Welly wrote:
There's also evidence that a car will suffer a drop in performance due to lower Octane rating (92-ish%)
There is no such evidence, since 95 RON E10 has exactly the same octane rating as 95 RON E5 and 95 RON straight petrol. Ethanol actually has a relatively high octane rating, so it would make no sense at all for the octane rating to drop when more ethanol is added.
However, ethanol has a lower energy density than petrol, which is probably what you meant. In most cases, fuel-injected engines with a functioning O2 sensor will compensate for this, by making the fuel:air mixture slightly richer compared to what is needed for straight petrol. Hence more fuel by volume is needed, which translates to slightly worse fuel mileage by volume. This will cost you a tiny bit extra at the pump, since we pay for fuel by volume, not by energy content.
Most cars are sufficiently overspecced in the fuel pump and injector compartments that going to E10 wont be a problem in that regard. Tuned cars may need to have higher-flow pumps and bigger injectors put in. Carbed vehicles will need to be rejetted unless they were tuned with a decent safety margin.
The biggest issue still lies with materials. Some rubbers simply perish when exposed to ethanol, and Audi/VW really should have known better with the FSI engines at that point. It's not like they didn't know ethanol was coming. Or perhaps both the 406 HPi and the Audi/VW FSI engines use the same Bosch fuel pump? In which case, Bosch really should have known better.
Welly wrote:I looked at Volvo compatibility and it says
any Volvo-engine'd Volvo from 1976 will run on E10
I don't like the sound of this stuff and certainly don't want to test it to see what happens.
Both Volvo and Saab were first-movers when it came to adopting ethanol. Most of their cars could be ordered as "flex fuel" versions, which could run on both normal petrol and E85. I don't know if any E100-capable versions were built. I don't know if this flex fuel option is still available, I haven't specced out a new car in ages.
On the slightly less affordable end of the scale, all of Koenigsegg's cars are flex fuel. The Agera R makes 960hp on 95 RON and 1140hp on E85, thanks to both the higher octane rating. which allows running more advanced timing, and the cooling effect that ethanol has.
dirtydirtydiesel wrote:Yeah it rot's the crap out of bike tanks, because the water sit's under the (petrol) if you can call it that
Never had a problem on my bikes. Then again, I actually ride them instead of just bringing them out for a 10km trip every other month like some people do. Even then, I've had petrol sitting in the tank of my old carbed bike over the winter with no issues at all. Two weeks ago, I primed the carbs, put the choke on full and she started up in less than 10 cranks and ran perfectly fine on that 4-month-old petrol. The newer fuel-injected bike took 3 cranks, exactly the same as on a warm summer's day with fresh petrol in the tank. No rust in either of those bikes' tanks, either.
I know that some bikes such as Ducatis with their plastic fuel tanks have had problems with swelling and deformed tanks. Then again, those bikes were designed and built after everyone knew that ethanol was coming, so it's really a screwup on Ducati's part.
As an addendum, second generation biofuels are not made from food crops or crops that need to grow on land capable of bearing food crops. They are made from plant and animal waste that would otherwise go unused.
) SOLD I've sorted the airbag light 
run's for cover 
