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Anybody running alcohol in their car as their main fuel source?

I'm going to be taking a class on distilling where I will learn how to distill alcohol and essential minerals. I'm hoping to be able to use it instead of gasoline. I did a quick search on google and learned the real reason for the prohibition and that the first automobiles were run on alcohol. I know there are people out there that run their cars on alcohol today and it's quite surprising to hear that this is not widely known.

How difficult is it to run your car on alcohol and what needs to be done to the car to allow it to run properly on alcohol?

I learned that some of the benefits of alcohol include highly prolonged engine lifespan and oil change intervals, cheaper to produce, alcohol has much more energy when burned vs gasoline, no pollution, much higher octane which is great for high compression engines and running a lot of boost safely and best of all when you use alcohol in place of gasoline you're sticking it to the man! Plus if this country ever goes to shambles alcohol can be used as a form of currency and bartering. Nobody will be able to afford fuel so alcohol will be in high demand.

I think using it as a supplement would be the most viable thing for an individual at this point. It's more caustic to the rubber fuel lines and you'll need to retune the EM. Also, I believe, like biodiesel, there might be cold start issues. You'll use more alcohol than you did gasoline and if you drive at all, making enough to run your car on exclusively is going to be a lot of work, if not a full time job just to collect enough waste and you'll need a lot of room for it all. You'll also have to build some kind of large still to make it. It's not pollution free, just cleaner per unit burned (though you burn more units, but I think it's still cleaner). There are all kinds of developments in the works to generate biofuels from algae processing plants to engineered bacteria to break down waste to genetically altered switchgrass containing more biomass. It's considered gen 1, but current E85 from this country's huge volumes of oversubsidized corn waste isn't even a sustainable model as it stands so the stations that sell it are limited. Gen 3 might be a level where we can relieve ourselves of much of our energy dependence and maybe even be able to reform at home (those with enough space), but I think cars are also going to have to gain in efficiency as well. Possible marketing issues pertaining to the styling of highly aerodynamic cars aside; the added weight, size, and inefficient shapes as a consequence of ridiculous safety standards and closed-box thinking have brought us to an effective brick wall of greatly diminishing returns in terms of efficiency. A perfect example is the Fiesta/2012 Focus. Both are listed as 40 mph cars in spite of being a size class apart. All the safety bullshit has made subcompacts too heavy for their weedy engines (often almost as heavy as the larger car), which are then overworked, and rollover protection (also marketed as "stadium" seating) dictates a high roof resulting in an unnecessarily large frontal area with a body length too short and stubby to best help flow reattachment and reduce wake drag. The Honda Insight and Civic Hybrid are a similar example that better brings the focus on the aerodynamic aspect as the drivetrains are the same. Assuming, and I have to since Honda suspiciously doesn't seem to have published the cd of the terrible new Insight (a car sold on efficiency), that the Insight is barely better aerodynamically than the Civic (which I think would be more for its frontal area than its cd, which probably isn't appreciably better than the Civic, if at all), it would explain why the ugly little bastard, even stripped down, gets barely better mileage than the larger, more traditional Civic Hybrid. Even the Volt won't be any better when running on gas. Brick wall. We have to do much better to run on alcohol. I think it's more likely a battery/capacitor/fuel cell breakthrough will happen that makes an electric fleet viable first and alcohol would be used for old cars and more specialized vehicles than take over for gasoline. Of course, that's all my fairly educated guess—if I actually knew for sure, I'd be telling Pee Wee Herman where to find his bicycle.

I'm more interested in using it for myself. I know the oil companies and people in power are not going to allow anyone to take over their business. That's basically hopeless. But I would like to stop giving my money to them while polluting less and saving money as well as getting more performance out of my car. If I cannot produce enough to run my vehicle strictly on alcohol then I would like to try alcohol injection.

I didn't read all of Steve's massive paragraph, but as he mentioned in the first couple of sentances, I don't know if you'll be able to make enough to run your car completely on it. Even if you did, there's less energy in the same volume of alcohol vs. gasoline, so you will require more of it.

As Steve mentioned, it would probably be best to start off by using it as a blending agent in gasoline. The other thing you have to factor in is the raw materials you use the make the alcohol and your time.

this was a pretty hot topic back in the 70s, yes i was there, and one thing i do remember learning, it will very difficult to start your car on alcohol only. so a secondary fuel system, gas, was recommended to start the car and then switch to alcohol. but only high end cars had fuel injection in the 70s so i don't know if that would make a difference today.

and as josh said, you will need a lot of something, corn?, to make your fuel. (the us doesn't grow enough corn to supply any where near all of our gas needs.) and you will have to get a permit from the ATF to operate your still, and usually have an ATF agent on hand when ever you open your tank, or at least until it has been ''denatured''/ poisoned.

some friends of mine started a co-op to do all of this in the 70s. and they muddled along until the wooden building the still was in burned. at that point they quickly learned they could make good money ''distilling'' / cleaning other peoples chemicals in their ''column''. (the column was donated from a local university to their cause and was able to turn 190? proof into 199.9? proof. apparently this is a really big deal.) longer story only a little shorter, they gave up making fuel and started making money by cleaning other peoples / corporations dirty chemicals.

''old hippies never die, they just shave and get jobs.''

good luck with your project.

Very interesting. I'm not going to grow crop to waste on fuel. That's ridiculous. I was hoping to use leftover food and waste maybe from businesses. I know my work uses a ton of cooking oil.

You know, I never realize how long those paragraphs are when I type in the quick reply.

Anyway, to reduce it down, using food crops is, indeed stupid, though it's what we currently do for the fuel blends. There are several large breakthroughs in different areas on the near horizon to make alcohol from waste, but none are ready yet. When and if any/some of them come to fruition, they may be viable (and might be the only option for old fashioned ICE) for the home distiller to utilize, but not likely. Cooking oil is used for biodiesel.

Some of the areas of advancing research off the top of my head:

algae engineered to produce higher yields of fuel and specific types from diesel to gasoline (presently, diesel is the main fuel that can be processed), grown in spaces that would otherwise be wasted, including deserts, inside rotating water jackets that hang from a rig not unlike a dry cleaners.

Switchgrass bred for more biomass for increased yields.

Genetically engineered bacteria that more efficiently digests various waste yard/farm clippings and turns them into ethanol.