Thread: E85 VS. Premium fuel

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Uncle Bob...You can stand on that soap box all you want.....most of us (I hope) are listening and researching and trying to do what we can. Amen, Brother.

sorry i drug up that question. ive got no opinion one way or the other, i only asked because i was looking at buying a rodded mustang that burned E85. and i did in fact buy it today, did not know that you could run older cars on it, never really payed that much attention to the fuel and what would run on it. so i will post the car later this week when i get it shuffled into my garage with the anglia. 1980 notch back, 429 SCJ, C6. 10.60 street car.

Well, when you figure out how a few guys can end the oil fiasco that has been going on in this country for 30+ years, let me know I'll join in. I've never claimed that ethanol is a cure all, only that in a small way it does stick a finger in the eye of the big oil companies that have been gouging us for years..... For PERFORMANCE cars, it works great. As far as everbody running it in all their cars, it's not the answer cuz we could never produce enough of it. As far as a personal way to lower my oil usage and the amount of $$$$ I spend on gasoline I've pretty much taken care of it, my shop is 10 yards behind the house, no commuting cost here!!!! Now if EVERYBODY in the country as a form of protest could cut their fuel consumption for 30 days by 80%, the oil companies would notice!!

As for having a market based economy and reducing taxes and cutting subsidies to all the companies who get them I'm all in favor of another Boston Tea Party!!!! Somebody set it up and I'll be there!!!

Originally Posted by mooneye777

sorry i drug up that question. .......

Don't worry moonman, Dave and I have to do this about once a year to stay in shape. He's a hard headed Norwegian and I a perfectly reasonable Italian........whadaya expect!!!

Let's talk about thoses evil, gouging oil companies.

Anyone who's had the loving fruit of their loins grow to teenage-hood might see a similarity. At some point in those years when their age number ends in teen you become the epicenter of evil in their life............and you're stupid to boot. You exact too high of a cost from them for the little you do for their lives. Mow the lawn? Take out the trash? Are you nuts???!!! By the way, the milk jug is almost empty and I need a new pair of Nikes (or Mp3 or whatever). They take for granted the clean clothes, the roof over their heads, and all the other things that make their lives livable because they've pretty much always been there. On occasion, if there's been some interruption in the folks earning, they were confused and "hurt" but the belt tightening that had to happen within the family, although you did your best to minimize the impact on them. It didn't seem right because their friends at school didn't have to "suffer" like they did. But the parents pulled through and things got back to normal.....................and so did the kid's behavior and expectations.

Let's do an exercise to see where your value equation is.

You're about to be given enormous power. But power also entails responsibility. So consider your choice wisely. Today you must make a decision. You have to completely eliminate one product from the marketplace that is used in the daily lives of almost every citizen of this country. No chance to choose some other frivolace item instead, it must be one of these two. Your choice is between gasoline and bandaids. Which gets the axe?

Which provides greater value to your overall life? Are they both equal in value to contributing to your income so you can feed, clothe, educate and house the above mentioned teenage "rodent"? Both products serve a useful purpose and have a value to our lives. But in deciding which to completely eliminate forever, you have to decide which is MOST valuable. Odds are, if you take this seriously, you'll choose to eliminate bandaids. Afterall, you've probably used a piece of duct tape or masking tape out in the shop to close a wound at one time or another. You could have wrapped a rag around a gouge to contain the bleeding. There are any number of easily acquired substitutes that, in a pinch, are an okay substitute for a bandaid. But gasoline...................uh, not so easy to replace. Besides, it would be difficult to make a serious and rational argument that bandaids enabled you to live the lifestyle you enjoy in modern western civilization............well unless you were an employee of Johnson and Johnson. And as a hotrodder I'd love to hear the justification for bandaids being the single most important product to support your hobby.

Now it's obvious that Exxon Mobil, to use the most often sited example of oil company greed and gouging, is the pinnacle of avarice. They just set a RECORD for EXCESSIVE profits!!!! Why, if you look at the billions of dollars of sales they had and compared the amount of profit they were able to keep after taking care of silly things like finding, producing, transporting, refining and so on (oh, and paying tens of BILLIONS of dollars in taxes) that moderately meaningful stuff called gasoline (among other products) you'd see they kept as profit the wholly unreasonable amount of just over 10%. UNCONSCIONABLE!!! Every time they sold $1 of stuff they kept a whole dime???!!! Outrageous!!! And that's a RECORD, so it's really got to be bad!!!! Why, they should be good and socially conscious like, like............well, like those guys at Johnson & Johnson.............I mean, you know, bandaids, those are really important to our lives. They've got to be important!!!! After all, every time J&J sells a dollars worth of bandaids they put 20 cents of profit in their pocket. That's twice the rate of profit that those evil, rotten, nasty, blah blah blah oil robber barons do. And you don't hear anyone labeling them as gouging demons!!

Now, if you're a mainstream media type (or a politician), somewhere in your bag of tricks is the "corporations are evil" "profits are bad" storyline. You repeat it early and often, and in time it becomes the subrosa belief of the normal folks in our society. It's subtle, persistent, and to me, destructive. But once you've planted that notion you can call it up whenever it's in your best interest to weild control and distract from the real problem. It's called shifting the blame. Politicians and their lapdogs in media are masters at it.

I will admit to being an devout capitalist. I've run successful businesses and know first hand the importance of profits. To me they are not a bad thing. I recognize that the non-business owning/running public has been trained to believe profits are bad. It's illogical, but it's what people believe. I make it a mission to try to overcome that ingrained ignorance (a condition that can be repaired through education). Why it's so difficult for car lovers to see that the entire "Human caused global warming" and "Oil companies are evil" scenarios are deadly to our hobby and should be fought with truth and honesty I don't understand, but that's what life is about.

Our energy problems could be relatively easily solved by the free market, but politics and a complicit media have abetted one another in obscuring how political meddling has hamstrung the free market. (By the way, the average profit for the whole of the "news" media runs close to 20% also...................might give you a hint why they don't talk openly about that) That nut job conspiracy "film" Shawn linked to starts out with some plausible "facts" (as most conspiracies do to try to establish initial credibility). Petroleum resources are very likely finite. Where we are is generally unknown because political restrictions have kept us from exploring and producing to establish "reality". A point not factored into the conspiracy nut's scenario by the way. When the time REALLY comes that we hit the back side of the supply slope the free market will devote more effort to finding new, economically viable, alternatives...................if personal power hungry politicians don't prohibit it.

Good post Uncle Bob....By the way, What's a band-aid? Shop rag and some electrical tape works for me....

I thought band aid had to do with subsidies for musicians

Whatever fuel we use in our "hobby cars," let's face reality, we drive them relatively little. Ethanol or anything that gives performance at any price should be OK. It doesn't matter to me the cost of gas in a car that sees little actual annual mileage. That's right, I don't care if it's $5.00 a gallon since amortizing the actual miles relative to cost and investment of the machine it's a losing proposition for all of us anyhow. If we sink $20-30,000 plus labor time into a vehicle that we drive 1-3,000 miles a year the cost per mile is nutso! We do that because we're nuts. Nuts about cars. And that's a good thing.

Since no one drives their specialty car in the daily commute ending in 36,000 miles at the end of the year the cost of fuel is not a real weighty factor. My friend has a 2004 F-100 that was yielding 18MPG in his particular commute scenario. Ethanol fuel dropped it just 14. That is over 20% less economy yet the cost per gallon wasn't 20% lower than 100% gasoline so he's losing money but feeling "green." Other vehicles will vary no doubt, some better, perhaps some worse.

The original idea of this thread was that E85 gives good octane performance for a lower than gas price, regardless of mileage. That's a good thing. Spending 10% less for the daily commute vehicle and getting 15-20% lower mileage isn't.

This may have been posted before...but ties into this discusion based on the fact that this has been the catalist to spark the alternative fuels...Global warming is what is used to make em brew the gas in a different way,charge us in emission testing etc....and has made the general public get involved because of cost,after all if gas was still a dollar a gallon ,I doubt that global warming or alternative fuels would be a issue to be discused if not for monetary concerns.
http://www.jonhs.net/freemovies/grea...ng_swindle.htm

This is the first step into tricking the public into believing that massive amounts of money need to be spent or we need to change energy consumtion practices based on speculation of a warming effect,which is actually caused by natural events.
Heres the last ditch effort to save global warming with more speculation on the planetary climate.This is a support film intended to make global warming "seem" even worse

http://www.jonhs.net/freemovies/global_dimming.htm

To make matters worse our trying to be elected officials"gore" make biased studies seem fact and try to make us believe its the facts that were found ,not the facts they were told to find.
I try not to get too caught up in the propaganda/ info wars because I believe that all sides are "fudgin" the facts to make there position look better.I also believe that making there position look better is much more of a priority than actually doing anything to make it better.I also think that we are looked at by the goverment as sheep,to be lead here and there according to there political and monetary concerns,not actuall society concerns,and they use this suedo concern to keep us occupied while the other hand is up to no good.I also believe this to be the reason soo many people have lost faith in the system.I do not think in todays skittish world we can afford too many more sitiations like this following video or we will be plunged into a mad max style of living.
http://www.jonhs.net/freemovies/unprecedented.htm

How are we rewarded for being good citizens and paying taxes .............
http://www.jonhs.net/freemovies/amer...to_fascism.htm
Ohh by the way...This kid will not be packin a rfid card under any circumstances,unless I get the info on destroying the rfid in the id.I STRONGLY protest the rfid chip,because its another restriction placed on us for acts of the others.