Not sure just how serious you were with that comment. To answer your question, over the past several years I can recall seeing a grand total of one car fire on the side of the road. I live in southern Cal and drive about 20K miles/year. Given the number of cars I've seen on the road over the past few years (probably hundreds of thousands if not millions) versus the number of car fires I've seen (1) I like my statistical odds in this unscientific analysis even if that one fire was related to ethanol use (which obviously is not at all clear).

Your own personal anecdotal fuel system issues while scary, have no proven linkage to ethanol in the fuel used. Could simply be another example of shoddy workmanship, poor engineering, or any of a thousand things. Too bad you couldnt recover the defective parts to come up with a definitive explanation.

Given the on the edge nature of the average rotary engine aircraft installation, the small statistical base, and the relatively large number of issues and teething troubles we see during early taxi and flight testing, I think there are far more significant things to worry about than ethanol in the fuel.

What I'd really like to see is some of the higher time guys (Tracy, Dave Leonard, etc...) who routinely burn Mogas tells us what their experience has been.

Mike Wills

----- Original Message ----- From: "Dale Rogers" <dale.r@cox.net>
To: "Rotary motors in aircraft" <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 11:07 AM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Ethanol production

Mike Wills wrote:

I dont recall seeing scores of cars pulled over on the shoulder of the road with failures directly attributable to ethanol use.

You haven't?  I don't understand how you've missed them - the columns of black smoke should have pointed straight to them.

Maybe you only drive at night?  |;)

Okay, there was a bit of hyperbole there, but I can't help but wonder if the increased numbers of on-the-road car fires I'm seeing as I cruise the freeways of AZ and NV isn't due, in part, to alcohol.  The Saturn dealer wouldn't let me have the part for analysis (it was a warranty replacement), but at only 30 months old, we had to have the fuel pump replaced because it had fractured and was spraying fuel out the top of the tank and onto the ground.  But for the lack of a spark, my wife would have been immolated.
A few years back, our oldest son bought a 91 Lumina, with the 3.1L V6 engine.  It's virtually identical to the 2.8 in my '89 wagon, with which I'd never - in the 15 years I drove it - had a fuel problem.  He'd had it about 3 years when I walked by the car right after he'd parked it and smelled gasoline.  We opened the hood and he started the car - the fuel pressure regulator (under the upper half of the intake manifold) was leaking fuel.  Another roadside fire narrowly averted.

Currently, we're both driving dual-fuel Fords, so I'd expect that ~they~ are set up to resist the effects of ethanol.

I wonder how long the new Saturn fuel pump housing is going to last - or what else will give out.

Dale R.
COZY MkIV #0497
Ch. 12



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