Fuel Testing On Today Tonight

[Ryan&Sez]

That was an interesting read foney. Results were rediculous though! People trust these companies to supply them with fuel for their cars and it sounds to me that there is not enough quality assurance. I can't believe that one station put lower quality petrol in with the high quality stuff! What a joke! But i can see that if stations or brands were to increase their quality assurance programs, we'd be paying higher premiums on that product. Wouldn't it be a great idea if the petrol stations tested their petrol daily and put the results up in the shop??

This is looking to be an interesting thread.

Sez

[Carbon 34]

E85 is the future , and good for the planet if they dont cut down the rain forest or take food off peoples dinner plates to plant corn, or cane

and E85 is a lot higher amount of ethanol then 10% used in states in winter , hence the higher octane rating and more filtration.

reasons below why I wont use it at this point, I dont have a car modified to run it and dont want to replace fuel parts to run it!!!!!

________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________

E-85 ethanol is used in engines modified to accept higher concentrations of ethanol. Such flexible-fuel vehicles (FFV) are designed to run on any mixture of gasoline or ethanol with up to 85% ethanol by volume. There are a few major differences between FFVs and non-FFVs. One is the elimination of bare magnesium, aluminum, and rubber parts in the fuel system. Another is that fuel pumps must be capable of operating with electrically conductive ethanol instead of non-conducting dielectric gasoline fuel. Fuel injection control systems have a wider range of pulse widths to inject approximately 40% more fuel. Stainless steel fuel lines, sometimes lined with plastic, and stainless steel fuel tanks in place of terne fuel tanks are used. In some cases, FFVs use acid-neutralizing motor oil. For vehicles with fuel-tank mounted fuel pumps, additional differences to prevent arcing, as well as flame arrestors positioned in the tank's fill pipe, are also sometimes used.

Using E85 in a gasoline engine has the drawback of achieving lower fuel economy as more fuel is needed per unit air (stoichiometric fuel ratio) to run the engine in comparison with gasoline. E85 also has a lower heating value (units of energy per unit mass) than gasoline leading to a reduction in power output in a gasoline engine.

defeats the cost savings doesnt it ? if you fill up more often ?

look around the net, lots of good and bad about it

source

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E85

[Carbon 34]

This is interesting, A few mates of mine and my self conducted an expermint around Townsvilles Petrol stations, Bascily alot of the turbos vechiles around town had been losing performance and even i had encountered missfires and backfires.

As part of my job within the Defence i am requried to conducted Fuel quality control checks prior to daily use,

Main two fuels that i work with is Avtur( basicly deisol) and AVGAS ( bascily high octain petrol containing led or low led 110 or 100 octain rating very low flash point.)

AS the fuel i work with is use on military aircraft its important that its tested constantly and monintered.

The types of tests we conduct on fuels are, Fuel drain offs, basicly take a visual samlpe mainly drain off a bucket from the LOW POINT of the tank and collect fuel into a jar and inspect. Shell water detectors, ( 5mm of fuel is sucked up into a syringe with an water detector on the bottom of it,)

This detector turns blue if any water is dected in the 5mm of fuel)

Also visual test to look for particulate and water in droplets its self

Conduct a mid sample from the middle of a fuel tanker, take a 1lt samle bottle and take to the lab..

Milipore testing.. This is the main test that tells as bascily every thing about the contition of the fuel.

Milipore kit is a filter type element that fuel passes through thats connected to the nozzle of the hose. Hose is conected onto a cam lock and fuel is circulated around the tanker and fuel is filtered throuhg the milipore.. Then taken to the lab after a few thousands liters of fuel is transfured

Ok finaly, At the lab you have your 1lt sample that we took form the mid point of the tanker and our milipore, Here we are able to conduct the following on the fuels, Flaspoint testing, octane rating testing, mixed product , water, levels of FSII ( fuel system iceing inhibrator,prevents fuels from freezing at high altitude,mainly in avtur.

ANYWAY,,, So a few mates of mine went around Main petrol stations around Townsville to conduct fuel testing,

I will not name the fuel stations for legal reasons i guess but the results were amazing and ull see why,

The major fuel stations that most import car owerners use were tested,

Firstly we drained of 20liters of high octain fuel being 98ron, small ammount was also put into a jar after the 20liters was drained into jerry can.

The fuel was visualy inspected and shell water dected. we then drained 10liters of standard fuel just for a visual inspection.

Then back to the lab for a flashpoint test etc

This was done at three main BIG name petrol stations..

The restults were:

First petrol station ( 98ron) FQC visual and shell water, water found, particulate found, octane number RON=( 92), Flash Point -(37)-40°C,

Visual inspection on standard fuel( particulate and water dected)

Second petrol station. (98ron) FQC visual and shell water. No water dected, minor particulate found, ouctane number (87! !) flashpoint -(36) -40,

standard fuel, visual and water test, PASS.

Third petrol (95 to 98ron) FQC pass, water pass, flaspoint -39 (-40) octain number 91

standard fuel failed the visual and failed the shell water test,

At this point i was curious as to why the fuel was such poor quality and standard.

I got a number of mixed answers,

Firstly, that they had justed changed the batch of fuel from that morning, from reg to high,

They dont conduct tests on the fuel as they have not have had formal traning on the fuel, fuel system or testes,

They are only required to DIP the tanks its not there responsibility to test for water,

Some times water gets in the storage tanks and people get water in there fuel' but its not ennough to affect vechiles in anyway (WRONG)

Last one.. We didnt have much highoctane left and we switched loaded the reg tank into the high octain tank. becuase there was not going to be another odd load for 4 days.. People wont notice tho! (wrong)

Are there filters in the refueling system and are they checked.?

First station. Yes and yes, ok good

second station. Im not to sure on that i can check for you.

Third: same as last.

As you can see from the test that i and my friends conducted the standard of fuel is very poor, We are not getting what we pay for, it is damaging our vechiles, companys are using incorrect procedures to suply fuel and staff are not quallified to correctly handel and test fuel( DAILY)

Just to make sure, 6months later being from the original test date, we conducted the same test again. The results had changed in water wise, however the octain ratiing was still the same with higher then normal flaspoints all around.. Its a joke.

A fellow test buddy found microbiological contaminate in the diesol he tested.. Cladosporium resinae!!

Hope this was some usefull information to you... Personaly i use BP in my car. ;-)

Sorry for the bad spelling and rammbling on.

exactly what i used to do for the airlines...lol and yes the fuel in town is laced with lots of water and contamination, watch them dip stick the tanks, the stick comes up with water stuck to it in droplets or worse a distict line of water and fuel marks..

I'll stick to a newer station with BP ultimate or a station with high rates of turn over of fuel to keep the water out of my car. those muppets couldnt test fuel let alone ring you up when the bar code scanner fails...lol

[J - Rad]

I dunno where you guys are getting watered down petrol from, but everynight at my work we dip and do water tests on each tank. And if you really wanna see, you can come down and watch us do it each night. We put a green paste on the dipstick and if there's water present, it glows.

Fuels fuel. Theres plenty of variables that will lower the quality of it. Most of the time the service station your buying it from has nothing to do with the fuel at all. Truck will pull up at 4:00am and deliver the fuel with the shop closed. It's just the way it goes with anything.

So don't start going into service stations demanding answers when you "think" that your car feels slower from the last tank of fuel.

Edited November 11, 2008 by muirsky

[foney]

Quots Muirsky, "Fuels fuel."

prime example, but thanks for your input.

[foney]

The point im getting at is people pay for 98ron fuel, They tune there expensive engines on 98ron, there expecting 98ron,

Not 91 92 but 98 at a minumim,

People would just like to see some consistancy with the fuel quality management and octain ratings, and yes there should be tests carried out daily on the fuel,

How old the fuel is what batch number and an open display of the mornings FQC, That way u know what you pay for and it will then be consistant.

I just hate complacency when it comes to fuel.

[J - Rad]

Maybe its just your town thats coming up with the watered down,shitty petrol.. and they do so because Premium isn't as in such of a demand as Unleaded?

I'm sure if you tested BP West Terrace or something, you'd find it's perfectly fine.

[Madaz]

cbf reading that lol

lol +1 will read some of the rest later

[Cubes]

Back at Uni I worked at a Mobil station for some time.

Never any issues with water in the tanks.

Either way.. Run what you wish. There's nothing wrong with E10 or E85 we get here in Australia. Yes fuel lines have to be replaced; hell you'd be stupid not to in an old car anyway.

[kralster]

go figure they'd use a commodore. even though with all the r33's you see around commodores are still MORE common!

[Hotwire]

Was it just a power run with all the different fuels or did they analyse burning properties, monitor knock with a chassis ear? you know the real evidence of fuel quality.

I usually use ultimate or v-power where i can find it. I find no difference between those two.

Ryan, all testing was conducted at Aussie Dyno by Uni SA staff. So if you ask your mates who run the place, surely they would've had input or at least witnessed what the uni guys were doing on the dyno.

[Carbon 34]

Yeah right fuel is fuel? lol, tell that to the thousands of people who used the tainted LPG a few months ago..lol a lot of those people had to have there LPG systems cleaned out ? Quality control is shit ? kinda like the Microsoft quality control program?, like Vista, put it in the public then wait to see who complains to fix the problems it creates..lol if nobody complains it must have been ok,,,yeah right!!! or do they just live with it cause they dont know any better ?

all we ask is a decent quality control (get what you pay for) . not blame anyone but the big companies who profit from us?

there is water in fuel, even if your car sits a long time it gets a tiny bit of water in it. (Condensation) you would be a fool to think there isnt any, if that wasn't the case why would airports and military check for it? dont you think they would TRUST the fuel companies ?

side note....one fuel additve that works a treat is Stabil fuel treatment(tiny bottle only takes about 10-12 drops at a time), it a fuel stabilizer good for hot days and for storing your car , keep the fuel from gumming up injectors/valves over time and the flash point is better in the heat.(really good for carby cars) Lucas is another decent one to help stabilize fuel and seems to lasts forever had a bottle that lasted about a year using it bi-weekly, on a R31 with 480,000k on it, it still purrs , you can stand a glass of water on the valve cover and it wont fall off. idles better then the my r34..lol

(NOT FOR OCTANE INCREASE)

and no I'm not changing over to E85 anytime soon...lol , I do have a very low K , R34 so why would I change over all my fuel system to accept it , maybe in a few years when i start replacing rubber lines, fuel pump, but not now. unless its the only thing on the market!!!. plus I never see it down south ?

[Cubes]

Marion Road Saff.. E85

Right around the corner from my self.

Personally I wouldn't bother with E85 unless your pushing the car to its limits.

i.e my setup with a GT30 .82 IW on a built RB30det. 340-350rwkw would be nice with E85.

Its not a daily so who cares about fuel consumption. Even though as Guilt-Toy (E85 thread in F.I section) has found with some work on the tuning side you can get some really good economy out of E85.

LPG has always had issues with varying RON etc.. I would never use it in a performance app.

[Ryanrb25]

Ryan, all testing was conducted at Aussie Dyno by Uni SA staff. So if you ask your mates who run the place, surely they would've had input or at least witnessed what the uni guys were doing on the dyno.

yeah im aware of that

i just didn't see what they displayed in the actual article on TV.

[benny_blanco]

I've got it in the rex atm and personally wouldn't use it again...Feels like i've lost alot of power all round and throttle response is none! (just saying what im feeling don't flame me on this one)

DR and all my cars only ever run BP ultimate! If i can't get ultimate its like 10 bucks of some premo until i find a BP again!

Ahhhh DR's been put way back on the back burner champ, works gone to shit no bastards buying cars, working 3 n 4 day working weeks for the rest of the year and possibly into next year so no overtime = no spare cash floating around and not to mention wifes 24 weeks pregnant so that kinda takes precedence over it all!!

Thanks Shane, wont be using V power then and sticking with BP Ultimate.

My works the same at the moment slow as anything because holden and ford .... At the begining of the year however I was working 6-7 days a week and I was loving it. Im hoping the rumor of 5 weeks off over christmas doesnt come true, because I'll be in China all of Feb without pay. All my hard work in the begining of the year is cancelling out now

I use only V Power or Mobil 8000 in my bikes because they're tuned for it and that fuel is highly recommended by the tuners.

I use mostly BP Ultimate in the Stagea ... maybe V Power or 8000 when its convenient.

thanks for that info Ruby

[Cubes]

Seriously Glenn try V-Power your self.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. The ONLY problem I've had with fuel in the 8years I've owned the R32 is 'ONCE' and that was with an apparent dirty batch of Mobil 8000.

If fuel made some ones car feel sluggish chances are they picked up the wrong pump thinking it was V-power and the knock sensors pulled a heap of ign. out or somehow the bloke re filling the tanks has pumped a little ULP in to the wrong tank.

If V-Power was known to perform worse tuners etc sure as hell would know about it.

All fuels are pretty much the same. I personally use V-Power is it works well and is slightly cheaper. It doesn't feel like it goes better nor can I push in more ignition on ANY other fuel apart from E10.

[benny_blanco]

.... I guess there is no harm in trying it when im on empty,

will have to post if I see any differences (give me a few weeks I dont drive it much )

[Rocky88]

I probably wont be able to upload video before weekend cause my computer is f*cked at the moment and i'll have to format it.

[Trav33]

My thoughts on the report, is that it was simplified too much.

They didnt have a scoring system for each parameter - such as power, cost, economy, etc, and a weighting system to get an overall score. They made some comments, and then came up with an order. I feel like i wasted my time watching the article.

[Vija]

Agreed. I'm not sure on how the commonwhore o2 and ecu work but surely it takes time to learn when changing fuels. If you ran a tank of Ultimate through it I'm sure you'd see better figures.

My thoughts on the report, is that it was simplified too much.

They didnt have a scoring system for each parameter - such as power, cost, economy, etc, and a weighting system to get an overall score. They made some comments, and then came up with an order. I feel like i wasted my time watching the article.