There are some great roads here in WI. I'm sure it was a fun drive.

 

Been to WI, drove a motorhome to 12,000 + elevation in Colorado and I don't think No American roads are real match to some Asian roads, or even European roads in Alps. ,


[img]https://i.gzn.jp/img/2018/02/21/99-turns-999-steps-mountain/snap-vlc00195.jpg

 

I would rather drive the Wisconsin sweeping turns than those switchbacks, but have fun!

 

No ethanol=no corn oil/just pure gas, corn oil plus gas=ethanol gas. It's the addition of corn oil to gas that gums up an engine.

 

Welcome back to the future with this thread.

From July through September this year, I drove three, interstate round trips from Dallas TX to Belleville, Illinois, and back. Tracked by the onboard computer (as I am not that interested to compute it manually), my best tank mileage was 35.1 mpg, on a half-tank from Dallas to Sullivan, MO, on 93 octane Ethanol. Non-ethanol is available in MO, so I filled the tank with it (91 octane), drove to Belleville, and half-way home on it... 31.4 mpg. Car parked in Belleville (any local driving was with a Belleville car)

As I mentioned, I made two further trips on this exact same route, with the same results. The weather was the same on all three trips (same ambient Summer temps and same winds). Luggage load the same. Interstates all the way, at a cruise-controlled 71 mph for 10 hours each direction. One stop mid-distance for 15-20 minutes for fuel, potty, and drive-up window food. For those who claim non-ethanol gets better fuel mileage, over this 3900 mile experiment, I have not seen this to be the case, not even remotely.

Thinking the differences might be elevation change... The trip here in Dallas starts at 650 feet through all of Oklahoma (300 miles), then a rise through 1200 feet on a 100 mile stretch in SW Missouri, and then back to 500-600 feet for 240 miles east in MO to the Mississippi River in St.louis/Belleville. In other words, there is an elevation hump almost equal distance in the middle of the trip, affecting fuel use the same, both coming or going. All of my gas purchases were either in TX, OK, MO (no Illinois gas). I bought non-ethanol whenever I could get it outside of TX.

Consistently, I got 2-3 mpg better fuel mileage on the Ethanol versus non-Ethanol. Not what I expected at all. But there you have it.

 

It's basically up to 10% ethanol. It seems that they haven't been adding or using as much ethanol as they used to so the ethanol you bought probably didn't have as much as you thought. Temperature, summer/winter gas also makes a difference but I bet the main difference is the lower concentration of ethanol. For real savings, try E85 in the winter if you have an E85 car, they sometimes do a lower mix of ethanol so you actually get more gas and better gas mileage. Remember, no one here is changing the laws of physics, ethanol just has less BTUs per gallon than gas.

 

There is more to mpg than just BTU. Beside my 1922 Ford T I don't drive gasoline cars, but years ago I drove Fiat who was design for 96 octane on 78 octanes gasoline as that was only available at the time.
The older engine did not have modern sensors, so hearing the engine pings, I simply backed up the throttle.
The tank of cheaper gasoline recorded better mpg, simply becouse I did not accelerate as fast as I would do with better gasoline. I think it might play the same with ethanol blend.

 

My "13 runs on E-85, I have only tried it twice, but I got 23% less mileage for 23% less cost per gallon, {yes Approximately} so for me a wash, I also get better mileage with 10% ethanol gas on both cars. We have a local Sunoco station that sells non-ethanol gas so easy for me to find, there are a lot of racers of all varieties around there and a lot of contractors with small engines to gas, so they all go there too. I hear them say ethanol gives them issues in small engines, I've never had that issue and fill all mine with gas/ethanol, mine don't sit for long though and I empty them when I'm done, in some cases it could be years before I use them again, like the concrete saw or big chain saw. Obviously in season, I leave gas in the backpack blower and line trimmer.