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  • Alcohol Powered 2 stroke engine

    Gurjap

    Member

    Updated: Oct 26, 2024
    Views: 6.2K
    I have an old scooter engine (+ the scooter 😛) and I wanna run it on pure ethanol for a project. On my research on the internet, I found that people are rather divided on the topic: some say it is the fuel of the future and the others say that ethanol has many disadvantages, like--
    1. it absorbs water
    2. it dissolves the motor oil, causes high rate of wear and tear.
    3. eth from organic resources (which I wanna use) contains high amount of resins, which clog up the engine.

    My main problem, however, is running a 2 Stroke engine on ethanol, and I can't find much data on this specific problem.

    Can you please help?😀
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Replies

  • Al-Otaiby

    Member • May 24, 2011

    Nice idea,

    However, there are some major points we need to consider!

    Ethanol as a solvent may damage bearings in crankcase, seals etc.

    How do we get two-stroke oil to dissolve in ethanol? It won’t.

    If everything was perfect, the compression ratio has to be changed, on the other hand! if the motor was cast iron it will melt (I can't imagine what would happen is it
    was Aluminium) because ethanol is more explosive than regular petrol/gas! the heat is extremely high and most of two-stroke engines are air-cooled!

    Cheers,
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  • Gurjap

    Member • May 25, 2011

    I think some high-end oils dissolve in ethanol. can't remember the brand names right now, will post those later...

    and I think ethanol actually burns at a lower temp than gasoline.

    most engine blocks these days are aluminum, and ethanol his highly corrosive to aluminum. not a good idea to burn it in those. the one I have is CI, and since ethanol is hygroscopic, the water it retains might corrode CI.

    and the danger to crankcase etc is mainly from the water retentivity of ethanol.

    major engineering challenges there 😀
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  • Al-Otaiby

    Member • May 25, 2011

    It actually burns at lower temperature, but the out-coming temperature is high 😉
    The 125 Honda featured in cycle magazine couple years back had a 11/1 compression ratio and a iron head instead of aluminum, carb was steel and iron- no plastic or high zinc castings to be eaten. Started on small gasoline tank, switched to E85 main tank when warmed and was a little hot rod for its size. A few 2 strokes running on E85 on track or drag strip known, old speedway JAP and Jawas ran alcohol for some races.
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  • Gurjap

    Member • May 25, 2011

    so what happened to that honda? still around?
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  • Al-Otaiby

    Member • May 25, 2011

    Seriously buddy I've got no clue 😕

    Try looking for it, perhaps you can buy the engine online somewhere 😉
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  • Gurjap

    Member • May 25, 2011

    I already have the engine 😀

    what I need is maybe an adequate lube and something that keeps ethanol from absorbing water..
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  • ISHAN TOPRE

    Member • May 25, 2011

    I have one suggestion. However a little difficult to implement.

    How about phase separation? See we actually need to keep Ethanol cool so that the temperature does not exceed 70 Deg F. We need to constantly cool the ethanol which mixes with water. We will need a separate compartment for this diluted ethanol.

    But my personal suggestion is that those fuels which contain more than 10% Ethanol suffer a high risk. No one in current times will recommend that.
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  • Al-Otaiby

    Member • May 25, 2011

    Ishutopre,

    I agree with you
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  • Gurjap

    Member • May 26, 2011

    certainly ishutopre, but what I want is to burn *pure* ethanol..
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