Will this even work?

[Zoro]

I was at the supermarket today and overheard these 2 guys talking about making their own fuel as in like moonshine type stuff like ethyl alchahol(sp?), if you were to run that stuff wouldn't it hurt your truck?

 

[Matthew Currie]

I think the main problem with straight alcohol as a fuel is its affinity for water, which makes it difficult to fight corrosion in the system. Pure alcohol should work all right in a gas engine, but the mixtures won't be quite right, because it doesn't have the same btu content per gallon, etc., and evaporates very quickly too. I think a modern fuel injected engine might run better on it than a carbureted one, in part because alcohol is already present in modern fuels, and the systems are more tolerant of it, but they're probably still looking at impaired performance if they run it straight.

You do, at least in theory, need a license to make the stuff, though, since there's no inherent difference between fuel alcohol and moonshine, and you'd need a pretty big operation to get enough to go very far.

 

[Gerr]

Ive been looking into suplementing my fuel needs with some home brew alcohol. From the information Ive found you can run it in any gas engine but lower compression engines will suffer because of the higher octane rating alcohol has. Im plannaing on experimenting with a 50/50 (ethanol and gasoline 87 octane)mix during my next wheeling trip on the 10th to see how it really performs. From what some of the older redneck folk I have talked to in my area they like this mix and have used it to pass smog tests and it has had no ill effects on thier engines. And as a added benifit they are only charging me $1.50 a gallon for thier home brew

 

[Zoro]

I wasn't even thinking about using it, I was just wondering if it would work.

 

[MaXJohnson]

years ago, a friend of mine converted his dirt track late-model from gas to alcohol. He had to change the carburator to an alcohol version for two reasons; alcohol has less heat value so the jets had to be substancially bigger and alcohol carbs use different material for soft parts (0-rings, gastkets, etc). The alcohol carbs are also anodized to minimize corrosion. He also had to run a larger fuel line which was also made of a plastic material that was alcohol resistant. The fuel pump and fuel cell weren't an issue since they were designed for use with either fuel.

To further complicate things, he drained the system after a night of racing and ran the car on a bit of normal gasoline to flush it out. Alcohol can break down rubber parts, corrode aluminum and because it's water friendly, accelerate internal rust on steel lines and tanks. A little rust and dissolved rubber can do wonders to a fuel filter or injector nozzle.

Unless your Jeep is manufacturer certifiied to run on high ratio alcohol fuels, I'd stay away from it. You could end up damaging fuel system components. Also consider how the computer will deal with it. A 50-50 mix of alcohol would need to be 15% to 20% richer. Your 02 sensor will try to adjust, but will it be able to adjust that much? At WOT, the 02 sensor is out of the picture. You will be running on a preset fuel map that will not be "alcohol aware", so your engine will be running lean.