Alcohol in a rotary engine and the effects?
 

Ok well I was looking into some stuff about emissions and reading how ethanol is gas works out pretty well, etc. But I came across a website that got me thinking. They don't mention what kind of alcohol other than they mention gasohol a couple times so maybe they're talking about that. They mention the following:

- Alcohols are notoriously incompatible with engine oil.
- Alcohols also have been known to attack rubber hoses and gaskets rather severely in older cars.

So that being said, wouldn't gases that contain 10% ethanol be bad for a rotary engine? I say this because of the mixture of oil with the gas in the combustion chamber. Also, because of the seals being vulnerable to the alcohol in the engine.

I never thought gases with 10% ethanol would be bad? Maybe they're talking about methyl tertiary butyl ethers (MTBEs)?

PS - from what I know ethanol alcohol contains no water so what I've stated should not be a problem, correct?

Well, 100% ethanol is water-free (obviously) ... but in reality, there is almost ALWAYS some water in there if you have a jug of alcohol. But it really doesn't matter much because it's a small amount.

Methanol seems to be the trick. It evaporates before it has time to detonate.

The drum's of alchy and meth at work say they something like "99.97% pure with 0.03% water by volume"

I might have the #'s slightly off, but I know its 99.something close to 100

methanol eats rubber oil seals! ust so ya know!ampm and 76 stations have it! not a good idea

yah, silicon hoses do ok with methanol but rubber just gets consumed. i used to race circle track go karts(methonal powered) and we ran the outlaw class which was with tilletson which required an aftermarket tank with external fuel pumps n shit. rubber hoses would leave little chunks all in the carbs which eventually led to a few lost races b4 we realized the problems. we switched to silicon see through's and they never gave any problem. we had to run regular like 93 through the carb and tank to clear the methonal out after every race due to the breakdown process on gaskets that the methanol produced. just a lil info on the hoses. also- read your owners manuals about the fuel. it says somethin about 10% ethonal in there somewhere- i read it today.

So going by what was said....will a alcohol injection system do more damage than good after a period of time?

I've been using premium 92 octane 10% ethyl alcohol in my 3rd gen for 3 years now. Ethyl alcohol is not as hard on rubber as methyl. It also contains more energy. I find this fuel generates a lot less soot in the intake tract than "regular premium", which often contains tolulene, a real soot producer. Don't try the high alcohol stuff sold in the mid-west US. It's for engines specially tuned for it.

As for alcohol injection, if you use water injection anywhere there is "real winter", it is really alcohol injection. Seems to work just fine. Lots of high performance cars use it here.

When you buy ethyl alchohol for "research purposes" you can get 95% (remainder water) or 99.9% (remainder is a water "getter", added to remove the 5% water). Only the 95% type is drinkable. The "water getter" is toxic. I suspect the type used in gasoline is the 95%, as it is a lot cheaper to make.