Garage stench after parking car - does non-ethanol help?

[toolmanmike]

Take the dead bodies out of the trunk!

 

[71RRHI]

Check all the fuel hose. You should change them to fuel injection hose. Fuel will permeate through the old style fuel hose. Also the old style fuel hose does not last as long with the newer formulations of fuel.
Every time I noticed excessive fuel smell in my garage. I found a small weeping leak. On a hose connection.

 

[Kern Dog]

I open the back man door and block it for a bit

 

[71RRHI]

Real men don't have a back door, and they prefer to use the front door.

 

[AR67GTX]

Seems we have wandered far afield from my question of if anyone has noticed if switching to non-ethanol eliminates the worse of the really strong, sharp, pungent, acrid, stench occur ring from heat soak/carb percolation that takes an hour or three to settle down after a drive? Or there was no difference in your experience?

 

[Moms68]

I have Mopars, an old Corvette and a Cobra replica with FE build, all in a garage and of course it has a distinct old car aroma in there even with AC/heat running a good part of the year. I switched from E10 over to running 91 non-ethanol fuel from Murphy Oil a couple of years ago. Some of these cars have pretty good post-drive percolation issues and there was usually a really pungent, sharp, and sickening element to it for several hours after parking. Some of these Corvette guys really go nuts over the same thing and get a lot of grief from wives.

I’ve noticed recently that while I’m still getting that good old exhaust odor in the garage after a drive, it seems to have lost most of the really pungent stench element that I used to get. My wife still reminds me that I smell very automotive when I walk into the house but it’s more just tailpipe odor.

I’m wondering if this might be due to the switch to non-corn syrup fuel? It kind of seems to make sense because alcohol/ethanol has such a low boiling point that any ethanol portion of fuel in the carb bowl probably boils off from heat soak immediately and I’m speculating that the ethanol might be responsible for that really pungent, sickening odor?

Anyone else notice this after going to non-ethanol?

Do you have any air movement in your garage like a dehumdifier or paddle fan? Does your garage have its own attic and is it vented? I have 3 cars with vented tanks and like others have said have very little or no lingering odor. Maybe run a box fan at low speed just to keep the air moving? That may help.

 

[68BabyBlue]

Seems we have wandered far afield from my question of if anyone has noticed if switching to non-ethanol eliminates the worse of the really strong, sharp, pungent, acrid, stench occur ring from heat soak/carb percolation that takes an hour or three to settle down after a drive? Or there was no difference in your experience?

I run my GTX on ethanol free fuel locally. I always let it cool down in the driveway, with the hood up. My wife has a hyper acute sense of smell, and she doesn't complain when the car is finally inside. When I drive to Carlisle every summer for the Chrysler Nationals, I'm forced to run the car on ethanol gas until I get home, @71RRHI has seen me in the hotel parking lot, priming the car after the fuel boiled off. Don't have that problem with the good stuff.

After listening to my wife's complaints about the fuel odor when I got back from a Carlisle trip, I started managing my fueling to make sure I had a good shot of non ethanol topping off the junk gas before I got the car in the driveway. Seems to work.

 

[HawkRod]

Seems we have wandered far afield from my question of if anyone has noticed if switching to non-ethanol eliminates the worse of the really strong, sharp, pungent, acrid, stench occur ring from heat soak/carb percolation that takes an hour or three to settle down after a drive? Or there was no difference in your experience?

I run my GTX on ethanol free fuel locally. I always let it cool down in the driveway, with the hood up. My wife has a hyper acute sense of smell, and she doesn't complain when the car is finally inside. When I drive to Carlisle every summer for the Chrysler Nationals, I'm forced to run the car on ethanol gas until I get home, @71RRHI has seen me in the hotel parking lot, priming the car after the fuel boiled off. Don't have that problem with the good stuff.

After listening to my wife's complaints about the fuel odor when I got back from a Carlisle trip, I started managing my fueling to make sure I had a good shot of non ethanol topping off the junk gas before I got the car in the driveway. Seems to work.

My 70 Road Runner is fuel injected, so never any fuel smell with that. My driver Corvette is a pain in the arse. Let it sit for less than 24 hours and the fuel all percolates out of the Q-Jet. I usually run 10% ethanol fuel because non ethanol fuel is hard to find, and also very expensive for a near daily driver. My experience is the non-ethanol fuels are better, but still not great from a percolation/ evaporation perspective. I also find different cars/ carburetors act differently. Some take days to evaporate, while others like my Vette take just hours.

My understanding is that fuels used to be formulated with compounds to help avoid this problem, but those additives are not used any more since (essentially) all cars are fuel injected. I think it is something you just have to live with for carbureted cars. I am now in the planning stages to switch the Vette over to fuel injection. Starting and tuning is easier, cold weather and different altitudes are no issue, and no more fumes when I park it. My Road Runner uses a F.A.S.T. system, but I'll try a Sniper 2 for the Vette.

 

[RemCharger]

My garage has a water heater with a pilot light, I always wonder if the fuel fumes are enough to ignite. Doesn't really matter too much because it was a squeeze to get just a Miata or Karmann Ghia into it so I won't try with anything from the current fleet.

Absolutely a concern. Only problem is, we don't know what exactly the concentration level is to make the big bang.
Some years ago a small shop in town got flattened from pilot light ignition. A buddy's garage burnt down from vapor ignition. The speculation there was that the trunk light switch sparked when he opened the trunk

 

[dadsbee]

I hope it's at least 2 feet off the floor...

 

[RemCharger]

I hope it's at least 2 feet off the floor...

Yes, I forgot that part. That's code I believe

 

[Dennis H]

Stench? That’s AROMA

 

[dadsbee]

Yes, I forgot that part. That's code I believe

Not sure what code is, I think 18" or more. Why my oil furnace is up here...

 

[DeltaV]

Rainy-day reading...

http://www.volksbolts.com/faq/SAEJ30.pdf

Note: It's an older revision. The latest revision is $159. Ummm, no.

 

[OneWheelPeel]

I hope it's at least 2 feet off the floor...

Yes, I forgot that part. That's code I believe

I guess it depends where you live, every water heater I have seen in California has been right on the floor. Some houses have them in a closet where there isn't even room to elevate it.

 

[RemCharger]

I guess it depends where you live, every water heater I have seen in California has been right on the floor. Some houses have them in a closet where there isn't even room to elevate it.

Houses are on the floor , but garage should be elevated

 

[dadsbee]

I guess it depends where you live, every water heater I have seen in California has been right on the floor. Some houses have them in a closet where there isn't even room to elevate it.

In a house sure. Shop, garage, hangar must be elevated.

 

[OneWheelPeel]

Weird, all the houses on my block have them in the attached garage right on the floor. These are all cement slab homes built in the 50s tho, so could have been a different standard.

 

[68 Sport Satellite]

Weird, all the houses on my block have them in the attached garage right on the floor. These are all cement slab homes built in the 50s tho, so could have been a different standard.

my house in San Jose is 1974. The water heater is strapped to the garage wall on a raised platform. Maybe not original, but someone did it at one point.

 

[AR67GTX]

Do you have any air movement in your garage like a dehumdifier or paddle fan? Does your garage have its own attic and is it vented? I have 3 cars with vented tanks and like others have said have very little or no lingering odor. Maybe run a box fan at low speed just to keep the air moving? That may help.

It doesn’t linger - mostly gone after a few hours. Doesn’t address my question.