My manual says my gs will run on ethanol. What are the pros and cons?

Pros: 

Renewable energy (though sustainability is the subject of debate)
Very clean carburetors
<sarcasm> Doesn't come from dirty brown non-Christains who want us to die </sarcasm>

Cons:

You have to rejet your carbs (but you really need to do that anyway)
Reduced fuel economy

Thank you. Reduced fuel economy--thats all I needed to know. After all, my wife has christened this bike the HMS Economic.

As for rejetting...I am pretty much a complete retard when it comes to all this mechanical stuff. Heck, I sit at a desk all day while someone else changes my oil.

Ethanol is mostly used as an addative to gasoline/petrolium to decrease emmissions and reduce pollution and fuel consumption, you most likely use a fuel which contains ethanol to some degree already so i would think it simply says that to indicate there would be no problem using a fuel containing ethanol however i havn't read the manual. The pro's of running on streight ethanol if you ever were to are it is cleaner and potentially more economical and it wont run out like the fossil fuels will. The cons, it would be hard to get hold of E100 (ethanol only) petrol i would expect. I have never seen it here in the UK at petrol stations. It is probably expensive because of this if you can find it and using regular petrol or gas at your petrol stations is plenty suitable for your bike, it will still get good mpg better than most cars or other bikes and it will be cheaper i would imagine.

All studies have been showing that it requires more energy (i.e. fossil fuels) to create ethanol than the final product contains.  

I really don't want to enter this debate (I'm sure it will become one).  Due to my job...I'm just too close to this issue to not get all personal/emotional.

-Turd.

I cant see it running on neat ethanol, least not for long. It lacks the additives and lubricants that petrol/gas has and that engines require. It would  be ok with some ethanol mixed in the fuel but not a huge amount.

Didnt mean to start nothin..../sheepish...

I was mostly wondering if it was more econimical to run. Not that I'm complaining about my 50mpg, I mean I used to drive a suburban.

Quote from: Turd Ferguson on August 21, 2006, 04:10:50 PM
All studies have been showing that it requires more energy (i.e. fossil fuels) to create ethanol than the final product contains.  

I really don't want to enter this debate (I'm sure it will become one).  Due to my job...I'm just too close to this issue to not get all personal/emotional.

-Turd.

That's okay, because these guys have discovered free energy.  All of our energy problem will be over very shortly!  I mean, they have a website and everything!

Quote from: jazerr on August 21, 2006, 04:29:41 PM
Didnt mean to start nothin..../sheepish...

I was mostly wondering if it was more econimical to run. Not that I'm complaining about my 50mpg, I mean I used to drive a suburban.

That's a definite negative.  It's cleaner-burning, but its energy density is less than that of gasoline.  You just get more energy out of gas, so unless it's cheaper, there's no economic advangage.

Quote from: Egaeus on August 21, 2006, 04:38:53 PM
That's okay, because these guys have discovered free energy.  All of our energy problem will be over very shortly!  I mean, they have a website and everything!

They have a website...I mean it can't be poor engineering if they have an official website!

Ethanol is a low-lubricity fuel.  To run on anything over E85 requires engine componenets (i.e. heads, valves, etc) that are designed for low-lubricity fuels.  Personally?  Ethanol is only around due to bullshit politics.

Err...wait...I wasn't going to enter this conversation...

-Turd.

But it's a great website.  http://www.steorn.net/frontpage/default.aspx  So informative!  How can they not be telling the truth?

Quote from: Egaeus on August 21, 2006, 05:00:50 PM
But it's a great website.  http://www.steorn.net/frontpage/default.aspx  So informative!  How can they not be telling the truth?

Look how its played up on their site!  Looks like nothing more than a publicity stunt or something.  Sounds like making rediculous claims would be bad publicity for an engineering firm... but maybe that's just me!

-Turd.

I don't know what they're up to.  I mean, look at their forums!  People are calling them lying shysters on their own website. 

I like how they took out an ad in The Economist instead of filing a patent and then publishing a paper in a journal.  I guess the guys with the money who read The Economist are easier to fool.

Quote from: jazerr on August 21, 2006, 03:56:36 PM
My manual says my gs will run on ethanol. What are the pros and cons?

I think there was a guy who'd converted his '92 GS500 to ethanol. A quick google search turns up some threads on the E85 forum. This thread seems to be the most informative:

http://e85forum.com/about124.html&highlight=gs500

Check out the posts by "specialgreen". If I remember correctly the biggest change is replacing fuel lines with something that is less affected by the ethanol (oh yeah, and rejetting). The biggest problem was finding a regular supply of a high ethanol content fuel.

-James

Its just crap and it should be filled away with those fuggin` contra-rotating brake discs and the techno-bullshit-babble that went with them. What they claim is imposible. Those comments  they make contradict the 3 laws of thermodynamics which in a simple terms say"you cant get energy from nothing"  " You cant get rid of energy" and " you cant get out more energy than what you put in" Someone is gonna be busy rewriting them hahahha  NOT!

Quote from: sledge on August 21, 2006, 05:26:14 PM
Its just crap and it should be filled away with those fuggin` contra-rotating brake discs and the techno-bullshit-babble that went with them. What they claim is imposible. Those comments  they make contradict the 3 laws of thermodynamics which in a simple terms say"you cant get energy from nothing"  " You cant get rid of energy" and " you cant get out more energy than what you put in" Someone is gonna be busy rewriting them hahahha  NOT!

Why are you hating on the free energy?  Are you part of the government conspiracy trying to keep us dependent on the corporations?  It's a conspiracy run by the jews, you know....

pros...hmmmmm...

cons...$4/gal

Here in Brazil our gasoline has something in the range 20-26% of ethanol. Hence our engines must deal with the sorrosion it causes.
But in other countries which has no ehtanol available anyway, corrosion is a serious problem.
In South Brazil ehtanol costs less than 70% of gasoline´s price, which is the economic limit below which the renewable fuel is economically advantageous.

Producing it from sugarcane yields ~8.5 times renewable energy by unit of non-renewable energy put in the process. If the cane harvesters and other agricultural machines used ran in biodiesel this energy balance would be better.
Producing ethanol from corn, wheat, rice and beet are not too good options from this point of wiew.

I am planning to convert my GS 500 to run on ethanol, but using electronic injection/ignition rather rejetting carburettors. In the early Proalcool (a government program to stimulate use of ethanol fuel in Brazil from late 1970´s) some researches used piano cords (coils) n order to stiff the centrifugal advance of the distributor. I think it is impossible to do in the GS500´s ignition advancer, as it is impossible also to drill the centrifugal mass in order to get a delayed spark timing at higher revs.

When my conversion be done I will release a manual with tech drawings, maps and other informations needed.

Our local touring car series in Australia the V8 Supercars, switched to E85 (85% ethanol + 15% petrol) which saw the cars achieve a slight increase in top end horsepower, but the cars now use 30% more fuel.

yipeee...bringing back a thread thats over 3 years old
yeiiiiiii

Search for e85.  Might find some good info from a guy named Chuck