E10 fuel questions

I can state that for the most part in my area no gas stations have regular fuel and one gas station does have recreational fuel which is non ethanol fuel but its been a hit and miss for me. Over the last few years I have had more issues with E10 then previous years before in my small block chevy. I have had to add a return line and do some other plumbing work to cure fuel boiling issues that I never had before since they made changes to whatever they did with the fuel I get in my area. Don't matter what station I go too all there fuel does the same to my setup. For the most part if I keep my truck running on a regular basis its fine but if not driven very much that is where the problems start to come into play.

I don't drive it that much and less then 2 thousand miles a year at best and my hoses go bad pretty fast and usually within a 2 year period I have to replace rubber lines and on my Holley carbs the gaskets don't last as long and in do time even if I leave my carb alone, the metering block and fuel bowl gaskets just fall apart and don't last as long and that is the gaskets that are blue non stick ones that are supposed to be ethanol compatible. Same thing like Racerx said. Also if left in a carb for too long it causes a lot of corrosion.

You make a nice complete list of your fuel system, mentioning that everything is E10-compatible, so why should you be concerned? As mentioned earlier, E10 is bad on older rubber parts, such as hoses, fuel pumps or carbs, but you have covered all this.
I live in France and my daily driver is a 1981 Citroen, with carb and mechanical fuel pump, all stock. I usually fill with E10, and I have never had a problem, nor have I changed anything on the car. And that is a car that was designed for leaded gas! I also put E10 in a 1993 small block Chevy engine that I imported from Canada 10 years ago, the whole car made the switch without any issue either.
Old car owners may have to worry if their cars are fully stock and they want to keep them that way. Some older engines indeed do not like switching from regular 95 to E10, and may need a tune, or different spark plugs... I was once recommended to use a wider spark plug gap because of E10, but the car actually ran better with the regular gap!
And really, I am just wondering here, but what difference can there be between E5 and E10?... E85 is a whole different can of worms, though...
It does remind me of the "big scare" among old car owners when unleaded fuel became the norm, there were stories of engine destroying themselves in a few kilometers/miles, but I had at the time a stock '70 Impala that made the switch just fine. A simple ignition timing adjustment was needed for most.

If we're sharing links. Here's a paper with some interesting experimental results:


The results there match my own observations and experience. Neoprene which is commonly used in "rubber" gaskets and diaphragms in carburetors and other fuel system components absorbs ethanol and softens and swells when wet. When it dries out, it gets hard and brittle and shrinks, often cracking.

That paper says that they observed neoprene "decomposed" in E10 fuel

Actually, my experience with Bosh CIS units with neoprene diaphragms in the fuel distributors is that they catastrophically fail with E10, and harden and crack with E5 if the vehicle isn't driven fairly frequently and the fuel in the system evaporates. If you have anything with Bosh CIS system, never put ethanol fuel in it. Those units are expensive to repair and rebuild after ethanol damage. We learned that the hard way on my wife's Mercedes Benz 560SEL which was an "occasional driver."

European fuel octane is rated by a PON test which is not the same as the North American RON test so European octane rating of 100 is about equal to 93 to 89 in the US rating system.

Here in Washington state we’ve been running E10 since the mid 1980’s in my own experience across several auto’s, pick up trucks and motorcycles in those 30 plus years I have not seen any of the problems others talk about. I’ve made no changes in any of those vehicles several of which were purchased years before alcohol laced fuels came on the market.

The E10 is there to supply a late burn oxygen source to oxidize CO into CO2, a poison to life threat into a global warming threat not an octane enhancer as many believe not that it wouldn’t have that effect but at 10% max, the effect on octane rating is minimal. It is really a replacement for MTBE that is one of those permanent pollutants that when spilled soaks through the soil into ground water and is difficult to impossible to remove from the water. Being highly carcinogenic it was outlawed in motor fuels after several commercial size spills and leaks.

Bogie

Nothing lasts forever, these days to be super-safe you can use EFI hose and filters if your nervous about this. The EFI stuff is made for much higher pressures and is formulated specifically for alcohol laced fuels up to E85, but it’s pricey.

Reactions with galvanize to the end that threre are problematic corrosive byproducts this is more where unrefreshed product sits for lengthy periods of time. However, my own experience with my Harleys which sit with full fuel tanks and a dose of Sta-Bil and there are a host of others even Yamaha makes an excellent stabilizer. If however this is a frequently used vehicle where fuel is updated at least monthly there should be any problems. All motor fuels have stabilizers in the, from the blender but their concern isn’t your long term storage its theirs they cover for that period from blending till you put it in your tank. So the amount I’d stabilizer they use compared to what you need to preserve the fuel over winter is a lot different. And to this end adding alcohol isn't the only reason this stuff is added as even straight run petrol rots forming gums and varnishes and attacks rubber and galvanized components from way back when. So really it’s up to the end user to protect their mechanical investment from fuels.

Plus one shouldn’t forget that back in the days of Prohibition in the US countless people were poisened by ’bathtub gin’ make or brewed in the galvanized bathtubs of that early 20th century era. So yes there is a reaction at least sufficient to make a poison out of the alcohol.

Bogie

Lots of people here had issues when E10 first became prevalent -- in the mid 80s-90s. The only issue I had that I know 100% was E10 related was with a late 80s riding lawn mower. The engine maker took a few years to change the diaphragm material in their vacuum operated fuel pump -- or rather it took a few years for the old stock to sell out. I had to change that pump diaphragm every year for 2-3 years in the late 90s. It would stiffen up too much after sitting over the winter, worked fine as long as it was run every couple weeks. The last time I needed one I bought two -- never needed the second one! The old stock had been run through and the material was changed to something that held up to ethanol. On my old car things had been rebuilt/replaced enough (it was a daily driver -- 1963 Rambler) that I didn't notice any issues.

AND THAT IS THE MORAL OF THE STORY!!! Everything made since at least 2000 (most 10-20 years before) is designed to work with ethanol in the fuel. If you pull a car out of a barn that hasn't been run in 30-40 years chances are you're going to have fuel problems once you get it started. So replace fuel lines, rebuild carb and fuel pump (or replace pump if not a rebuildable type). You should then have no problems. Any old car that is driven much will have had those components replaced or rebuilt by now -- out of necessity. So unless it's a barn find or museum piece that hasn't been run in many decades it should be ready for E10 or higher.

The myth of ethanol being bad is rampant in many hotrodding communities. It's just not as bad as people think it is, and it has huge benefits. Ethanol is an ingredient in a lot of the fuel supplements and additives you can buy. Nothing makes me laugh more than someone who spends huge dollars on ethanol-free gas for something like their lawn mower, and then adds a fuel stabilizer that has alcohol in it. When we get a little water in our fuel in the winter, what do we add to the gas? Alcohol. I did the math a few years ago, but if you have a 20 gallon tank of E10, it can dissolve something like 200ml of water. Compare that to non-ethanol gas which can dissolve effectively zero water.

E10 is totally a non-issue. I burn E15 in my 1967 Pontiac and have zero issues. I buy E15 for my lawn equipment. When I'm done with it in the fall, I shove it in a corner and forget about it. The next spring it might take two pulls to start instead of one, but I've had zero problems with ethanol in fuel. I use it in my outboard boat, my I/O boat, my chainsaw, everything.

One thing I forgot... if you do pull something out that hasn't run in 30+ years (hasn't been run with ethanol fuel in the tank) CLEAN THE GAS TANK FIRST! I have had THAT issue! In the late 90s I parked a 1963 model car over the winter that had run with non-ethanol fuel most of it's life. As it sat for several months with a tank of ethanol fuel I had issues with stuck valves shortly after starting it again that spring. The issue was deposits in the tank that had accumulated over the years. The ethanol in the fuel had dissolved most of those deposits and created a "varnish" that coated valves stems from fumes as it burned. This lead to stuck valves. It took some time for it to clear up! As long as the car was being run there wasn't enough accumulation to create a problem. But after being parked for 4-5 months the ethanol in the gas had time to dissolve enough of the deposits to lead to a high enough concentration to form the varnish. That has to be the answer, as I had been running ethanol gas in it for several years at that point. The only reason I stopped driving was due to a bad rear wheel bearing that I just didn't have time to fix. I had just got another car so parked the 63 for the winter. Ended up dropping and cleaning the tank, as after I freed the valves up with the head on the car one would randomly stick from time to time. Ended up pulling head and taking it apart, cleaning guides and valve stems with solvent and a small bore brush. Not directly an ethanol problem, but something that could show up.