Chevron gas with Techron or ethanol free Sinclair? (2 Viewers)

[Rando Kuruza]

so I have a question for you all... I live in a rural area about 1,500 in our little city... on the way into town I have the choice of getting chevron gas with Techron but 10% ethanol. I also have the option of getting gas from Sinclair but it's ethanol free...

What way would you go? Chevron with Techron or Sinclair no ethanol???

 

[gaijin]

I don't like ethanol in gas for a lot of reasons, but the Techron additive package looks to have many advantages. Sinclair is a top tier gasoline supplier (DINOCARE™ Technology). So that makes the decision easy for me: buy the Sinclair with no ethanol, but every 3,000 miles add a bottle of Techron.

HTH

 

[SWUtah]

Just always use "top tier" rated gas and every so often switch from one brand of top tier to the other since they all use different additive packages, gives you best of both worlds.

 

[Rando Kuruza]

Nice funny thing I tried the Sinclair on my LX470 and I actually got 1.5 mpg better on the tank... Maybe I will try the Sinclair and see how it works on my 200. Thanks for the feedback

 

[Narkhelek]

You definitely take a performance hit with Ethanol. It's not a huge hit (at least 3% with E10) but it's there.

 

[Haggis]

My mechanic swears by a bottle of Techron every 3-5000 miles for clean injectors. I've been doing it religiously for years.

 

[NYC570]

You definitely take a performance hit with Ethanol. It's not a huge hit (at least 3% with E10) but it's there.

If the 5.7 engine is tuned as conservatively as the Lexus ISFs engine, this would actually be the opposite. Have you done any dynos running e10 gas vs non e10 gas? How many knock sensors does this engine have? I'm very curious as to whether this engine also gains performance running even more ethanol like the ISF engine. I'll try and test this out as soon as I find a good all wheel drive dyno. Although the best I can do is run e10 gas vs e30 gas as I don't believe any gas stations sell non e10 gas around my area.

 

[gaijin]

Although the best I can do is run e10 gas vs e30 gas as I don't believe any gas stations sell non e10 gas around my area.

If you go above E10 gas in 2008-2015 trucks, or above E15 gas in 2015-2018 trucks, you risk damage (corrosion) to fuel system components.

2008-2015 gas cap on left, 2015-2018 on right:

HTH

 

[NYC570]

If you go above E10 gas in 2008-2015 trucks, or above E15 gas in 2015-2018 trucks, you risk damage (corrosion) to fuel system components.

2008-2015 gas cap on left, 2015-2018 on right:

HTH

Yeah same with the ISF. Some have been running e30 for more than a year with no ill effects so far.

 

[gaijin]

Yeah same with the ISF. Some have been running e30 for more than a year with no ill effects so far.

Some have been smoking cigarettes for more than a year with no ill effects ... so far.

If Toyota specifically warns against higher Ethanol content, probably a good idea not to do it.

 

[LBridges]

Relative to the Techron (and other cleaners discussion)....

I try to use only gas from stations I know are top tier, but with that said, I also read a post from a chemist concerning what will actually dissolve fuel residues. It can be found here. This isn't where it was originally posted, but the first posting is the same and I easily found it. I'm not a chemist or an automotive engineer so that means I'm pretty clueless about the relevancy of the tests, still I found it interesting.

I am reproducing the post below for those who don't care to open another link:

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Background about tests:

As a worst case sample of material which might be found in gasoline I used ordinary tar. The brown deposits we find coating carburators, and which collects in fuel injectors and on intake valves, are the highest boiling components in gasoline. They are tar-like materials which distilled along with the lighter gasoline. The best solvent I've ever seen for these was methylene chloride, but it's expensive and I'm sure it's being phased out to protect our ozone layer. In any case, if you used it on a modern car the chlorine freed during combustion would corrode the oxygen sensor. Amoco advertises a cleaner gasoline and I'm sure it's because they've reduced these tar-like compounds. All gas these days contains at least a little detergent of some sort to help keep these deposits from building up too much.

Dimethylformamide is listed in the literature as being a good engine cleaner and is "especially good at dissolving carbonaceous deposits". I haven't used this myself because it is a bit too toxic. Instead I used N-methyl pyrrolidone, which is also good.

For my tests, I tried to use a wide variety of products, well known and unknown, expensive and cheap, and also some pure solvents in order to represent a good cross section of products on the market. Note, carbon itself (such as soot and other thermally decomposed material) is not soluble in ANY solvent but solvents like dimethylformamide and N-methyl pyrrolidone do a good job of breaking up clumps and dispersing the fine particles to release the heavy tarry materials trapped within them. However, some of these solvents are too harsh to use freely in the fuel system. (Someone in one of these forums told me that when the auto industry looks for good cleaners, they mostly look for solvents that will not attack the plastic and rubber parts in the system.)

Most cleaners (the safer & slightly less effective ones) usually have common solvents in them like toluene, alcohol, acetone or methyl ethyl ketone, and naphtha. If you want to use these to clean your system, you can get more for your money by buying the pure solvents at a hardware store and mixing them yourself. I have never had a problem adding toluene, acetone, alcohol, or naphtha to my gas tank in quantities up to one quart per 16 gallons.

Most of the straight solvents I used are at least as flammable as gasoline so be careful if you use them. The alcohol used was pure, 100% isopropyl alcohol. This has no water in it, it is not the same as "rubbing alcohol".

These test results are as fairly and accurately done as I could manage with the equipment I had available, and the other data presented is also accurate to my knowledge. Your car may have different plastics in it than mine does so if you choose to make your own cleaner, do it at your own risk.

TEST RESULTS

RELATIVE EFFICIENCIES AT WHICH VARIOUS CLEANERS WILL DISSOLVE HIGH BOILING RESIDUES FROM GASOLINE AND CARBONACEOUS DEPOSITS FOUND IN USED MOTOR OIL, (10=BEST):

· 10 Gunk Gas Treatment
· 10 Toluene (a common ingredient)
· 9 Castrol Syntec Power System
· 8 Duralube Fuel System Cleaner
· 7 Gunk Fuel Injector Cleaner
· 6 Redline SI-1
· 5 Gunk Air Intake Cleaner
· 4 Naphtha (a common ingredient)
· 4 STP Fuel System Cleaner
· 4 Seafoam Motor Tuneup
· 4 Trak Fuel Injector Cleaner
· 4 STP Intake Valve Cleaner
· 4 CD-2 Emission Cure
· 4 Prolong Fuel System Treatment
· 3 CD-2 Fuel Injector Cleaner
· 3 Techron Concentrate
· 0.5 Butyl Cellosolve (a COMMONLY used "AUTO INDUSTRY DETERGENT" for oil and grease)

THE FOLLOWING CLEANERS DO NOT HURT NYLON (LISTED RANDOMLY).
(The letters in parentheses indicate how well they dissolved the material from used oil, A=best.):

· Toluene (A)
· 2-Phenoxyethanol (A)
· Duralube Fuel System Treatment (B)
· B-12 Chemtool (B)
· Trak Fuel Injector Cleaner (C)
· Techron Concentrate (D)
· STP Intake Valve Cleaner (E)
· Seafoam Motor Tuneup
· CD-2 Emission Cure
· Prolong Fuel System Treatment
· Aromatic distillates
· Naphtha
· Butyl cellosolve
· Acetone

THE FOLLOWING CLEANERS WILL DECOMPOSE THE NYLON SOCK IN THE FUEL TANK. Listed in order of increasing severity:

· STP Fuel System Treatment
· CD-2 Fuel Injector Cleaner
· Gunk Fuel Injector Cleaner
· Castrol Syntec Power System
· Redline SI-1
· Gunk Gas Treatment
· Monoethanolamine
(The monoethanolamine is the worst here. It turns nylon black on contact. It is significant to note here that the "best" "detergents" in use today are similar, strongly alkaline organic solvents). Another use for the current bunch of organic amine "detergents" is cleaning deposits out of cylinders, so I hear.

 

[NYC570]

Some have been smoking cigarettes for more than a year with no ill effects ... so far.

If Toyota specifically warns against higher Ethanol content, probably a good idea not to do it.

Well, if we go by all Toyota warns us about non of us would have modified trucks.

I'm not planning to use e30 on the 200 permanently as I do on the ISF. I will just use it to see whether you gain or reduce performance since this is an argument that has come up a few times on this forum.

 

[bjowett]

The 3UR 5.7 is quite similar to the 2UR GSE in the F as they are part of the UR family. I have both engines out in the carriage barn, they both utilize 4 knock sensors.