Ethanol Added Fuels Used In Air Cooled 2 Cycle.Engines

[echojohnny]

Im trying to get a straight answer on using todays 10% or less Ethanol added fuels. A little background info on myself. I am a 40 year plus Certified Small Engine mechanic.
Im a firm user of Non Ethanol fuel in ALL small engines and I have been lucky enough to find it locally. A few years ago I needed 2 stroke fuel for some repair jobs I was doing and I purchased the 87 octane 10% Ethanol. I got it from a quality gas station that does a high volume of fuel sales. Moving on I mixed my fuel and put it in a chainsaw and the saw ran as it should. The customer came to pick it up about a week later and it would not start. I replaced the fuel with Non Ethanol and it started perfectly. Why would fresh fuel a week old not start a chainsaw? My guess would be a high energy ignition system is needed to burn todays fuels?

 

[Rand]

No reason why it shouldnt run after a week... something else going on.

 

[gathermewool]

Originally Posted by Rand
No reason why it shouldnt run after a week... something else going on.


+1

The E10 gas in my mower was three weeks plus old (no stabilizer added) when it started on the first pull this afternoon.

 

[maxdustington]

My Dad just started using premium for OPE recently and we always had classic ethanol carb issues (4T only runs on choke, 2T hard starting, bogging).

His FS38 was always hard to start even from new, we thought it was just cold blooded. It stopped starting at all after a season and a half and we forgot about it. Recently I filled it with fresh ethanol free fuel and a few drops in the carb to prime it. Started right up and ran but it was lazy and bogged when you pinned it. I went to use it yesterday and the bogging is gone. I didn't even take the carb off or anything, just added fresh E0 and it starts reliably in 2-3 pulls. When brand new on ethanol fuel it would take 3-4 pulls to even fire with the choke on.

I was under the same impression that it was the long term affects of ethanol clogging the carb especially over the offseason that caused the running issues. A 4T mower might run OK on E10 at a fixed rpm, but it was like night and day in a 2T trimmer.

 

[Chris142]

If you use them daily or even monthly e10 is fine. If you put them away for the season there is a good chance they won't start next year.

 

[Kamele0N]

Originally Posted by Chris142
If you use them daily or even monthly e10 is fine. If you put them away for the season there is a good chance they won't start next year.

Especially 2strokes are "stale fuel" sensitive.....

 

[doitmyself]

I manage about dozen pieces of Stihl 2 cycle equipment at my work place and haven't had any issues with E10 87 octane fuel mixed with the silver bottle Stihl synthetic oil (has conditioner) at 50:1. Some of my equipment such as the backpack leaf blower sits for months between uses. Our saws also sometimes sit for months between uses. The only ones that I drain and run dry before storage are pieces that I know will sit unused for more than a year, i.e., our top handle arborist saw.

Maybe fuel quality varies between regions? I do believe that hot regions have more difficulties with fuel degradation.