I'm not a petroleum engineer, but I never read anything good that Ethanol does for our motorcycles. I do not believe it has any effect on cleaning the fuel system. Instead it can damage fuel systems when used. Unfortunately, its difficult to locate Ethanol free gasoline for a reasonable price. The below information might shed some light on Ethanol use.
Ethanol is hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs water vapor directly from the atmosphere. Because absorbed water dilutes the fuel value of the ethanol and may cause phase separation of ethanol-gasoline blends (which causes engine stall), containers of ethanol fuels must be kept tightly sealed. This high miscibility with water means that ethanol cannot be efficiently shipped through modern pipelines, like liquid hydrocarbons, over long distances.[26] Mechanics also have seen increased cases of damage to small engines, in particular, the carburetor, attributable to the increased water retention by ethanol in fuel.
The fraction of water that an ethanol-gasoline fuel can contain without phase separation increases with the percentage of ethanol.[28] This shows, for example, that E30 can have up to about 2% water. If there is more than about 71% ethanol, the remainder can be any proportion of water or gasoline and phase separation does not occur. The fuel mileage declines with increased water content. The increased solubility of water with higher ethanol content permits E30 and hydrated ethanol to be put in the same tank since any combination of them always results in a single phase. Somewhat less water is tolerated at lower temperatures. For E10 it is about 0.5% v/v at 70 F and decreases to about 0.23% v/v at −30 F.
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Originally Posted by wjduke
