That is a pretty neat article...it is strange, though that the do not mention the octane boost from ethanol (E85 is 105 octane!)

About 3 months ago me and a co-worker decided we were sending way too much money to the middle east, foreign terrorists and others that just want to kill us, so we started looking into ethanol (E85). Over the past couple of months we have been giving our vehicles ever increasing ratios of alcohol to gas.

He now has his Dodge Dakota up to straight E85 and reports that it runs OK, mileage is slightly down, but essentially offset by the cheaper cost of ethanol. He hasn't set any engine codes, but we looked at the system with a scan-tool and the long term fuel trim is at about 27-30% so the computer is definitely stretching to compensate for the E85. We are considering a fuel pressure boost or slightly larger injectors to compensate.

My car loves the stuff. It has a 10.2:1 compression VTEC engine and during the summer heat, it would still ping on the premium gas. I started mixing a 50/50 blend of E85 and regular 87 octane - it works out to about 95 octane...the pinging stopped immediately and it saves me about 50 cents a gallon over the premium! Still waiting to get my VX oil problem solved, then give it a dose of the alky! Plus I'm hoping that if I can get a good supply of cheap, high octane gas, a supercharger or turbo might be in the future.

I think the "gasohol" got a bad rap in the 70's as the "cheap gas" and people tend to shy away from it. Here in Kansas, they just passed a bill that gas stations no longer have to label the gas as "contains 10% ethanol" - it seems people were taking that as a warning! Stations did away with the labels and ethanol consumption surged!

As you can probably tell, I am all for the stuff. The only things that I hate are that it is remarkably hard to find here in Kansas (of all places!) only a couple pumps within a 50 mile radius of me. And, I guess the hurricane struck our corn too, because the ethanol prices have jumped in lock-step with the gasoline prices...only ethanol stays about 30 cents less per gallon.