E85 in my small engines?

Question

I've been mixing about 50-50 of E85 and regular gasoline. I have 1 snowblower with a Craftsmen 5.5HP engine, one 16 year old 3.5 hp push lawn mower for the hard to reach spots and a craftsment 17.5 hp lawnmower. I've been using this E85 mix with my 16 year old lawn mower and I don't see any negetive effects. Could something else go wrong when using E85 mix in the long term?

Answer 1

E85 contains between 70 and 85% ethanol (the rest is gasoline). If you mix 50-50 with gasoline, you are looking at 58-65% gasoline. This (35-42%) is too high an ethanol content, as it is corrosive to your mild steel fuel lines and fuel tanks.

You can safely run 10% ethanol. It is done in a number of areas in the country with air pollution trouble. I would mix much less E85 with gasoline.

BTW, you can also mix some E85 into your vehicle's tank if you are interested in a renewable fuel. I would use a max of 10% ethanol again, however.

Answer 2

E85 is corrosive, and doesn't have the same power out for equal amounts of fuel.

Small engines are cheap and you can toss them when done, but a 5 horse power won't turn out 5 horses when you run it.

Gas mileage also sucks. Alcohol has only about 85% of the energy that regular gasoline has.

Answer 3

Most small engines are not designed to run on alcohol. They are okay with 10% alcohol, but not more than that. I would strongly recommend against your plan. So far, you have been lucky.

The vehicles that use E85 are designed from the ground up for that. Many of the parts are different. Not a good idea to run it in an engine that is not designed specifically for it.