drive out the jet you will have to get a jet drill kit like this. http://cgi.ebay.com/30Pce-HSS-Mini-Jet-Drill-Bits-Pin-Vise-Holder-/270760678295?pt=AU_Toys_Hobbies_Model_Kits&hash=item3f0a981397 It is a little more work to make sure I have E85 in my tank at night and not gas for my generator. I have a route marked out to hit as many E85 stations as I can http://e85prices.com/e85map.php there are going to be a few nights where my last fill up might now be E85. So I am going to have two 5 gal fuel jugs on board that i will fill up with E85 at a station and on those nights where my last fill up cant be e85 I will let it get as low as I can before pulling over for the night and then dump the 10 gals of E85 in the tank for the generator. I am only going to have to do this for two nights though on my trip as far as I have it planned out. This is a topic I can ramble on for hours about but this is the baseline for me on running E85.

I had emailed Aero Tanks about their 30 gal tank for my 85 dolphin. He said they never made it to be shipped out but they could install it at their shop for $965.00. That does seem like a little much but need to replace my stock fuel tank as it is right now so I am not sure how much that is going to cost me. Also I am installing a E85 convertion kit on my rv for my 8000 mile trip next month and I would like to be able to travel as much as my trip as possiable on E85 and also my generator runs on E85 so I am least have to have E85 in my tank at night to be able to run the a/c. A 30 gal tank would for sure help for this I just hate putting $1000 into this thing for a fuel tank when I only paid $2000 for the whole RV.