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Question What if there's a gas shortage this winter?

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Who has an alternative recipe for our gas tanks?
You could run neat ethanol (well, you’d have to denature it) if you decked the head to increase the compression ratio. With a permit from BATFE (if you’re in the USA) you could distill your own from sugar (or other things). You’d also need to talk to your state gov’t, and pay the road taxes on what you distill and use.

You’d also have to replace all the rubber and polymer parts with ethanol-resistant materials, reprogram the ECU, and probably replace the fuel injector with a higher-flow unit. You _might_ get away with significantly increasing fuel rail pressure instead.

That’s it.
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EDITED TO ADD:
If you deck the head and make those other changes, you can NOT go back to pump (or probably any) gasoline.
 
You could run neat ethanol (well, you’d have to denature it) if you decked the head to increase the compression ratio. With a permit from BATFE (if you’re in the USA) you could distill your own from sugar (or other things). You’d also need to talk to your state gov’t, and pay the road taxes on what you distill and use.

You’d also have to replace all the rubber and polymer parts with ethanol-resistant materials, reprogram the ECU, and probably replace the fuel injector with a higher-flow unit. You _might_ get away with significantly increasing fuel rail pressure instead.

That’s it.
(-:

EDITED TO ADD:
If you deck the head and make those other changes, you can NOT go back to pump (or probably any) gasoline.
And I forgot: When you deck the head, the timing chain will be too long, so valve timing will be off. There isn’t exactly a convenient way to deal with that on the NCX. I also cannot assure you that the tensioner will take up the slack adequately if you just ignore the valve mis-timing and run it as-is.
 
You could stock up, 5 gallon cans, maybe 5 cans, rotating your fuel. Figure a can of fuel per week you have a bit over a month's supply of fuel. You wouldn't need to stabilize the fuel with only a month on hand. But if there is a fuel shortage it is likely that you'd be able to refill the cans at some point during a month.

I run diesel cars, for years I kept 1000 gallons on my property, I've cut down on that over the past few years. For gasoline I typically have about 3 weeks supply on hand.

Easier to store modest amounts of gas safely than it is to modify an ICE engine to run on something that is not gas. The most likely gasoline alternative is probably propane, requires no real modifications to the engine. Does require a regulator. Tri-Fuel generators (propane/natural gas/gasoline) are proof enough. I ran them for decades out here. Propane runs a lot closer to gasoline than natural gas.
 
yup, i have a little experience with LP, it runs right at 104 octane! A local guy here that owns a LP distribution Co has an older elCamino with a dual top tunnel ram and runs twin LP mixers. quite the runner too! :{P
 
If you live near an airport that sells Swift Fuels UL94 (unleaded Avgas), you can use that as autogas, with an octane rating of approximately 99 ((R+M)/2 method). Avgas has much higher stability and a longer shelf life, so you could easily stock up on it and use it over 6 - 12 months without worrying about additional stabilizer or having it go bad.

On the other hand, it is $4.19/gal at the nearest location where I live, so quite a bit more pricy. For me, I'm just going to risk it and keep buying gas as needed :)
 
If you live near an airport that sells Swift Fuels UL94 (unleaded Avgas), you can use that as autogas, with an octane rating of approximately 99 ((R+M)/2 method). Avgas has much higher stability and a longer shelf life, so you could easily stock up on it and use it over 6 - 12 months without worrying about additional stabilizer or having it go bad.

On the other hand, it is $4.19/gal at the nearest location where I live, so quite a bit more pricy. For me, I'm just going to risk it and keep buying gas as needed :)
I didn't realize an unleaded avgas was developed/approved yet. I knew they were working on alternatives to 100LL, but I didn't know any got past the R&D stage. How common is UL94 down there?
Doing some more reading, it seems like you need an STC to run UL94. I assume it would only be possible to obtain an STC for an engine that was intended for the old 80/87 grade and not anything that was designed for 100LL.

Alternatively, if they run out of mogas, you could just (very illegally) use 100LL until you gummed up the plugs, valves, cat, sensors, etc. :p
That TEL is nasty stuff for modern engines! It's nasty enough on engines designed for it. I remember picking lead deposits off a full set of plugs off of a Piper twin when I was in highschool...
 
$4.19 a gall.
And I thought the $3.14 I saw yesterday was bad. Normal here is $2.99.
Isnt California fun!?!?!! And I just guessing where you live by the price of gas!
 
$4.19 a gall.
And I thought the $3.14 I saw yesterday was bad. Normal here is $2.99.
Isnt California fun!?!?!! And I just guessing where you live by the price of gas!
avgas at $4.19 is aviation gas,,,,you know, for airplanes....you dont find avgas at the normal gas station....You get that at the airport or airport hangers.
 
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