AvGas vs. Regular gas for Pawnee?

Nevada still has real auto gas, at least in Douglas County (Minden).

Has anyone tried using water to remove the alcohol in California gas? To do
that, you'd need to agitate the fuel water mixture, the alcohol has a higher
affinity to water than to gasoline, so comes out of suspension in the gas
and joins the water.

Drain water/alcohol from bottom of tank and what remains should be usable
gasoline.

bumper
"Rex" wrote in message
ups.com...
We burned auto gas in 235 Pawnees 150 Super cub and 230 hp C-182e for
20 years and an estimated 15,000+ hours .

Up side:
We never had an engine that did not make it to TBO. ( At least 8
engines that I can recall)
We had 4 mid life cylinder changes do to cylinder head cracks. (4
cylinders total!)
We saw no difference in performance over 100ll.
No- lead fouling and build up in spark plugs.
As a conservative estimate, we burned over 240,000 gallons with an
average savings of 1.50 per gallon ( when I figure the off road gas tax
refund) is roughly $360,000.00 over
20 years. This is about what my fleet of 8 aircraft is worth today.

Down side:
Mo gas stinks.
Burns dirty. Leaves black soot on belly instead of gray.
Some times it is difficult to get a fuel company to agree to sell it
for the use in aircraft.

I had to switch back to AV gas last year because in California MTBE
fuels are outlawed
and Alcohol based fuels are not approved for airplanes ( alcohol
suspends water).

It was a nice run while it lasted.

I should mention that we operate from a near sea level, 2000 ft runway
and find that 235 HP is quite adequate.

Rex Mayes
Williams Soaring Center, Williams Ca
(formerly Lagoon Valley Soaring, Vacaville Ca)

I think we may be on the wrong track here. If water is suspected in a cars
fuel system, you add ethanol to get rid of it. The alcohol combines with
the water and then with the gasoline. With enough ethanol present, the
water/ethanol mixes with gasoline and is burned away.

It used to be when there was no ethanol in gasoline, water would condense in
the tanks and freeze in cold weather blocking the fuel system. You could
buy cans of "fuel anti-freeze" (ethanol) at auto parts stores to get rid of
the water. Now all auto fuel contains some ethanol anyway so no need to use
the stuff.

As I understand it, the reason ethanol in airplane fuel is bad is that it
dissolves aluminum and makes elastomer seals in the fuel system swell until
leaks appear. A couple of tries to burn straight ethanol back in the 1970's
resulted in badly damaged airplanes.

Bill Daniels


"bumper" wrote in message ...
Nevada still has real auto gas, at least in Douglas County (Minden).

Has anyone tried using water to remove the alcohol in California gas? To
do
that, you'd need to agitate the fuel water mixture, the alcohol has a
higher
affinity to water than to gasoline, so comes out of suspension in the gas
and joins the water.

Drain water/alcohol from bottom of tank and what remains should be usable
gasoline.

bumper
"Rex" wrote in message
ups.com...
We burned auto gas in 235 Pawnees 150 Super cub and 230 hp C-182e for
20 years and an estimated 15,000+ hours .

Up side:
We never had an engine that did not make it to TBO. ( At least 8
engines that I can recall)
We had 4 mid life cylinder changes do to cylinder head cracks. (4
cylinders total!)
We saw no difference in performance over 100ll.
No- lead fouling and build up in spark plugs.
As a conservative estimate, we burned over 240,000 gallons with an
average savings of 1.50 per gallon ( when I figure the off road gas tax
refund) is roughly $360,000.00 over
20 years. This is about what my fleet of 8 aircraft is worth today.

Down side:
Mo gas stinks.
Burns dirty. Leaves black soot on belly instead of gray.
Some times it is difficult to get a fuel company to agree to sell it
for the use in aircraft.

I had to switch back to AV gas last year because in California MTBE
fuels are outlawed
and Alcohol based fuels are not approved for airplanes ( alcohol
suspends water).

It was a nice run while it lasted.

I should mention that we operate from a near sea level, 2000 ft runway
and find that 235 HP is quite adequate.

Rex Mayes
Williams Soaring Center, Williams Ca
(formerly Lagoon Valley Soaring, Vacaville Ca)

"Bill Daniels" wrote in message
...
I think we may be on the wrong track here. If water is suspected in a cars
fuel system, you add ethanol to get rid of it. The alcohol combines with
the water and then with the gasoline. With enough ethanol present, the
water/ethanol mixes with gasoline and is burned away.


A common method to test gasoline for presence of alcohol is to put a small
amount of water, about 10% by volume, in a test tube or similar container.
Add suspect gasoline and shake. If the water level appears to rise, it's due
to alcohol coming out of solution with the gasoline and joining with the
water. If there's no alcohol, the water level remains the same.

bumper