OK- trip home. I usually get better mpg- 42-43. The hill gradients are different and there's a net 200ft elevation change.

So I got 38.5 today. Tracking along...

Things I've noticed:
Cold engine and slow or stop/go driving, even when warm SUCKS! Very much worse mileage, out of proportion with all measures. We're talking low 20s; normally I get high 20s or low 30s in the little local segments I run. I'm used to a large disparity in the HAH between slow 6cyl and faster 3cyl FE, but this was crazy. We'll see if that was a 1-day thing, or if its characteristic of the tank.

There is a little different sound to the engine. Not bad, but different. Throatier, in a way.

I haven't noticed a difference in power.

 

I am thoroughly unimpressed with my little experiment...

- drop 10% or so highway driving
- drop 20% or so around town. I usually get 30ish on the weekend errand runs; it was a struggle to get mid-20s!
- eco-mode definitely does not want to come on as often or as long as before.
- I feel LESS low-speed oomph than before. Oomph- that's a technical term, right?

- no odd noises or behavior I would categorize as harmful, in the short run at least.

This vehicle certainly does not like what I fed it. Moral of the story:
(tightly engineered power plant) + (complex and robust control system- VTEC, VCM, IMA) = feed it what the smart people told you to!

Navy training aside, I am not one to blindly go with what someone says to do, but Honda is correct on this one. It's not just mpg- the entire car feels "off." My wife noticed it too, and she is unaware of the fuel mix. This engine truly is optimized for plain old regular unleaded.

I intend to run this tank down to fumes and return to the normal world. With my crappy FE this shouldn't take long.

On the bright side- after changing the oil and running the engine to circ it, the garage smelled pretty cool!

Interestingly, the Exploder (non-FFV) is on the same mix, and has exhibited almost no FE drop, in almost pure local carpool driving. Of course, 10% off of a small number is a very small number...

 

Well, I've burned off about 12gal so far. The tank is at 32mpg so far... OUCH. I think I'll cheat on the database and just forget that this tank happened. I knew it going in, but it still hurts. It wouldn't be as bad if I felt the car was performing better, but its not. Sorry Bar10dah and Cayman!

I was able to catch a nice 20 mile draft this AM at 58mph, so I actually hit 40mpg- that almost made me happy.

I can't wait until I've killed this tank. I'm sticking with ethanol in my bloodstream, not fuelstream in this car from now on.

The Exploder is on tank #2 with booze, and hangin' tough. I think there's a small dropoff, but its less noticeable on the lower baseline mpg. I can rationalize it as almost 'lost in the statistical noise."

 

D-U-N done.

Whew. I ended up with 497 miles on 15.7gal ~ 31.6mpg. That's ~12% worse than my worst tank since July! But also more or less in line with predicted. Still better than almost every single American car on the road.

It felt good to fill up with plain ol' 87 yesterday, and see >40mpg on my commute this morning again! And eco mode was back to being steady and predicatable again in all the usual spots.

 

I was reading about a company that designed an E85-100 car/engine and it beat the mileage and power output of their gasoline model. But the only way those are going to make it to the mass market are if we have a generation of flex-fuel vehicles so that sales of ethanol can happen and once it's widespread enough for people to feel comfortable about being able to get it in most places, then the E85-100-only cars can really be marketed to the mainstream, at least that's what I see happening.

 

Sounds right.

FFV vehicles are by definition a compromise between two different fuels, and will never ever be able to get better mpg on ethanol than gasoline. They are still primarily optimized for gasoline; ethanol is an afterthought.

An ethanol-optimized engine, though, might approach or match a regular gas-only engine for mpg. As E85 distribution infrastructure grows (following a larger rollout of FFVs) then ethanol-optimized engines can enter the market as viable products.

In the end, with proper education, I believe the public will see the benefit of ethanol vs gas even with a mpg hit. Other metrics like CO2 per mile and (hopefully) lower market cost can substitute. Take a cue from Intel, shifting consumers away from chip clock speed as the single Figure of Merit and towards other measures. It can be done.

 

Hi GoNavy:

___The public will not do squat until the price of Ethanol is far below that of Gasoline. It could easily be per our previous discussions but the US Congress, Oil lobby, Farm Lobby including Cargill and ADM are making sure they have there hands in the cookie jar first at every turn …

___I truly wish Budweiser, Coor’s, and Miller would jump all over this and start producing Ethanol using their minimum price per gallon business strategies so as to compete head on with the Brazilian’s … Congress, Farm lobby, and Big Oil are not the ones who will do this but the beer companies sure could with 500,000 + acres of Sugar Cane to take what they need for feedstock as a start …

___If I ever find out how to make moonshine, by god I think I will start manufacturing Ethanol myself! The back woods folk have been doing this at a profit for centuries thus leading us to the next logical question, why can’t we

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes