Purchased a 67 base cougar. Has the mild cam and an edelbrock 4 barrel. Should Ibe using non-ethanol fuel?
I recommend it for every Cougar. Ethanol is the devil. It absorbs water and makes sulfuric acid that eats everything. Every rubber part hates the stuff.
You are getting sulfuric acid confused with acetic acid. Sulfuric acid is what is in your car battery, acetic acid is what is produced by bacteria when it consumes ethanol inside the car’s fuel tank.
Also note, Acetic acid is what you find in ordinary table vinegar.
The bacteria that produces the acetic acid from the ethanol can only survive in low concentrations of ethanol, hence when the ethanol has absorbed a lot of water.
If you was to top up your gas tank with fresh ethanol it will kill the bacteria and stop the formation of the acetic acid.
Worst thing to do is leave a vehicle sitting for a long time with stale ethanol/water mixed fuel in the gas tank.
As for ethanol deteriorating rubber hoses, it make them soft and mushy, but this is more common in old style hoses. Modern fuel hose can cope with the ethanol .
Peter 
You may be right but my information came from a chemical engineer at Shell. Back when I was writing tech articles I discovered that in some cases gas was turning green and I don’t mean just a little bit. I discovered that one of my own cars had green gas in it and I could document that the fuel came from Shell. I reached out to them for comment and to my surprise they responded and I got to interview the Chem E.
Apparently the sulfur in the gas in combination with the ethanol and water forms the weak H2SO4. The green color comes from the presence of brass and copper components. And indeed the brass floats are turned to lace after a while. He mentioned that the acid attacked the brass copper and tin before galvanized steel.
It’s definitely better to avoid ethanol in older cars with components not designed for it. And my lawn equipment has run trouble-free the last 5 yrs since I switched to ethanol-free fuel for those engines.
Edit: Just saw the green gas pic - yikes!
I use 90 octane ethanol free in our 69 and have for several years now. I love it and will gladly pay the extra buck or so a gallon. It is worth it to me to not have to work on and replace parts because of erosion.
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You are telling me something new that I have never heard of, very interesting.
I do know that sulfuric acid is a byproduct of burning some poor quality gasolines (meaning high sulfur content) and depends on where the oil was drilled from and how much sulfur is contained in it.
But never a problem with engine components pre-combustion.
Sulfur in the fuel does cause poor exhaust emissions and certain countries have adopted a low sulfur fuel for diesel and gasolines, such as Europe and Japan, but Australia has not, I don’t know about the USA.
For sulfuric acid be forming in the fuel, it must be obtaining oxygen from somewhere, I presume either from the ethanol or the water.
Yes very interesting.
I will take a stab in the dark and say the green colour in the fuel is the copper, same thing happens when a hot water taps drips over a period of time. (an acid forms in the water from the water molecules and dissolves the copper).
Now you may disagree with me, but I believe that ethanol fuel is the way forward for the ICE, I can only see the electric car as being limited.
To my point of view, to say we must stay with gasoline is a bit like putting out heads in the sand, just like nobody wanted to change from leaded gasoline.
Peter
I am not as confident that ethanol is our future. Producing it is very inefficient, and runs up corn prices for those that use corn for its proper purpose - as food. Having said that, I use it with no issues in my newer cars that have components designed for it.
And yeah, unleaded fuel and catalytic converters did a world of good for air quality in big cities. So change is not always a bad thing.
Hi!
Here in Canada most gas station only has 10 % ethanol even in 94 octane fuel, so I was looking for alternative, such as avgas but it is very expensive.
Then I found on YouTube a video how to remove the ethanol in the fuel.
May be some member of the forum will be interested.
Here’s the link;
Amazing
Now why didn’t I think of that???
Kind of inconvenient when dealing with 14-16 gallons of gas, though. And what does one do with the water/ethanol mix?