First, I normally run Shell regular mogas in my A-65. Two weeks ago, within 3 days of each other, two pilots who have STC's for mogas for their production planes volunteered information to me on their recent experience using Shell regular.
The first one, with a Cherokee 140, told me that he had historically checked for alcohol each time he bought gas and only used Shell. He never found any so he got lax about checking it. He had some recent problems with rough his engine sometimes running rough. He checked for alcohol and found about 8-10% alcohol. I checked mine and found the same thing. He also checked a Marathon station and found alcohol. Then a Mobil station and it checked clean. He checked no others. The second one, with an older Debonair, always only only used mogas in one tank. He took off and was climbing out on the mogas tank when his engine started running very rough. He switched tanks and retruned to the airport. He said the engine smoothed out shortly after switching back to the avgas. He didn't check his mogas for alcohol but just drained it and refilled with avgas. The three of us only used Shell and normally bout from the same station, but not always. My question: "Is it possible for the alcohol (in gasohol) to absorb enough water (or does the water absorb the alcohol?) to cause the engine to run rough?" Perhaps if one had some water trapped in the tank then filled with mogas containing alcohol (for the first time ever) the water would be absorbed. Ken Jones, kenbjo...@cinci.rr.com Sharonville, OH N5834, aka The Porkopolis Flying Pig KHAO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Langford" > Here's my question: Has anybody else had water in their fuel, and if so, > is > the symptom that the engine cuts in and out rapidly and more or less > sputters and scares the crap out of you? And it comes and goes with no > real > relation to anything else? I'm not used to water in the fuel in my cars, > so > this is a new phenomenon to me! I can't think of anything else that > would > cause this, and the real clue is the fuel mixture meter drops into the > super > lean area while it's misfiring.
