E85 question

[racer_99]

Was wondering if an alcohol carb will work with E 85? Anyone that has an E 85 carb let me know some specs and anyone else that has any knowledge about this let me know. I can't find anyone to change my demons over so maybe have to go different route.

[KUL FIR CHICK N]

I have a friend who runs e85 on his SBC 427 vette. He converted his holley himself. The only thing he changed was to enlarge the idle circuit slightly and also the power valve circuit I think. He didn't even change the main jets. I think he must have already been way rich when he had it tuned for gasoline. You need about 30% more fuel. He seemed to think that e85 was very forgiving. His is a 12:1 motor, and he drove up the timing until it knocked. He said when it did finally knock (with a ton of timing), it didn't sound near as violent as with gas. The motor also ran about 20 deg. cooler.

I'll be setting up my turbo motor for it. We have a couple of pumps down here. One is on the way to work.

Also, I have experimented with it in my '97 Suburban. The suburban always had spark knock on regular gas. I added about 30% e85 and it ran like a top. No spark knock at all. I calculated that at wot, where the oxygen sensor is not used, it was probably about 10% lean. At cruise, it can adjust the mixture to compensate based on o2 sensor feedback.

As for the alcohol carb, I think it would be better to start with a gas carb. The alcohol carb will be set up for twice the flow, and you only need 30-40% more. It may be hard to lean it out enough (idle and power valve).

Hope this helps, Ryan

[MonzaRacer]

Actually that 97 Sub does stay closed loop unless you modified the chip tune/eprom flash. BUT as for running 30 percent considering that MTBE is gone ethanol has replaced it nation wide so you are actually running another 10 percent ethanol.
I would probably try to keep my mixing down to an extra 10 percent as you can really mess with the injectors if they are not ethanol compatible.
I have been messing around with a bolt on FlexFI set up and it going good so far, but running mixes of too much E85 can and will trash plugs and converters so be VERY careful.
I have one fella who swapped all the parts from his wrecked flex fuel Tahoe to his Camaro and is still working out the kinks and the computer/engine/fuel system is all Tahoe. But he ate 3 sets of cats since converting.
Runs great but,,,, cats are expensive too.

[MonzaRacer]

oh and the carb needs to be tuned for E85 and sawp out your plugs for colder ones.
Trick Fuel is supposed to be dropping an E85 "holley " copy this spring.

[68Formula]

At WOT the a 97 Sub should be open loop. They never ran a wide-band sensor that I'm aware of.

And not only are catalysts and (stock heat range) plugs a potential problem, but any wet parts of the fuel system with copper content (for instance some fuel pump modules) can degrade quickly.

[CSI:QUINCY]

I have been messing around with e85 for more than a year now.

we tryed it in our 1970 nova s/st car. we have also ran methonal.

we lost a bit of power when using e85 and seems to heat more like gas but still cooler burning.

no you can't use a gas or methonal carb. the specific gravity of e85 is in the middle. meaning everything is diffrent. we are using a carb built out of st. louis called 007 carbs. they work very well.

first week out we took our nova to mega bucks in st. louis we top 16 all three days. our engine is a 355 with dart heads and 13.7 to 1 compresion. we had no problems at all. We are now building a 235 dragster with same combo and looking for some sposers. contact me I can get you a very nice e85 carb from 007. All we need to know is what size and info about your engine.

best thing about e85 you can buy it at the gas station. and racing fuel is going for more that $5.00 per gallon.e85 around here is 1..85 to 2.25 per gallon and octane is 106 to 110 depending on summer or winter blend. winter blend is less the add more gas to make e85 winter starting easyer.

[burnscityboy]

when you get the carb figured out you will need to make sure you can feed it enough fuel, around 240 to 280 gpm , your fuel usage will go up with e85, if you are getting 15 mpg you could drop back to 10 to 12 mpg , but its 105 octane and you can run more compression.
I talked with quickfuels on a system for a 70 nova , it will be costly new tank new line new fuel pump and filters and new carb, was going to do same use a alky carb but to simplify tunning will most likely go with a e85 carb

[Tech @ BG]

From the testing we've done it's easier to convert a gas carburetor over to increase the fuel flow, then to be able to decrease the fuel flow enough in a methanol carburetor and still make it work.

We’ve looked at offering E-85 calibrations, but it still is not readily available to the majority of the country.

[Tech @ BG]

when you get the carb figured out you will need to make sure you can feed it enough fuel, around 240 to 280 gpm , your fuel usage will go up with e85, if you are getting 15 mpg you could drop back to 10 to 12 mpg , but its 105 octane and you can run more compression.

Not sure where you're getting your fuel flow numbers from, and if you're looking at for the fuel pump or carburetor but based on your numbers you'd be looking at enough fuel for somewhere over 100,000 HP.

Mathematically it takes a 1/2-pound of fuel to make one HP for one hour on Gasoline. That would be 1 pound of fuel to make 1 HP for an hour on Methanol. And about 3/4 of a pound of fuel to make 1 HP for one hour on E-85.

240 GPM would equal 14,400 Gallons Per Hour.

A gallon of fuel weighs about 6.6 lbs. So 14,400 Gallons would be 95,040 lbs of fuel.

95,040 lbs of fuel would be able to support 126,720 HP on E-85.

Now you've got to take G-force into the equation, as well as parasitic loss, and the opening and closing of regulators and N&S assemblies. But a 600 HP E-85 engine would want on average a fuel pump capable of flow about 240 to 250 Gallons Per Hour.

Most likely you meant GPH, not GPM.

[MonzaRacer]

After seeing some real world E85 carbed engines it really depends on your engines civility. The moreradical the engine the closer you get to using a Methanol carb, but the milder your setu pthe better off you will be with upping the fuel flow of a gas carb.
In milder setups you will use in the 25 to 35 percent more fuel (avg 30%) the wilder your cam the more easily the Methanol carb becomes to decrease the fuel flow of.
The big trick is getting colder plugs into the engine. Most people thing alcohol is cooler burning(which it is in some cases ) butthe cooling effect of any alcohol is from the extra fuel being introduced into the engine, notthe burning characteristics.
The big trick on E85 is the fact that your loss of economy can be offset to some degree with an increase of compression.
I saw a fairly mild engined car this week running on E85 but he has a set of AFR aluminum heads and was running 11.5 to one and a TKO600.
He reported that his 355 made another 68 hp over its old low compression set up(he simply swapped out open chamber heads for closed chamber ones) and only lost about 1.5 mpg after getting his tune up right and found that while it does run worse on gas he drove over 800 miles with no problems on gass and only swapped in a hotter set of plugs to keep it from fouling them as easy.
We have now started working on a FlexFI setup and he is going to go with a custom fabbed intake by a friend of his and I hope to even have the GM V8 DIS ready to take the place of his distributor soon.
Kelly found out where I worked and brought his car down (as we went to tech school together 20 yrs ago) for me to see and talk over FlexFI.
Soon I hope to have my FlexFI 283 going soon and down in my Monza.
Lee

[71dusterdan]

hey monza or anybody else, to convert a ford truck with a 351 an eecIV computer and the factory injection, can i just have the computer reflashed and put in bigger injectors? thanks Dan

[Tech @ BG]

You can check out the E-85 forum. There is a good amount of knowledge there.

http://e85forum.com

[MonzaRacer]

hey monza or anybody else, to convert a ford truck with a 351 an eecIV computer and the factory injection, can i just have the computer reflashed and put in bigger injectors? thanks Dan

No.
It takes some upgrades, a flexfuel sensor and the proper ecm to run it and new injectors rated for E85.
And if I remember correctly they used EEC-V on FFV.
Stay tuned the FlexFI is getting reved up but sensor sources are being hard to lock in.
Ford tried to do it with software only and it failed for the most part even with 17 revisions.
The

[MonzaRacer]

hey monza or anybody else, to convert a ford truck with a 351 an eecIV computer and the factory injection, can i just have the computer reflashed and put in bigger injectors? thanks Dan

No.
It takes some upgrades, a flexfuel sensor and the proper ecm to run it and new injectors rated for E85.
And if I remember correctly they used EEC-V on FFV.
Stay tuned the FlexFI is getting reved up but sensor sources are being hard to lock in.
Ford tried to do it with software only and it failed for the most part even with 17 revisions.
The big problem is having resilient enough injectors to handle both fuels (trust me it doesnt work well trying to limp home on gas in an E85 car, friend has done it with a carb and its not easy but doable.
Anyway soon there will be a universal unit for aftermarket installation.
Lee Abel
AFTERMARKET PERFORMANCE