Best Grade of Gasoline

Post by **June** » 09 Mar 2018, 10:55

Isn't the EGR valve what controls NOx? I asked and it was explained to me that to reuse some exhaust gas keeps the burn temperature below 2000° to prevent NOx from being produced. That NOx is what caused smog and acid rain when I was a child. Dad didn't seem to know about ethanol as preventive for NOx. I am curious after reading the above posts if ethanol really helps the car run cleaner (beneficial) or do we need to take our cars to AA? June

Post by **wizechatmgr** » 09 Mar 2018, 17:19

I've heard of E-85 being "good" for NOx - likely because there is less BTU's in ethanol.

You are correct, the EGR attempts to lower NOx by lowering temps.

There are commonly 2 and 3 stage catalytic converters. Both attempt to lower NOx as well as other pollutants.

Post by **abscate** » 12 Mar 2018, 07:39

Well these get poiltiical really fast but the carbon offset of ethanol is the biggest benefit, the CO2 created from ethanol burning doesn't 'count' in CO2 load. Same thing for that dirty wood you are burning in your fireplace.

In the winter, oxygenated fuels help is on cold running, too - I don't think thats as important in sunny FL.

The cats now do a great job of converting CO, NOx, and low weight HC rather than hanging EGR on engines now. I think most cars have some sort of AUX AIR pump for cold start emissions - two of my cars do but none of my Volvos

WhatAmIDoing · Post by **WhatAmIDoing** » 13 Mar 2018, 20:01

abscate wrote: ↑12 Mar 2018, 07:39 Well these get poiltiical really fast but the carbon offset of ethanol is the biggest benefit, the CO2 created from ethanol burning doesn't 'count' in CO2 load. Same thing for that dirty wood you are burning in your fireplace.

Unfortunately, after you factor in the CO2 from production and transportation and refining of the corn into ethanol, those CO2 credits are pretty negligible. But who's 'counting'? If you remove the politics, oil companies would still put corn ethanol in gasoline. It's simple economics: corn is cheaper than petroleum.

Post by **abscate** » 13 Mar 2018, 20:19

My 1999 says up to 10% ethanol in the manual

The fuel value of ethanol vs gasoline is about 25% lower, so 10% ethanol gas loses about 2% mileage compared to pure gasoline. That difference is difficult to measure in a daily driver due to error budgets.

Feed vs food is an irrelevant argument, people starve due to politics of distribution, not supply.

Best Grade of Gasoline

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