With winter coming, and much reduced (but still occasional) use of my M20, I’m thinking of using a fuel additive to reduce the effect of dreaded ethanol. Classic Valvemaster Plus claims “ enabling the use of Ethanol E5 and E10 petrol, preventing acidity, protecting against corrosion and keeping the fuel system clean“ . Does anyone have first hand experience of it, or other products?
Thanks,
John

Snake oil
turn off the fuel tap
Remove the banjo & drain the fuel line & carb bowl.
Fill tank to brim

Bike is now ready for 6 months sleep

I'm going to plead ignorance and seek some insight.

Obviously, leaded petrol was what these bikes were designed for.

With regards to modern fuels you have unleaded in a variety of octane ratings (90-98), then there is E10 ethanol.

I have seen videos of "removing ethanol from petrol".

What is the accepted practice?

Run E10 and do this winter prep?

Run unleaded, and is there any ethanol in unleaded?

Remove ethanol and run/use that and not have to do winter prep?

Cheers

Al

I have been wondering if its worth trying to get some Avgas aeroplane fuel, just to fill up and have a final run up before laying up for the winter. However it appears to be dyed blue which may mean no road use duty is included in the price, and the same rules to red diesel may apply, and if you get caught with even a trace of red on the road a large fine or even worse may apply?

Rob

email (option): robmiller11(a)yahoo.co.uk

I use Miller's VSPe, initially for the properties of the manganese replacement for lead and it's beneficial effect on valve stem / guide lubrication with the 16H's grease lubricted guides...since using it, I haven't seen any more water globules in the float chamber which otherwise could arise after a week or two and the fuel in my steel jerry can will even fire up a Brigss and Stratton after the winter.

I don't put my bikes away for the winter, but depending on weather and salt spreading, there are periods when they go un-ridden.

Living in the US we have had E10 fuel for a long time. One of the biggest problems is ethanol is a wonderful solvent. Meaning it dissolves the crude in the fuel tank and sends it into your engine. While this is not a real problem for small motorcycle tanks it sure wrecks havoc on boat fuel tanks. Especially older boats. I have rebuilt my neighbors carbs. It will even damage year old brand new carb.
Let it sit over the winter with fuel in the float bowls and you end up with a brown crud residue. Then try to start the boat and you suck that crud into the idle circuit. Now you get to pull it apart and rebuild. I have never had an issue because it do not let E10 sit for long. Try this. Pour a few ounces of E10 into a glass jar. Let it sit with the lid off and watch it turn cloudy right before your eyes. That is the ethanol pulling water right out of the air. You guys with your wet climate will love this. You have to even keep humidity out of the fuel.

I have 9 motorcycles. The ones that do not make the trip to Florida for the winter get put up. Drain the fuel tank, run the engine until dry, remove the top of the float bowl to make sure no fuel is left behind, spray a little WD40 in the carb intake and a little in the cylinder kick her over a couple of times and done. I use the drained fuel to clean parts. I do not put it back in the tanks.

It takes about 15 minutes for “winterize” a WM20. It only takes adding fuel, a couple of priming kicks and away you go. I feel this is a little price to pay for not having to dissemble and clean carbs.

Have fun with E10. It is the worst decision ever.

email (option): cbhaws@verizon.net

Peoples understanding of fuel is even worse than their understanding of oils.
Firstly when the bikes were new they were designed to run on pool petrol which is one reason for the very low compression ratio, even for a side valve
So any modern fuel from super premium to e-85 will run quite fine in an M20, and yes I have tried e-85 and it would have been happier with a biger main jet but apart from that it ran quit well.

Next is the nature of fuel and it's interactions with the climate & micro climate.

Thus any testimonials are worth about their weight in used toilet paper.

To this point here is my example

I live 500 metres from my landlord and am about 30' lower and closer to the river ( sorry about mixing measurements )

His bikes live in a very large steel shed , mine live under a BBQ cover normally against a side wall made from Besser blocks facing south ( cold side down here ).

When we go on runs we often fill up at the same servo from the same pump. often as a single fill.
A month latter the M 20 will fire fist kick while his fuel has gone off so gets drained out to run the mowers with or we might start on starter fluid several times till the carb is warm enough to run on the off fuel .
He gets water condensing in his tanks, I don't and in 6 months the fuel won't burn at all
The same fuel in a jerry can stored 30' away in the ope fronted machinery shed will keep for a year .

So perhaps snake oil was a bit severe and Glasgow Elephant repellent would be better.
IT won't do any harm but 90% of the time it won't be of any benefit either .

So I'm getting the understanding that most people simply run ethanol and drain it out of the tank and carby if not used. No-one is removing the ethanol from the fuel before use?

Cheers

Al

Correct.
Use your bike at least once a week & ethanol should not cause you any grief unless you have a fiberglass tank
The problem comes when it sits around for a long time

Still plenty of fuel available that has no ethanol. Check with your local filling stations. And you can buy fuel stabiliser and it does work. A lot of folk are very quick to label additives as snake oil, presenting no basis for making that assertion. Do your own research, I would suggest.

Yes Ferg. I read an article a couple of weeks ago by FBHVC that listed areas around the country where "super Unleaded" still has no ethanol. These are chiefly, non supermarket, independent filling stations like Esso and Shell. Apparently though they must still display the E5 stickers on the pump. I always buy my old bike petrol from such pumps and add a touch of Frost's Ethomix.....So far, so good! Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

Esso Synergy Supreme+ is mentioned online as being Ethanol free, unless you buy it in Devon & Cornwall where I live or a few other places, I could try slipping over the border into Dorset or Somerset to smuggle a few litres home but it all sounds rather vague about just where these supply routes reach and end. Plus it sounds like its a higher octane than "pool" petrol and has some other cleaning additives in it?

Rob

email (option): robmiller11(a)yahoo.co.uk

('Still plenty of fuel available that has no ethanol. Check with your local filling stations'..)

Not in my neck of the woods (West Devon)...I've been to all the stations in my area and haven't found any E5 yet...I suppose I could pack my tent and go touring to find some..:laughing: ...

For that reason I'll be running mine on E10 unfortunately...I'm not going to use additives so I can find out what the actual effects are...Contacts in America, where they've had the stuff for years, don't report too many issues but climate and the type of use the bike gets may lead to varying effects...

I'm beginning to feel that there may potentially be some advantage in altering the ignition timing as the burn characteristics of this fuel must be quite different to fuels of yesteryear I'd imagine...I just need to convince myself it'll be worth spending a few hundred quid at the dyno to accurately measure the effects..(and of course I'll need some real fuel for comparison!!**!)..Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Very interesting about Esso. Their website says this
“Although our pumps have E5 labels on them, our Synergy Supreme+ 99 is actually ethanol free (except, due to technical supply reasons, in Devon, Cornwall, North Wales, North England and Scotland). Legislation requires us to place these E5 labels on pumps that dispense unleaded petrol with ‘up to 5% ethanol’, including those that contain no ethanol, which is why we display them on our Synergy Supreme+ 99 pumps.”
I’m lucky enough to have a few Esso stations in my area and on roads I enjoy riding, so I’ll now fill up at those and gradually flush the ethanol out of my tanks. Thanks all.

I've not tried it, but this stuff has been around for a while now.

https://aaoil.co.uk/brands/aspen/

email (option): pes.sales@btconnect.com

Yes, £2/L via eBay. Could be useful as a final fill before Winter??? "4-stroke petrol Aspen 4 is the cleanest petrol that you can use. Aspen is made from alkylate Petrol which is made from the gases from the top of the distillation tower which is then synthetically modified into a liquid again. The result is a petrol that is virtually free from sulphur, benzene and aromatics (solvents). It is chemically inert, meaning that you can leave the fuel in the machinery and your lawnmower will start easily the next spring. An added bonus is that it has a very low odour, so therefore you are breathing much cleaner air when you are mowing your lawn, for example. Lawn mower exhausts are extremely dirty compared to fumes from cars that are usually equipped with catalytic converters. Would you have your afternoon tea behind your cars exhaust pipe? Did not think so...but you would probably happily cut your lawn with your motorised lawn mover, without catalytic converters, using pump fuel full of benzene and solvents. And if you are really green, you are probably cultivating your own vegetables, which will then be covered with fumes... Use Aspen 4 and you will discover a much cleaner and more environmentally way to cut your lawn without the need to change your petrol mower"

I guess you have a new part time job with sales at Aspen Ferg???:smile: Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

Naughty! No, but if it saves having to drain down the system and/or doing a carb clean and rebuild, then it might be worth it. Even draining the carb has its pitfalls I have found with seals drying out. Sure, riding over winter is the real answer, but we are about to have the usual plastering of salty slurry applied to our roads and my modern bikes are the tools for those conditions.

That Glasgow Elephant Repellent seems to do a good job. Not a lot of Elephants around Glasgow. (somebody had to say it!)

email (option): binnawan@iinet.net.au

If the Aspen lawn mower petrol was £2 a litre it would be worth buying, the way fuel prices are rising and the fact it has a long shelf life sounds pretty good, but from what I can see its nearer £6 per litre.

Rob

email (option): robmiller11(a)yahoo.co.uk

I could probably get down to around £4.00 per litre if enough people purchased it. Shouldn't really post the stuff though. We carry some of their high octane fuel fuel, but very few buy it.

email (option): pes.sales@btconnect.com

['No, but if it saves having to drain down the system...']

Surely you'd still have to drain the system before putting in the storage fuel?...If not you would have a difficult calculation of how far you would have to ride with a mix of the two fuels whilst still adding storage fuel before all the E10 was consumed...That could make your brain hurt!!.:laughing: .

Saying that, after draining the E10 the storage fuel looks like a good 'over winter' option...Looking at all their other fuels I would think cost would rule them out for anything other than competition use or, for example, short local runs on a high compression Triumph engine or similar...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

There are quite a few processes that produce petrol as a waste product.
Most of the primary plastic production will produce petrol as a waste by product.
I had some friends who worked at a polly prop plant & none of them ever bought petrol and their bikes ran really well .

In the UK I would imagine the only real problem would be water condensation from air in the float bowl or tank, which is why you fill them to the brim or drain completely and take the taps out

In the USA & OZ things are different where the hotted days evaporate all of the aromatics out of the fuel which then changes the chemistry of the fuel

Some of the Canadians I know tell me the oxygenators they put in winter fuuel can also cause grief .