I got a thought to mull over with you guys. I've been doing a fair bit of reading on e85 setups and have come to the conclusion that this setup can be rather useful without too much work. after the year 1988 most OEM cars need to be able to handle 10%+ ethanol in their fuel (Chi-town sells 10% all over). This being helpful because the inards of the fuel system has to be resistant to wear from alcohol (and water mix mostly since its not harsh on its own). With our lines, tank, pumps, and rails able to handle the juice, I would think a change over could be rather straightforward. Enter HP Tuners.. but first more BS!

From the local law documents and legal mumbo jumbo i've been reading is seems and major mod cannot degrade the efficency of the exhaust system (circa 1974 mostly). that being said I've read that a properly tuned car run on e85 (non-Flex Fuel) can retain its stock cat since it will not be producing massively access O2 if the car properly burns the stuff (lean her out boys). the only time it seems thats an issue is cold starts while the cat is less than 300 degrees. also to be noted that a well tuned non-FFV (Flex fuel vehicle) only burns about 7-9% more fuel per mile.

heres where my brain is clinking. most of us know the love of ethanol for knock resistance and the ability to be lean and not pull timing. well what im thinking is maybe an injector switch and fuel filter made for alcy and a GOOD e85 tune on HPT may give us more bang for the buck. also in areas like IL and MN where its cheaper we can even save at the pump.

keep in mind the fuel parts will be resistant to e85 but not forever immune. eventual replacement of pump, tank, rail, and lines would prolly be necessary...

so what do all you goofballs think?



Sven you totally quarterloafed your computer..

I cranked out some calculations for a guy a couple of months ago. Technical issues with E85 include (1) it's illegal to convert a car according to the feds, unless you can prove the conversion doesn't cause excess pollution and doesn't wear over time in such a way as to cause excess pollution (ok, maybe it's BS, but it's still something to think about).

2) E85 hates cold weather. Alky in general does.

3) The stoichiometric AFR of E85 is much different, and the best power AFR of E85 is even more different! You need large volumes of fuel to run Ethanol.

4) The exhaust does not get leaner. You need to add more fuel to get correct burn.

5) Alky produces formaldehyde as a byproduct. Maybe not much, but some. And it's toxic.

6) To take best advantage of alky, increase compression or up the boost. Otherwise you're not using the fuel to maximum advantage. Advanced timing alone does not necessarily generate more power.

Now I'm for Alky, and I'm not trying to bring down the idea at all. I think if you want quick and easy benefits from Alky you should simply use a separate reservoir and add it as needed. Maybe a windshield washer reservoir (window washer is methanol) and a small jet to inject fuel? If you want to do the work to swap a vehicle over, do some reading on the web. Wikipedia has a great section on Ethanol which you might find by looking for "stoichiometric ratio E85" on google.

-->Slow

Wiki E85

Most interesting part for me:

Quote:

E85 gives particularly good results in turbocharged cars due to its high octane [4]. It allows the ECU to run more favorable ignition timing and leaner fuel mixtures than are possible on normal premium gasoline. Users who have experimented with converting OBDII (i.e., On-Board Diagnostic System 2, that is for 1996 model year and later) turbocharged cars to run on E85 have had very good results. Experiments indicate that most OBDII-specification turbocharged cars can run up to approximately 39% E85 (33% ethanol) with no CEL's or other problems. (In contrast, most OBDII specification fuel-injected non-turbocharged cars and light trucks are more forgiving and can usually operate well with in excess of 50% E85 (42% ethanol) prior to having CEL's occur.) Fuel system compatibility issues have not been reported for any OBDII cars or light trucks running on high ethanol mixes of E85 and gasoline for periods of time exceeding two years. (This is likely to be the outcome justifiably expected of the normal conservative automotive engineer's predisposition not to design a fuel system merely resistant to ethanol in E10, or 10% percentages, but instead to select materials for the fuel system that are nearly impervious to ethanol.)

Fuel economy does not drop as much as might be expected in turbocharged engines based on the specific energy content of E85 compared to gasoline, in contrast to the previously-reported reduction of 23.7% reduction in a 60:40 blend of gasoline to E85 for one non-turbocharged, fuel-injected, non-FFV. Although E85 contains only 72% of the energy on a gallon for gallon basis compared to gasoline, experimenters have seen much better fuel mileage than this difference in energy content implies. Many automotive writers and columnists suggest that because of the lower energy content, you should expect an equivalent 39% increase in fuel usage. This has not been observed in practice when running gasoline and ethanol blends. Some of the newest model FFV's get only about 7% less mileage per gallon of fuel of E85 compared to their gasoline fuel mileage.

The reason for this non-intuitive difference is that the turbocharged engine seems especially well-suited for operation on E85, for it in effect has a variable compression ratio capability, which is exactly what is needed to accommodate varying ethanol and gasoline ratios that occur in practice in an FFV. At light load cruise, the turbocharged engine operates as a low compression engine. Under high load and high manifold boost pressures, such as accelerating to pass or merge onto a highway, it makes full use of the higher octane of E85. It appears that due to the better ignition timing and better engine performance on a fuel of 100 octane, the driver spends less time at high throttle openings, and can cruise in a higher gear and at lower throttle openings than is possible on 100% premium gasoline. In daily commute driving, mostly highway, 100% E85 in a turbocharged car can hit fuel mileages of over 90% of the normal gasoline fuel economy. Tests indicate approximately a 5% increase in engine performance is possible by switching to E85 fuel in high performance cars.

Helimech, yes good info on there. it started my curiosity, so I researched much further.. local laws and histories and statues and such. I have not researched any more for a few days, been busy, but i will link any more info i find in this thred.

slowolej wrote:I cranked out some calculations for a guy a couple of months ago. Technical issues with E85 include (1) it's illegal to convert a car according to the feds, unless you can prove the conversion doesn't cause excess pollution and doesn't wear over time in such a way as to cause excess pollution (ok, maybe it's BS, but it's still something to think about).

2) E85 hates cold weather. Alky in general does.

3) The stoichiometric AFR of E85 is much different, and the best power AFR of E85 is even more different! You need large volumes of fuel to run Ethanol.

4) The exhaust does not get leaner. You need to add more fuel to get correct burn.

5) Alky produces formaldehyde as a byproduct. Maybe not much, but some. And it's toxic.

6) To take best advantage of alky, increase compression or up the boost. Otherwise you're not using the fuel to maximum advantage. Advanced timing alone does not necessarily generate more power.

Now I'm for Alky, and I'm not trying to bring down the idea at all. I think if you want quick and easy benefits from Alky you should simply use a separate reservoir and add it as needed. Maybe a windshield washer reservoir (window washer is methanol) and a small jet to inject fuel? If you want to do the work to swap a vehicle over, do some reading on the web. Wikipedia has a great section on Ethanol which you might find by looking for "stoichiometric ratio E85" on google.

-->Slow

didnt know about the formaldehyde.. interesting.. are there any new cats to help "remove" this? do you know how many mol's of formaldhyde are made per stoich burn? hopefully the balanced equation produces a low ratio of it to co2 and water. got a link to the e85 burn formula?

lets say we unplug the main o2 sensor while initial tuning on e85 is started. could we use a sniffer or aftermarket wbo2 and get the o2 count to be where it would on gas? seems from the info i've read this is possible. maybe put the o2 count where it would beed to be to pass the o2 sensor and be able to run in closed loop. then hook the primary back in and run it. if all fuel tables are remapped and target afr is reconfigured, could this puppy run in closed loop on our stock pcm? could the pcm adjust the correct amount of fuel for normal opertation based on our primary o2 sensor? also do the corrections the pcm would make in closed loop even apply? would the o2 count be a good measure of stoich for e85?

as you can see i still have a bunch of reading to do before i even think of starting but is doesnt appear a flat out no..

also about the legal mumbo jumbo.. i couldnt ever sell a "kit" im sure but I dont want to. I would get the car emmisions tested and approved and from what i read it seems on a per car basis thats fine. if i can get it right maybe move on it but be sure to send everything through emissions testing on a per car basis to make sure its emissions are at worst OEM spec.

it would be very nice to run e85 as more quantity supplied and demanded hits the market. if we can bring it to say 1.75 to 2.00 then this will be even better, and may be more viable since it will pay for itself in short order.

as always slows your very informative! ty for you input. hopefully we can come up with something. at least a plan..



Sven you totally quarterloafed your computer..

form the wiki, people are just running it in there cars.. letting the stock tune handle it, it seems. these people are getting them to run with moderate amounts of e85 mixed with gas (up to 50% eth) as long as it stays in closed loop. my thinking is if we specificly tune it to run e85 then closed loop and open loop should work as expected. hmmm.. more reading for me.



Sven you totally quarterloafed your computer..

Listening.....

Wondering if this will do any good with N2o vehicles. Guessing not since pulling tmiing is something we somtimes have to do. But with ethanol being a higher octane, that should ward off the need of pulling timing. Hmmmmm


So, im listening.....


N2O + Bolt-ons = 220Hp/250Tq

Coming Soon:HpTunersPro, EagleConnectingRods, WiescoPistons, 13sec2200

Wiki isn't always right though. You can go on and type in anything you want. Not to say anyone is wrong, but it may not necessarily be true.

I think the claims that reported losses in mileage aren't as bad as expected may not be far from the truth. But I don't necessarily agree with the conclusion as to why. I think the turbo's ability to reduce pumping losses in an engine play a very large part in why mileage tends to stay higher with leaner mixes of Ethanol.

People are mixing E in various amounts and playing with the limits they can run. I don't believe it's a good idea for me to say "just do it" when anyone with any level of skill can happen to read this thread. I've run all sorts of alcohols in different concentrations over the years with different amounts of success. I've also lost fuel pumps, lines, and fuel system gaskets trying to find the limits to what I can do in various vehicles. In general the later the vehicle the more tolerant it is to Alky.

Sorry, no formula to the E85 reaction. Ethanol and / or methanol + air without gasoline can produce formaldehyde. It's a byproduct of incomplete combustion, AFAIK. I'd bet that you'd get exposed to more if you lived in a trailer house. Still, millions of vehicles over time could cause a problem, just as CO and CO2 have done.

Here's the info I calculated a while back.
http://www.4cyltuner.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=17

Ethanol would be good for many groups. It would be nice to make fuel from trash, clean up landfills, and keep the farmers growing crops.

-->Slow

i see what yer sayin. ty for your help.



Sven you totally quarterloafed your computer..

anyone know what type of boost is possible on e85 which is 110 octane fuel with say a stock compression ratio?

I'll put this hear and let it be the only thing I say about this subject which has come up in my talks with racers more than a few times....

The stoich of Alky is something ungodly like 10:1 or something. I have it written down at home. The extra fuel you would have to add just to get a full burn would kill any mileage based savings you'd ever hope to get and cost you so much more than running say 100 octane. There is a guy at Route 66 raceway running an E85 powered Mustang. Car runs 13s on it so it can be used for power....BUT he had to almost DOUBLE his carburator jets to even make it idle...let alone tune the mixture.

E85 WOULD be a great thing if it was easier to make work. It would cost too much to be practical at all. Oh and there's no way in hell you'd get it to work right on a stock ECU. Just ain't gonna happen because it's such an abnormal beast. You'd have better luck getting the PCM to love 110 LEADED fuel then you would E85.


That is all.



I used to race cars, now I race myself.
5K PB: 24:50
10K PB: 54:26

as far as fuel economy it will drop however, the power possibilties with this fuel is almost endless. the only better fuel for horsepower than ethanol is nitromethane which none of else will probally ever use. in order to use a full alky setup it would require different injectors, fuel pump and filter and of course fuel map. however gm has seen an e85 vehicle get better fuel economy on a flex fuel than on normal 87 octane pump gas it normally took and did see about 5 percent increase in power. this is posted on chevy's website. straight ethanol has been used in racing for over 30 years and now powers cars to record setting 5 second quarter mile passes.

I've tuned an e85 formula race car for my senior project and you can get some serious power out of it, more than that of gas, but not enough to make the hassle worth it in our cars. I had to open up the injector pulse over three times that of the gasoline stock ecu map, also hot starts is a very big problem when running true e85....I had to increase the pulse width by 3.0x over stock gasoline starting pulse width, just to get a consistent starting pattern. Now, this is in a high compression motor, which makes the swap to e85 worth the hastle but then you get into the hot starting issues with high compression as well.

By the time you mix the swap with our motors(lower compression) it is just not worth it, you would have to build a high compression forced induction setup to make it worth it....the end....then you also run into hot start and fuel availablity issues because by the time you build to make the fuel swap worth it you won't be able to just fill er up with 93 and hope it makes it to the next e85 station. You would need to disable boost entirely to do that.....which would be possible, but up to you.

I made an aluminum gas tank and fuel rail, then anodized them.....still not permanent, or shouldn't be but I had no corrosion or chipping in three years.

Heres some pics of the car...sorry about the size.
DynoRun
Lateral G-Force Simulator, Rollover test
Autocross Event

^^you mean cold starts were a problem, right?



fortune cookie say:
better a delay than a disaster.

no I mean HOT starts ARE a problem.....not just me or my application.......its a problem when running e85...so much so that stand-alone ECU manufacturers like PE and Motec have written special considerations for hot start e85 conditions. (just a injector pulse width multiplier)

Never had a problem cold starting at all....but I've never tried starting at anything below 35F so I'm sure this could be a problem but I wouldn't know.

Hmm, everything I've read said cold starts were a problem, never heard hot starts mentioned...weird.
What was your static compression ratio on that motor? Any idea as to the DCR?



fortune cookie say:
better a delay than a disaster.

The CR is 12:1 for that motor.

Sorry I dont know the exact dymanic compression but I do know we were using the CA cams so it has a good overlap so I'm sure the dynamic was in the range of 10.5:1 or so.
I dont remember the numbers, its been awhile.

I'm sure cold starts could be a problem as well, but like I said I could never really get cold enough to find out. But as soon as I hit over ~215F you couldn't start that motor without massive fuel adding.

cold starts are less of an issue with domestic e85 since during colder weather e85 is more like e60. currently on IL there are 3 main ethanol producers with I think 12 more planned and commited for buiding. you will see the price drop as long as it remains higher than demand. basically delta D < delta S for you econ types..

cold starts are usally the issue, and I've never heard of it being bad when hot. Also, look up part number differences on FFV's (hint they made FFV and CNG cavs) there are very few. Also keep in mind the natural resistance to knock ethanol has which means you can run it very lean without knock. for performance its great as it is 105 octane for e85. straight ethanol of course higher. the only prob is when running lean it will not be a stoich mix (9.765:1) and will throw off CEL's from o2's and emissions. lean is not always best for emissions. also e85 will have much lower egts which would be great for Exhaust mani life (but q's arise from turbo spool effect of lower egts).

this can and will be done on stock ecu with all emissions devices in place. doing so while passing emisions will retain current EPA regulations that came on the car. the older the Cav the less strict they are. "to remove or make inoperative any emmisions control device" is considerred tamperring, but no where have I seen that changing the fuel is. in fact I have even seen in IL EPA law that as long as it passes the EPA reg that came with the car you can run mud for all they care.

ill post about it when its done.



Sven you totally quarterloafed your computer..

mud huh? - screw e85 lets focus on using mud, I like your ideas there Jrobz, I can get mud cheap and you wont have to worry about dS<dD

Quote:

Hmm, everything I've read said cold starts were a problem, never heard hot starts mentioned...weird.

I believe this. Gasoline is a blend of HC compounds. One informal test I performed showed fuel boiling began at about 90 deg F and continued to a max boiling point of about 330 deg F. The HC blend is varied by season, area, altitude, and manufacturer. Blends must be mixed to produce enough burnable vapors at low temp to promote quick starting, yet they can't produce excess vapors when hot and they shouldn't contain too many light end compounds. The performance characteristics of a blend are measured in terms of evaporation using the Reid Vapor Pressure and the distillation curve. The RVP gives an indication of fuel volatility at 100 deg F, and the distillation curve will relate volatility across the entire boiling range of the fuel. Because "pump gas" is a blend of compounds, the performance characteristics of the fuel can be adjusted by varying components in the blend. With a fuel which is 85% one component, the ability to alter the distillation curve and RVP is greatly diminished. In short, Ethanol just don't act like gasoline.

Keep in mind that even current EFI vehicles can exhibit hot restart problems due to fuel issues. Early vehicles were tuned for the performance characteristics of fuels from the late '70s and early 80's. Those fuels are not the same as todays' fuel due to EPA and state requirements changing. Some of those vehicles still exhibit restart problems (old Ford trucks can be bad for this). GM still releases new calibrations designed to prevent or reduce fuel related driveability complaints.

I disagree with Hypsy about the ability of a stock ECU to work with Alky. A stock tune can be fooled in the same way it's fooled to run boost. I don't believe the final result will be good in all conditions, but if the fuel system is correctly sized and the fuel pressure regulator is changed so it does not have a 1:1 pressure ratio, I believe the car can be made to run without melting the engine. I don't believe you'll get anywhere near OEM performance or quality. With tuning, a stock ECU can provide very acceptable results with E85, up to the limits of the fuel.

Stoich AFR for Ethanol is 9.77 (yes, about 10) :1. Rich Best Power is about 7:1. That's a lot of fuel. to consume.

-->Slow

Joshua Dearman wrote:mud huh? - screw e85 lets focus on using mud, I like your ideas there Jrobz, I can get mud cheap and you wont have to worry about dS<dD

lol would be nice huh?

slowolej wrote:

Quote:

Hmm, everything I've read said cold starts were a problem, never heard hot starts mentioned...weird.

I believe this. Gasoline is a blend of HC compounds. One informal test I performed showed fuel boiling began at about 90 deg F and continued to a max boiling point of about 330 deg F. The HC blend is varied by season, area, altitude, and manufacturer. Blends must be mixed to produce enough burnable vapors at low temp to promote quick starting, yet they can't produce excess vapors when hot and they shouldn't contain too many light end compounds. The performance characteristics of a blend are measured in terms of evaporation using the Reid Vapor Pressure and the distillation curve. The RVP gives an indication of fuel volatility at 100 deg F, and the distillation curve will relate volatility across the entire boiling range of the fuel. Because "pump gas" is a blend of compounds, the performance characteristics of the fuel can be adjusted by varying components in the blend. With a fuel which is 85% one component, the ability to alter the distillation curve and RVP is greatly diminished. In short, Ethanol just don't act like gasoline.

Keep in mind that even current EFI vehicles can exhibit hot restart problems due to fuel issues. Early vehicles were tuned for the performance characteristics of fuels from the late '70s and early 80's. Those fuels are not the same as todays' fuel due to EPA and state requirements changing. Some of those vehicles still exhibit restart problems (old Ford trucks can be bad for this). GM still releases new calibrations designed to prevent or reduce fuel related driveability complaints.

I disagree with Hypsy about the ability of a stock ECU to work with Alky. A stock tune can be fooled in the same way it's fooled to run boost. I don't believe the final result will be good in all conditions, but if the fuel system is correctly sized and the fuel pressure regulator is changed so it does not have a 1:1 pressure ratio, I believe the car can be made to run without melting the engine. I don't believe you'll get anywhere near OEM performance or quality. With tuning, a stock ECU can provide very acceptable results with E85, up to the limits of the fuel.

Stoich AFR for Ethanol is 9.77 (yes, about 10) :1. Rich Best Power is about 7:1. That's a lot of fuel. to consume.

-->Slow

yeah man its what im thinkin too. i think the oem ecu is very capable since very similar ones (00+) handle FFV cars.



Sven you totally quarterloafed your computer..

Anythings possible...but it would take putting the 086 head on a 2.4 to raise compression and running some boost to take advantage of the higher octane and knock resistance to make the additional fuel required worth the conversion. not to mention time....also those FFV vehicles had fuel sniffers and other sensors to analyze the fuel composition in the tank and use these to make PW changes on the injectors, This would require a completely different set of circuits in the ECU that I don't think all of us have. Maybe 00+ have them but just not used I don't know....I know nothing about build numbers on the ECUs thru the years. I really think to do it right as an FFV, meaning you can put a tank of 93 after a tank of e85 and mix the two and the car still runs cant be done without a Mega Squirt and custom code with the proper sensors.

You might be able to do a straight e85 switch, but it won't be FFV....not on stock ECU....I can guarantee that.

Curious, how do you tune on ethanol...seeing as wideband sensors are only good to 9 or 10:1 AFRs...I would assume a tubo motor even on E85 would need lower than 9:1 for max power...



fortune cookie say:
better a delay than a disaster.

The way I did it was interpolated.....I found the pulse width for 10:1 and then 9:1 then interpolated to get to 7.5:1 - I also tuned it for a restricted class race so I could get away with that, since thru the restriction the air velocity reached choked flow and I could calc. EXACTLY how much air could get thru regaurdless of temp, baro, and humidity since I ran the psychrometric chart formulas for the fuel correction in the ECU.