| Re: C-12 shelf life
Well if kept cool in a full to the top sealed steel container without any extra air in the steel container, it is good for at least 6 months or more. But as soon as it is opened the first time, the shelf life drops quickley. As the container is drained more and more in small volumes, like your gas tank from a 55 gallon container in your trailer, more and more air is trapped inside the barrel or can. This allows the volitable lighter solutions in the mixture of gasoline to seperate and evaporate, leaving you with less potent fuel each and everytime.
You are much smarter to buy just enough 5 gallon containers to use at one race at a time. Keep them in a shaded area, the cooler the better, but not freezing temps. You never want to store fuel in a hot trailer very long, or on a trailer in the sun like you see on most jetski trailers on hot days. At minimum, put them in a vented metal box out of the sun. On real hot days, throw some dry ice in there too.
Never put racing gas into a plastic container and set outside in the sun, not even for an hour. The light fuels will go right through the plastic container, lid on or off. If you use plastic fill jugs, keep them as cool as possible, and always replace the cap on the end of the fill hose and close the vent opening.
Racing fuels are very expensive, as are pistons and motors. Racing fuel should never see plastic containers except just to transfer the fuel from a metal barrel to the tank in your pwc. Completely sealed steel containers are the only good way to store or transport racing fuels. And do not forget, any extra air above the fuel level in the barrel is your enemy. So do not over buy your fuel to save a few bucks on a larger barrel than you can use up ASAP. You actually lose money that way, because what you end up with if you store it, is less than what you paid for in octane.
So, on a hot day, if your racing fuel is 116 octane when you first open the can or barrel, it will be less than 116 octane and dropping the longer it sits there, especially in a hot atmosphere. If it is in a steel sealed off container, and not in a plastic container, the drop off rate is greatly reduced. Neither should be exposed to heat or direct sunlight. And remember this. The higher the octane rating of the fuel when refined, the faster it will lose it's potency as soon as it gets exposed to air, and as the fuel level drops in the barrel, or as time passes, the drop off rate multiplies.
I have no idea how to compare AV to racng fuel in a plastic tank in a PWC out in the sun. I can tell you this, whatever fuel is in your PWC tank is losing it's potency as we speak, every minute of every day it loses potency. There are a number of light additives in all fuel, more in racing fuel and all are effected by heat and evaporation, and time. It could be 114 octane in the morning, and be 106 octane when you end the day.
The best thing to know about fuel is the words, Fresh, Sealed, Steel Container, Cool, No Sun or Direct Daylight, No Plastic. Use as soon as possible. And do not expect it to be good fuel next weekend.
Sitting in direct sunlight, in a plastic jug, even sealed up, it will lose about 1 octane per hour on a warm day. Slightly less in a sealed steel container inside a hot trailer out of the sun.
Last edited by Mr. Bill; 02-03-2010 at 08:01 PM.
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