E-85

[Twin-Boost]

any experienced E-85 users out there?? been thinking on trying
it becauce of its high octane rating here in Norway its 105 octane.

[Twin-Boost]

Any experience with E-85 on turbocharged injected engines
out there?? been thinking on trying it because of
the high octane rating here in Norway it is 105

[Twin-Boost]

Hello, any experience on using E-85 on turbocharged injected
engines out there??

[bochnak]

Hopefully someday...

http://e85forum.com/index.php

http://e85vehicles.com/e85/index.php

http://www.turbomustangs.com/

[matty b]

RUN IT!!! It probably is very cost effective of on your side of the pond even with the fact that you use close to twice as much. I dunno how much is it? What I do know is that you tune it just like any other fuel and if you are tuning via wideband it can even be calibrated to read stioch=14.7 or just read lamda with stoich being 1. Beyond that it runs cooler and like you already know has a high octane rating so you can make mucho power on pump gas. I cant wait till its available around my area but ironically its relatively scarce in California which is full of tree hugging hippies that get wet over anything renewable I like it cause its cheap, home grown and has high octane content. I wait for the day that the middle east become as relevant as the sahara desert because we arent sending cash to those countries and regimes that want us dead. Also I have no problem with Farmer Joe being a multi millionaire fuel baron, all the Farmer Joes of the world deserve to get the pay they deserve for the hours of gruelling work they put in and not have to worry about paying the bills or sustaining of goverment subsedies. Yikes sorry for the patriotic rant but I think that ethanol is going to change the world along with bio diesel for the better and hopefully it will help my country get back to the finacial status it was when chevy was making the cars I love so much. AS far as tuning it though you can run more timing, more compression, more boost.. all the benefits of high test fuel!!

[68Formula]

I think he wants to know things things that need to be changed for E85 like what a/f ratio to run, spark plug heat range, ignition timing changes, compatibility with components and the like.

[matty b]

oh well I touched on the air fuel which is the most important. Parts arent really affected that much cause of the 15% gasoline in the mix so fuel system components arent at risk like straight methanol but I run teflon lined hose and stainless regardless as a preference. You can run more timing, how much more is obviously engine dependant so thats nothing to really talk about but NORMALLY 3-4 deg advance over a 91 octane timing map is very safe. With a boosted engine and the cooler fuel Id say that a stock heat range plug would more than likely balance out.Its not as huge a step with engines as full methanol or ethanol is and with fuel injection its really easy. Remeber though that you need to size your injectors, pumps and line size accordingly though to account for the increased amount of fuel needed since stoich is somewhere around 9.5:1 IIRC.

[68Formula]

Isn't stoich more like 9.7 air/fuel for E85? Or are you saying when you read a normal a/f gage it's calibrated for gas only and it's not really telling you true a/f but referencing compared to stoich. Therefore 14.7 is still "stoich" for E85 based on what the the gage tells you even when in reality you are at 9.7?

[matty b]

yes thats the case. since the gauge is only reading oxygen content in the exhaust and not actual mixture ratio, if you leave the wideband set for stoich=14.7 and you burn a stoich e85 mix which happens to be right around 9.7 it will still read as stoich on the gauge because of the leftover oxygen content. Thats why I said or you can just read it as lambda which could careless what your burning as it just wants to see X amount of unburned oxygen for a given volume. Its a little confusing but if you throw out the notion that it needs to read the actual AF it becomes easier to grasp. So more or less you just dont touch the gauge and tune the mix to gasoline numbers ON THE GAUGE when in reality it is using a way different ratio of fuel. I think Innovate has an explanation of this on their website.

[Twin-Boost]

here in Norway the fuel prices are out of hell one gallon of pump
gas is 8$ and a gallon of 105 race fuel is 25$ can you belive
that? a gallon of e-85 is 6$ so that is the cheapest fuel you
can buy here now.
I have sold my Hogan inntake and ordered a new billet inntake
from NelsonRacing with dual injectors .
The engine made 800 rear wheel hp at 12 psi of boost and with 20
degrees of timing,my goal is 1000 rwh and stay under 15 psi of boost i think i can do that with e-85 and more timing what do you
think.

[MonzaRacer]

Ok some things that do need said you do need to replace the rubber lines in older cars as some ofthe older rubber will degrade faster. since aboutthe same time as Katrina the US has mandated the phase out of MTBE(an oxegenate)and replacement the most suitable is Ethanol.
E85 is sold because you cannot sell to the public E100as it is an easy way for alcoholics to get alcohol poisoning(yes drinking it).
Used to be you could by pure Ethanol as a coolant for your car but then had to be "denatured" with gasoline so idiots wont drink it(some still try to).
As for set up you do need to dropp a couple of spark plug heat ranges and the stociometric reading IS 9.6 to 1.
Regardless it only take 9.6 parts of air to burn efficienty 1 part E85.
If you have fuel injection yes you still need to use different readings to tune.
Here in Indiana I have several friends who run custom carbs and just change plugs to get back to home or an E85 pump.
The car runs fat but still runs ok.
One of the guys just keeps 2 sets of plugs and the gas carb in the trunk.
The running price for E85 here is in the $2.50 to $2.75 range and gas is around $3.00 for 87.
Yes it has 105 octane but dont try to use all f the octane(ie 12.5 to 1) might be a little hard to limp home.
The neat thing you can even use it in older engine as the steam generated in burning acts like ball bearings or lead in the days of old.
I have built several engine as and if premium unleaded is available you can run up to around 11.75 compression with aluminum heads and around 10 on iron with little issue.
I have been working on a FlexFI setup and so far the prototype is running good so far but I have been working on a cheaper out let than junkyards or expensive stock (and restrictive) fuel sensors.
I have been in contact with 2 manufacturers and one in europe can provide better design that can handle bigger fittings and look much cleaner than the stock GM/Ford offernings(and since factory ones are like almost $500).
also finding compatible injectors is kind of fun as we have had issues with several supposedly compatible units fail and upon inspection they were not proper ones. ford Performance parts does sell a 30 lb hr injector but that wont help all of us.
trick fuel is building a Ethanol carb as is Edelbrock. Nor sure if Holley is yet.
and you definatel dont want BG carbs, been getting lots of bad ones that take time to clean all the crap out of from the machining process. And when you have 12 to 24 hours in an ultrasonic cleaner to clean them and it may or may not fix it,,well not worth the trouble.
I like HP series holleys than mod those.
Other than not running low tension rings and its better use zero gap rings there isnt much else that you need to do.
As for running cooler than is a rather false issue as we were informed all that because the old methanol engines were running a continuous stream high pressure system and because it wasset to run alot of fuel for only several seconds it caused a lot of heat ot be drawn away from the engine.
We havent seen much issue except one guy is trying to drive for one full year and he has had to add a block heater and added a fuel wrap (basicly copper line around the rad hose )with the block heater in it. He only has had to ether it once and that was when it was very very cold.
and as for timing dont just jump in with more Tune your engien as it sees fit . dont fall into vagarities like it will do this or that.
figure in a heavy vehicle your going to see in the 20 to 25 percent increase in fuel consumption. But my one prototype is on a 355 in a 68 Camaro and it only lost 2 mpg but then he uses a 6 speed with 2 ods and drives a lot of highway driving.
Asfor more boost watch your plugs it can still detonate or preignite.
If you treat it like 100 octane unleaded your on the right track.
A judicious tuning strategy is very prudent as you can and will trash plugs and if they drop parts do engine harm(yep been there had a customer do it by racing with hot plugs and we ended up having the heads welded where parts punched holes in them).
but E85 is viable and ithe infrastructure is progressing.
also another ethanol website is www.ethanol.org.