Ethanol

[rlitman]

Originally Posted by newz7151

Those saws have to be depended on at a moments notice, there is no time to be sitting around trying to get them repaired/kitted or standing there trying to crank it, you need it to crank within 3 pulls and get to your rescue. Pre-Mix has a reported in product shelf life of as much as 2 years stable. It's also important to remember to keep your gas out of the sun as much as possible, as it will breakdown/decay faster.

They need to be depended on at a moments notice, AND sit idle for weeks at a time. The pre-mix cans are crazy expensive, but so are carbide chainsaw chains, and both of these are really suited for these specialized uses.
In these uses, they're well worth every penny.

Even Stihl doesn't recommend that lawn care professionals run their machines on their moto-mix all the time. They just say to empty the tank and use a shot of it to keep it over the winter.

[newz7151]

Originally Posted by LawnMastersTN

We get the little bottles of stihl oil and make one gallon. We never have to worry about shelf life as we start everything every shift and use them at least every two weeks for something. Plus everything that we have other than our positive pressure fans are 2 stroke so we use alot.

Problem is, just starting them and running them for a few minutes doesn't really help all that much unless you are using ethanol free fuel to begin with or are using something like Ethanol Shield in your gas to protect everything. For those of you who are "doubting thomases", get you a gallon of 89 octane gas from a pump that displays that "may contain up to 10% ethanol" sticker. Get you two GLASS jars with a capacity of at least 1/2 gallon (really you could just use quart jars).
Go to your local dealer carrying the B3C products, or even Home Depot or your local Wal-Mart (your dealer will have larger sizes, Home Depot and Wal-Mart should only have it in the 2 oz bottles) and get you a bottle of the B3C Ethanol Shield.
Next, take your two jars and your gas. Fill both jars with the gas. In one jar, add the measured amount of Ethanol Shield. In the other, leave it plain. Now, measure out and add to each jar the correct ratio of whatever brand 2 cycle oil you are using, but make sure you are controlling your experiment here by using exactly the same amounts of gas and 2 cycle oil in the two jars.
So, what you should now have would be two jars with the same amount of gas and 2 cycle oil in each jar, one with Ethanol Shield added, and one without. Cap each jar and give a shake to get things agitated together. Let sit for 5 minutes and then view the results yourself. (ideally you would want to have an alcohol tester available to measure out how much ethanol is actually in your gas sample)

An even better visual of what your 2 cycle oil is (or rather isn't doing) in today's ethanol infused fuel can be seen if those of you that have E85 (85% ethanol/15% gas) available to you will use E85 for this experiment.

The results will be shocking to you when you see for yourself what is going on with the fuel and oil mix you are using in your 2 cycle stuff if you are not stabilizing the mixture with something like Ethanol Shield.

[LawnMastersTN]

Originally Posted by newz7151

Problem is, just starting them and running them for a few minutes doesn't really help all that much unless you are using ethanol free fuel to begin with or are using something like Ethanol Shield in your gas to protect everything. For those of you who are "doubting thomases", get you a gallon of 89 octane gas from a pump that displays that "may contain up to 10% ethanol" sticker. Get you two GLASS jars with a capacity of at least 1/2 gallon (really you could just use quart jars).
Go to your local dealer carrying the B3C products, or even Home Depot or your local Wal-Mart (your dealer will have larger sizes, Home Depot and Wal-Mart should only have it in the 2 oz bottles) and get you a bottle of the B3C Ethanol Shield.
Next, take your two jars and your gas. Fill both jars with the gas. In one jar, add the measured amount of Ethanol Shield. In the other, leave it plain. Now, measure out and add to each jar the correct ratio of whatever brand 2 cycle oil you are using, but make sure you are controlling your experiment here by using exactly the same amounts of gas and 2 cycle oil in the two jars.
So, what you should now have would be two jars with the same amount of gas and 2 cycle oil in each jar, one with Ethanol Shield added, and one without. Cap each jar and give a shake to get things agitated together. Let sit for 5 minutes and then view the results yourself. (ideally you would want to have an alcohol tester available to measure out how much ethanol is actually in your gas sample)

An even better visual of what your 2 cycle oil is (or rather isn't doing) in today's ethanol infused fuel can be seen if those of you that have E85 (85% ethanol/15% gas) available to you will use E85 for this experiment.

The results will be shocking to you when you see for yourself what is going on with the fuel and oil mix you are using in your 2 cycle stuff if you are not stabilizing the mixture with something like Ethanol Shield.

We use all Ethanol free fuel. I do want to do that experiment though just to see. I am always doing things like that just to see what happens.

[newz7151]

Originally Posted by LawnMastersTN

We use all Ethanol free fuel. I do want to do that experiment though just to see. I am always doing things like that just to see what happens.

great if you can get it.. around here you'd have to drive 4 hours or more to find the nearest reported place that has it from that puregas website.

[LawnMastersTN]

Originally Posted by newz7151

great if you can get it.. around here you'd have to drive 4 hours or more to find the nearest reported place that has it from that puregas website.

That is crazy. I know of 3 that are within 10 miles of me and 3 others that are within 25. I understand the point of it but they aren't considering the effects.
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[newz7151]

Originally Posted by LawnMastersTN

That is crazy. I know of 3 that are within 10 miles of me and 3 others that are within 25. I understand the point of it but they aren't considering the effects.
Posted via Mobile Device

when i looked at the site, i think TN has over 350 something stations reported, Texas was showing like, 80 something. Now, Texas has GOT to be bigger than TN, so why are there so many in TN compared to TX?

[sccalvert]

Anyone know a downside to using 100 octane aircraft fuel in 2-cyle trimmer and other 2-cyle landscaping eq? (mixed with proper ratio oil, of course). thanks.

[cgaengineer]

Originally Posted by sccalvert

Anyone know a downside to using 100 octane aircraft fuel in 2-cyle trimmer and other 2-cyle landscaping eq? (mixed with proper ratio oil, of course). thanks.

It's expensive but pure. Make sure it does not contain lead if you decide to use it in anything with a Cat.
Posted via Mobile Device

[sccalvert]

Does hand held 2-cylce eq have cat converters?

[newz7151]

Originally Posted by sccalvert

Does hand held 2-cylce eq have cat converters?

if it's not "stratified" and newer, more than likely the answer would be yes.