AS we all know, ethanol has been a curse on the automotive industry since the "politicians in the know" have blessed us with this "fuel". There have been many a car/trucks fuel system destroyed by it and many a boat has had to have the water pumped out of the fuel tanks from it's natural hygroscopic action of sucking water out of the air. It contains about 30% of the energy or BTUs of the host fuel, gasoline so power has been reduced in the fuels we use. Now comes along isobutanol and biobutanol, the difference being iso is from petroleum and bio from the same plant feedstocks as ethanol. The advantages are many but among them, here's the better side:

Butanol is not hygroscopic so water in the fuel is no longer an issue. Great for boats.
Butanol does not destroy or attack any parts of the fuel system. Fabulous for those small engines that suffers from ethanol in the gas. No more having to buy something like TruFuel to keep the lawn mower running at a hefty 20 bucks a gallon.
Butanol does not have phase separation so you don't have to worry about the gas turning to goo over time.
Butanol has about 30% more BTUs than ethanol which means you'll gain more power over an ethanol gas.
Butanol has less emissions due to less evaporative loss.

The current makers are Gevo and DuPont with BP. As of now, it is available at some marinas marketed as Gulf Marine Gas. There is an Express Lube in Fredricksburg Texas that also is selling it. Folks are traveling up to 100 miles just to buy it for small engines. It's a $1.50 premium to ethanol gas as of now but once production is up, you should start seeing it next year available at your local station. It should be nice to fill up with some real gasoline for a change. I can imagine those with the EcoBoost engines are going to start looking for wings for their trucks as they are gonna fly! Looking forward to seeing test data on real world engines on the roads. It already has EPA approvals up to a 16% mix but consider a 12.5% normal.
For your reading and links
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/eme...iobutanol.html

 

I can still buy gas with no ethanol at one station here (Spirit) - it's 91 octane and 50 cents more than 87 octane E10. That's what I use in my lawnmower. Missouri allows E0 here if it's 91 octane or higher or if it's avgas. I can also hop across the state line into Kansas and get 87 octane with no ethanol, it's 15 cents more than 89 octane E10 (Casey's).

 

Here in the "corn state " it is becoming very hard to find gas without ethanol, luckily I live by a lake and the local Sinclair station still offers 87 octane without ethanol for the boats. Seems like anything above 87 octane in the entire state is an ethanol blend. Funny that the govt. forced ethanol to support the corn producers but every time the corn market takes a dip another ethanol plant goes out of business.

 

I've been buying ethanol free premium gasoline for years for all my lawn tools, motorcyles, and our two cars that require premium. It costs about $.30 per gallon more than 10% ethanol premium.

 

The only good use for e85 is on a big turbo engine. The rest of the time that corn would be better used for making whiskey.

 

Labnerd,

I have an 1992 high performance 240 HP carbureted outboard on my boat and the engine builder was pretty specific about me not running less than 91 or 92 octane fuel in it. If I don't, I supposedly run a serious risk of melting down the pistons. So I've always run 91 octane non-ethanol fuel which is pretty readily available here. One of the other big reasons is that the non-ethanol fuel supposedly doesn't suffer from the octane degradation that comes with the stuff with ethanol in it.

Any thoughts and how does this new stuff do on octane degradation?

 

Yer gonna love this. The isobutanol gas is less susceptible to degradation than the gas itself. It should last for months if not years. Another plus for you, the lowest octane rating is 93 with an available 100. Since you are in NY, there are about 8-10 retailers there but I don't have the list. Look for most any marina that sells Gulf fuels and they probably have it.
Having a fairly extensive experience with outboard and jet boat racing, what block are you running? At one time I was just about getting that out of the old Evinrude V4. Ran great, engine life sucked as the block just wouldn't take the beating. I blew many a heads right off of the engine. Several had the spark plugs fall out. But it was fun!

 

Old worked over OMC Eagle series? Or one of the even rarer unrecalled motors?

 

I'm running a Diamond Marine built Mercury 2.5 liter motor that originally started life as a 200. Marty's dyno showed 239 HP after the rebuild at 550 hours. He could have gotten a lot more out of it if I'd wanted to dump the oil injection system and sink some serious money into it. I decided that I liked driveability and reliability more than all out performance.

As for the Gulf fuel, sounds like great stuff, but nobody around here carries Gulf. I work at a marina and most of us carry the 91 octane non-ethanol stuff, so I'll just live with that for now. Thanks for the advice!