E85 and the great debate... - Tuning Forum

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E85 and the great debate...
Monday, October 20, 2008 12:06 PM
I am here to spread the truth about E85. Argue all you want, but what is below has been proven.

A common misconception is that E85 will hurt your injectors, kill your fuel pump, and eat through your fuel lines. That is not the case. The only thing you need to do is retune the car OR increase the fuel pressure to provide about 27% more fuel at all times. People can argue all they want to defend replacing everything, but it is a waste of your time and money. The whole idea came from when they first started putting methanol in gas to increase octane when the country went to unleaded fuel. Methanol will eat away all your rubber seals and corrode your fuel lines, but ethanol will not.

Damage can result from ethanol if you do not compensate for the extra needed fuel, and damage from extream heat can hurt the internals of the engine and cause spark knock. Fuel ratios would need to be about 9 to 1, but on a regular wideband you still go by the 14.7 concept. That is because of how widebands and narrowbands read the fuel mixture... they read the oxygen content. Either way, spark knock is very deadly, any tuner knows that.

Ethanol is more powerful than gas, and a great alternative to racing fuel. With a octane rating of 105, you can run more spark advance without risking spark knock.

After about 500miles into the switch from gas to E85, you will need to change your fuel filter. Ethanol is like a natural cleaner, sort of like injector cleaner. All of the deposits in the tank will be sent to the filter.

Like I said, there is no use arguing as what I am saying is already proven. I am simply just trying to spread the word.


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Re: E85 and the great debate...
Monday, October 20, 2008 1:21 PM
Without proper citation or showing you are qualified to speak on this subject, your "facts" are meaningless and nothing more than opinions. I have a journal article sitting in front of me...

("Measurement and prediction study of the effect of ethanol blending on the performance and pollutants emission of a four-stroke spark ignition engine" Journal of Automobile Engineering; May2008, Vol. 222 Issue 5, p859-873)

...with experts in the field who would beg to disagree with you: "

Journal of Automobile Engineering wrote:Gasoline–ethanol mixtures may be prepared by
the addition of a certain percentage of ethanol to the
gasoline. Ethanol is completely miscible with water
in all proportions, while gasoline and water are
immiscible [11, 14, 15]. This may cause the blended
fuel to contain water and further result in corrosion
problems on the mechanical components, especially
on the components made of copper, brass, or
aluminium. To minimize this problem in the fuel
delivery system, the materials mentioned above
must be avoided [11, 21]. Ethanol can react with
most rubber and cause a jam in the fuel pipe.
Therefore, it is advised to use fluorocarbon rubber as
a replacement for rubber [11]. Gasoline–ethanol
mixtures, which contain up to 20 vol% ethanol, can
be safely used without causing any damage to engine
parts of the vehicles designed to operate on gasoline



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Re: E85 and the great debate...
Monday, October 20, 2008 2:11 PM
There are a FEW truths in your statement but many inaccuracies. I've been researching E85 and Ethanol heavily as I want to convert the drag car over at some point this season. Please see the other E85 post that I posted in for better information because I don't want to type it out again.

Oh and before YOU argue...my information mostly comes directly from conversations with the E85 and Ethanol Producers Groups and their top engineers



I used to race cars, now I race myself.
5K PB: 24:50
10K PB: 54:26
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Monday, October 20, 2008 5:37 PM
CheesyPackerFan wrote:I am here to spread the truth about E85. Argue all you want, but what is below has been proven.

A common misconception is that E85 will hurt your injectors, kill your fuel pump, and eat through your fuel lines. That is not the case. The only thing you need to do is retune the car OR increase the fuel pressure to provide about 27% more fuel at all times. People can argue all they want to defend replacing everything, but it is a waste of your time and money. The whole idea came from when they first started putting methanol in gas to increase octane when the country went to unleaded fuel. Methanol will eat away all your rubber seals and corrode your fuel lines, but ethanol will not.
Damage can result from ethanol if you do not compensate for the extra needed fuel, and damage from extream heat can hurt the internals of the engine and cause spark knock. Fuel ratios would need to be about 9 to 1, but on a regular wideband you still go by the 14.7 concept. That is because of how widebands and narrowbands read the fuel mixture... they read the oxygen content. Either way, spark knock is very deadly, any tuner knows that.

Ethanol is more powerful than gas, and a great alternative to racing fuel. With a octane rating of 105, you can run more spark advance without risking spark knock.

After about 500miles into the switch from gas to E85, you will need to change your fuel filter. Ethanol is like a natural cleaner, sort of like injector cleaner. All of the deposits in the tank will be sent to the filter.

Like I said, there is no use arguing as what I am saying is already proven. I am simply just trying to spread the word.


I must have read over that part on my first read through. Do you even know the energy content per volume of straight ethanol? I can assure you it is about 60% of gasoline...but you are correct regarding spark knock.




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Re: E85 and the great debate...
Monday, October 20, 2008 7:53 PM
Whalesac wrote:
CheesyPackerFan wrote:I am here to spread the truth about E85. Argue all you want, but what is below has been proven.

A common misconception is that E85 will hurt your injectors, kill your fuel pump, and eat through your fuel lines. That is not the case. The only thing you need to do is retune the car OR increase the fuel pressure to provide about 27% more fuel at all times. People can argue all they want to defend replacing everything, but it is a waste of your time and money. The whole idea came from when they first started putting methanol in gas to increase octane when the country went to unleaded fuel. Methanol will eat away all your rubber seals and corrode your fuel lines, but ethanol will not.
Damage can result from ethanol if you do not compensate for the extra needed fuel, and damage from extreme heat can hurt the internals of the engine and cause spark knock. Fuel ratios would need to be about 9 to 1, but on a regular wideband you still go by the 14.7 concept. That is because of how widebands and narrowbands read the fuel mixture... they read the oxygen content. Either way, spark knock is very deadly, any tuner knows that.

Ethanol is more powerful than gas, and a great alternative to racing fuel. With a octane rating of 105, you can run more spark advance without risking spark knock.

After about 500miles into the switch from gas to E85, you will need to change your fuel filter. Ethanol is like a natural cleaner, sort of like injector cleaner. All of the deposits in the tank will be sent to the filter.

Like I said, there is no use arguing as what I am saying is already proven. I am simply just trying to spread the word.


I must have read over that part on my first read through. Do you even know the energy content per volume of straight ethanol? I can assure you it is about 60% of gasoline...but you are correct regarding spark knock.


You are absolutely correct. The "power" output of E85 is substantially lower than gasoline. I believe he thinks that just because it's 105 octane it's more powerful. He doesn't know what octane is apparently.

That is one major reason anyone reading his post should take it with a grain of salt and research for themselves!



I used to race cars, now I race myself.
5K PB: 24:50
10K PB: 54:26
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Monday, October 20, 2008 8:32 PM


Interesting,

Of all my research, E85 from the pumps, has not damaged any of the rubber I have allowed it to be contact with. It DOES have a good deal of cleaning properties that I could tell so it shouldnt be a fuel ya use to start a 10 year old car that hasnt run in 10 years!

E85 requires, at Chemically Correct to have an AFR around 9.8 to 1, at max power is around 6.67 to 1* (obviously varies by motor)

So larger injectors are needed, pressure doesnt necessary need to change if the pump can keep standard pressure with the larger injectors.

E85 can make more power, if you can compensate for the higher octane whether it be higher compression or more boost.

My sources? Purely, myself and the peer reviewed articles I have studied for the last 3 years. Most you can find in the Pro-Quest and ABI databases.



now The L61 Powered Fiero
PURE DICE, PURE Design.Innovation.Creation.Excellence.
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 5:22 AM
none of this makes a lick of difference to me. i think the highest ethanol content i can get here in Canada is 10%, maybe 15%. most of the gas stations i prefer to fill up at only offer 91 and 94 octane with 0% ethanol. it makes tuning easier to know what you have in there.


1997 Cavalier Z24
Bomz Short Ram Intake
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KYB GR2 Struts
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15.647 @ 88.02 MPH
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 1:27 PM
I have talked to professionals, and those that convert vehicles to E85 for a living. They can assure me that there is no harm over a few years and thousands of miles. Long term effects may still exist.

Ethanol DOES have a lower energy output than gasoline, and you are correct it is around 60%. When I said that E85 is more powerful than gasoline, I ment the ability to push it further in race applications. Like said above, you have to either add spark timing or more compression to gain the advantages of higher octane.

Ethanol does have great cleaing properties.

Your the smart one up there that asked if I knew what Octane ratings was... Octane is simply a rating of iso-octane to heptane. The higher the octane, the harder it is to ignite the fuel. The whole octane numbering system allows a number higher than 100 for anything that has a higher resistance to igniting than octane. Therefore, a higher Octane rating is not allows a better fuel, but generally is in performance / race applications.

If you were to compare an engine on 87 octane regular gas versus a vehicle running E85, and assuming that the fuel ratios are stoichimetric for each vehicle (14.7 to 1 for gas, and like said above 9.8 to 1 for e85), each engine is perfectly alike, both contained in a humidity-tempature controlled enviroment then you would find that they both make the same amount of power. As long as everything is perfect and the only condition we are qeighing is the fuel, then that is the case. Obviously, these perfect conditions do not exist in real life and even hard to reproduce in a lab.

BUT since it takes more ethanol to create a stoichimetric fuel to air ratio, the effect is a less mile per gallon rating. If it were to take a car 1 gallon to move the distance of 10 miles, then on ethanol it would take 1.27 gallons to move 10 miles or only move 7.8 miles to that 1 gallon.


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www.bradsairsoft.com
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 1:59 PM
^ not entirely true. Assume a engine/vehicle is setup for E85 it has the ability to have a higher MPG average. A flex-fuel vehicle? Not so much...


On another note, I cant say this for certain but I believe E85 does not burn entirely like normal petrol, meaning I do not believe the gains at WOT rich, will yield the same results as gasoline would at WOT rich. E85 makes more power at stoichiometric than gas does as well.



now The L61 Powered Fiero
PURE DICE, PURE Design.Innovation.Creation.Excellence.
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 2:25 PM
This is all on the site www.change2e85.com

The did an indepent test at Lake Area Tech School in Watertown, SD with a Chevy Tahoe that has over 100k miles on it. They tore the motor apart and found that it actually helped keep the motor cleaner.

I plan to run my Jeep on e85 if gas heads back up aroudn 3.50 a gal and I have spoke with a few others that have used e85 with no problems.

E85 ETHANOL MYTHS

1. E85 Ethanol is corrosive

Yes ethanol is corrosive, but not very much. Gasoline is corrosive too. Ethanol is biodegradable in water. So it has a tendency to contain and attract water. It is not the corrosive properties of ethanol that can cause damage to your vehicle; it is the water which can rust a vehicle’s fuel system from the inside out. Today’s vehicles (since mid 1980s) have fuel systems which are made to withstand corrosive motor fuels and rust from water. Also today’s distilling processes are superior to way back when. We now have better techniques for drying out ethanol or reducing the water content.

On side note, gas contains water too. Ever hear of dry gas?

2. If I put E85 in my gas tank, it will eat it away.

If your car was built in the old days, it was had a lead coated, steel tank. The water in ethanol would cause the tank to rust from the inside out. The government mandated that all gas in the USA contain 10% ethanol to help reduce tail pipe emissions. In the 1980s, automakers made vehicles with fuel systems to be ethanol and rust tolerant. Gas tanks began to contain polymers and Teflon which are extremely durable.

3. If I put E85 ethanol in my non-Flex Fuel vehicle, it will ruin it.

One tank won’t hurt. Some dealers are spreading rumors and charging $300-$3000 for one tank of accidental E85 use. This use may cause misfiring and a rough ride. Your check engine light will come on. If you should accidentally or on purpose put E85 in your vehicle, drain the tank, put in regular gas and all will be well. If you use E85 without a conversion kit or non-Flex Fuel capable vehicle for an extended period, you can damage your engine.

4. Ethanol will burn up my engine.

Ethanol has a lower ignition point than gas. Ethanol has about 115 octane and E85 has 105 octane. It burns cooler and will extend engine life by preventing the burning of engine valves and prevent the build-up of olefins in fuel injectors, keeping the fuel system cleaner.

5. Ethanol will ruin gaskets, seals, rings and more.

Running 100% ethanol or alcohol in an engine can cause damage to cork products.

The rubber neoprene used in the last 20 + years is resistant to the drying effect that ethanol may have.

Today's vehicles are built to withstand the corrosive effects of water in ethanol and gasoline. Any vehicle built since 1985 will have no ethanol related issues. Older vehicles that used more steel in the fuel systems or cork gaskets may have issues from long term exposure to water.

Vehicles in Brazil have been using ethanol for 30 years and they are completely free from using any foreign oil.

6. E85 will eat my rubber fuel lines.

This is another myth from the old days. Rubber technology has significantly advanced so the concerns of a 20 year old car or newer having issues like this are extremely rare. Plus the 15% gas will help keep lines lubricated.

7. E85 will destroy my fuel pump.

E85 won’t destroy your fuel pump. If you convert a high mileage vehicle to Flex Fuel, the E85 will cause the sediment in the gas tank to dissolve and then get sucked up by the fuel pump. It is believed that this sediment may shorten the life of the pump of your higher mileage vehicle (100,000+). We have had no reports from customers with damaged fuel pumps.

Video Proof: E85 does not harm engine, fuel lines, fuel pump, injectors, etc.

We do not recommend using E85 in your vehicle without an E85 conversion kit.

8. It takes more than a gallon of energy to make a gallon of E85.

This was true at one point in time. Today’s advanced technology and distilling processes actually create considerably more units of ethanol than units of energy used. The processes continue to advance and the ratio will continue to increase.

9. E85 Ethanol is worse for the environment than gas.

There have been some people who have published reports stating that E85 is worse than gas for the environment. They have yet to show any scientific proof or case studies that support their claims. Because E85 is cleaner than conventional gasoline, it emits less hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and hydrogen. E85 reduces carbon monoxide emissions by as much as 70 percent — and less carbon monoxide helps reduce ozone formation and greenhouse gas levels. According to EPA, gasoline is the largest source of manmade carcinogens. Ethanol reduces overall toxic pollution by diluting harmful compounds found in gasoline such as benzene and other aromatics.

10. Using E85 ethanol will get 50% less mileage per tank.

There are some stories floating around about 50% reduction in mileage or twice as much ethanol is needed. Some of the automakers who introduced Flex vehicles did a terrible job with the fuel management systems that mileage did decrease as much as 50%. After some trial and error, the automakers have significantly improved their Flex systems and mileage conservation is within reasonable losses such as 5-15%. Conversion Kits like the Full Flex have been around for over 20 years. Realistic losses range from 5-15% as well.

11. Vehicles need more E85 ethanol so there is less power.

It is true that a vehicle does require more E85 than regular gas since the amount of energy per unit of ethanol is less than that of gas. Ethanol has a lower ignition temperature so the engine overall will run cooler increasing power. It also burns slower so instead of just burning out in one violent explosion forcing the piston down, it continues to burn the entire length of the piston stroke expanding gases more evenly and smoothly. So running E85 will give any engine more power over any pump gas. Also E85 is 105 octane. Gas comes in 85, 89 and 91 octane. The 105 octane of E85 will help to eliminate knocks and pings. All of these benefits will make an engine run smoother and quieter.

12. Won't E85 production deplete human and animal food supplies?

No, actually the production of ethanol from corn uses only the starch of the corn kernel, all of the valuable protein, minerals and nutrients remain. One bushel of corn produces about 2.7 gallons of ethanol AND 11.4 pounds of gluten feed (20% protein) AND 3 pounds of gluten meal (60% protein) AND 1.6 pounds of corn oil.

13. Ethanol does not benefit farmers.

The ethanol industry opens a new market for corn growers, allowing them to enjoy greater profitability. Studies have shown that corn prices in areas near ethanol plants tend to be 5 to 10 cents per bushel higher than in other areas. This additional income helps cut the costs of farm programs and add vitality to rural economies. The additional profit potential for farmers created by ethanol production allows more farmers to stay in business — helping ensure adequate food supplies in the future. Ethanol production also creates jobs, many of which are in rural communities where good jobs are hard to come by. A 2005 study by LECG found the ethanol industry powered the U.S. economy by creating more than 147,000 jobs, boosting U.S. household income by $4.4 billion and reducing the U.S. trade deficit by $5.1 billion by eliminating the need to import 143.3 million barrels of oil. Those kinds of numbers help farmers and all Americans.

14. Ethanol production wastes corn that could be used to feed a hungry world.

Corn used for ethanol production is field corn typically used to feed livestock. Wet mill ethanol production facilities, also known as corn refineries, also produce starch, corn sweeteners, and corn oil — all products that are used as food ingredients for human consumption. Ethanol production also results in the production of distiller’s grains and gluten feed — both of which are fed to livestock, helping produce high-quality meat products for distribution domestically and abroad. There is no shortage of corn. In 2004, U.S. farmers produced a record 11.8 billion bushel corn harvest — and some 1.3 billion bushels (about 11 percent) were used in ethanol production. Additionally, the 2005 crop was among the largest on record. 2007 will yield the largest corn crop since the 1940s. In other words, there is still room to significantly grow the ethanol market without limiting the availability of corn. Steadily increasing corn yields and the improved ability of other nations to grow corn also make it clear that ethanol production can continue to grow without affecting the food supply.

null


Thanx Charles
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 2:51 PM
^^ Rule of thumb is to never use a site who has self interest in mind as support for a claim. Any educated person knows this. Furthermore, never trust a sight in itself that claims there are no seals, fuel lines, fuel tanks or fuel pumps that need to be changed to support an alternate fuel and then turns around and wants to charge you $370 to convert without telling you exactly what they are selling. There is nothing more they can add physically, except injectors, an afpr and/or a piggyback.

Hell, maybe I should start selling a kit to convert your otto cycle engines to a diesel for $250. I will even claim you will get better mileage than with your standard spark fire engines because it is diesel fuel (although in reality not true). Any takers?




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Re: E85 and the great debate...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 4:46 PM
um dude check out some of the videos.....Lake Area Tech is a South Dakota school they did an INDEPENDENT TEST. Try this for me buy a gallon of or 2 of e85 go to NAPA or local auto parts store. Buy fuel line and then put the line into a bottle of e85 seal the top and leave it. Wait til it starts to breakdown or whatever your worried about and then come back and post. Until then I am going to believe what a State School has to say about this said product and e85.


Thanx Charles
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 5:28 PM
I just read through the installation instructions on their website. It is a piggyback that interfaces only with the injectors. Installation Instructions

If you read every step carefully and then read this statement on their home page:
Quote:

Your vehicle will have the ability to run on straight gas, straight ethanol, or any combination of the two. The most popular combinations are E85 (85% ethanol and 15% gasoline) or your everyday gas (10% ethanol and 90% gasoline). Please remember that the FFI Platinum will automatically sense the gas to ethanol ratio and make all of the adjustments necessary for a seamless FlexFuel experience.


You should immediately understand what a load of bull@!#$ is spewing from their mouths and there is no reason to believe anything they tell you (regardless of it's validity). They are no better than the turbonator guys.


Also, don't always rely intrinsicly on what a school says (assuming they did do this test, considering I can't find any documented work assuring it). Most of their funding comes from grants from outside corporations...not tuition. It's just the nature of the beast.




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Re: E85 and the great debate...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 5:54 PM


here This Video and Study

over 100,000+ miles on a Chevy Tahoe I advise you to watch the whole video. They tore the whole motor apart and it looks better then any miles

This is the person you see in the video just read his credidentals I think he might know a little more about motors and vehicles in general compared to you or me.

Ron Skatvold
automotive technology
Ron is the Automotive Technology Department Supervisor, Engine Performance instructor and the coordinator for the Toyota Technical Education Network (T-TEN) program at LATI. He has been an employee at LATI in the automotive department since 1981 having taught various automotive subjects during this time. Ron graduated from the University of South Dakota at Springfield, earning an Associate of Applied Science degree in Automotive Technology. Currently he is working toward his bachelor degree. Ron holds an ASE certification as a Master Technician for Automotive and Medium/Heavy Duty Truck Technology as well as the Advanced Engine Performance Specialist.



Thanx Charles
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 6:04 PM
o you took away the edit button haha no fair haha

What I ment to say is that well everything that goes around the internet about how bad e85 is and how it will eat through anything. This video goes to show that e85 does the exact oppisite it helps keep things clean and doesnt eat away at the rubber.

I'm not sure how it exactly works but your cars computer already has the abillity to sense differnt fuels as it can change your A/F if your running reg old 87 octane or premium 93 octane.

But like I said I will be ordering a kit from that web site if gas heads back up. e85 was at most 2.60 a gal this summer in my area compared to the 3.75 it was for just reg 87 and almost $4 for premium


Thanx Charles
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 7:12 PM

Ive done the research myself, Ethanol does NOT eat away at the rubber.

I will be converting my hybrid over to STRAIGHT E85, I will not have the ability to switch between it and gasoline. This is my 3rd year of studying and my first trail of actually doing the conversion, im excited lol.



now The L61 Powered Fiero
PURE DICE, PURE Design.Innovation.Creation.Excellence.
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 8:25 PM
I just want to put this out there first and foremost. I have not once said that ethanol will eat through your hoses or through anything else. I have however provided support from expert engineers who claim to the contrary. All I am trying to do is show that there are correct ways to provide evidence for a given argument and not simply come in with a bold claim with no physical proof for support. I will respect peoples opposing arguments if they are provided with proper and sufficient support just as you did Charles. With that said...

Charles (the haha one) wrote:o you took away the edit button haha no fair haha

What I ment to say is that well everything that goes around the internet about how bad e85 is and how it will eat through anything. This video goes to show that e85 does the exact oppisite it helps keep things clean and doesnt eat away at the rubber.

I'm not sure how it exactly works but your cars computer already has the abillity to sense differnt fuels as it can change your A/F if your running reg old 87 octane or premium 93 octane.
But like I said I will be ordering a kit from that web site if gas heads back up. e85 was at most 2.60 a gal this summer in my area compared to the 3.75 it was for just reg 87 and almost $4 for premium

No it doesn't. A/F has nothing to do with octane either. 14.7 at 87 is 14.7 at 94. An EGT on the other hand could tell you how close to a complete burn of the fuel you are getting which could allow an algorithm to determine the octane, but that's another topic of discussion.

What your ECM, ECU, PCM, etc. will do however, is increase your spark advance in the high octane tables until it reads knock, assuming your vehicle's computer has high octane tables. All this piggyback device can possibly do is read the injector pulse signal from your stock PCM and alter the pulse widths so that the injectors stay open longer while spraying. The problem is, E85 requires more fuel under PE than your stock fuel injectors could possibly handle and they will clip. So, the very reason you decided to run your car on corn is null. Also, this piggyback device does not interface with the computer, only the output for the injectors. So even if there was a magical "fuel-type detector" in non-flex fuel vehicles that could output a signal to tell another device that there is an alternate fuel in the tank, this device would never see that signal.

This is why their device is complete and utter crap.




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Re: E85 and the great debate...
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 2:20 PM
haha see like I said I dont know exactly how it works. Its true it may not be the best for an engine but its a step in the right direction. I emailed Ron just to ask a few questions and I will see what he says when he gets back to me.


Thanx Charles
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Thursday, October 23, 2008 7:50 AM
Charles (the haha one) wrote:haha see like I said I dont know exactly how it works. Its true it may not be the best for an engine but its a step in the right direction. I emailed Ron just to ask a few questions and I will see what he says when he gets back to me.


How exactly is it a step in the right direction? A new "wonder fuel" that requires more volume to accomplish the same things that normal fuel does. It burns cleaner, but you burn more of it. How far ahead are you really? It costs the same/volume, but you get less mileage out of that same volume, so it costs you more to use. Have you ever looked into what is involved in producing ethanol fuel? The amount of fuel burned and emissions created in that process pretty well wipes out any benefit to the environment that may have existed. You may be able to run increased timing, but we've had C16 race fuel for years already, so this is nothing new.

Do more research before forming your conclusions. Do you really believe WMD was the reason for the war in Iraq? The parties who fund the research can have the results read however they would like.


15.3 @ 89.97mph - '01 SFGT
'98 Acura 1.6EL Sport 5M Y7/Y8 mini me
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Thursday, October 23, 2008 9:48 AM
I succeeded in creating a topic of great interest...

I am going to use it in addition to my turbo. If the ethanol eats at parts then ill replace the engine since I will probally have to do it because of overboost anyway. lol.

I have used it for a while now.. go look at the new flex fuel vehicles. They do offer differnt fuel lines and even a differnt type of fuel filter. I am not sure if they have some sort of special function of the filter. If you look at the computer on HPTuners of a flex-fuel vehicle in a 2200 S10, it is exactly the same as my non-flex fuel 1998 2200 in my cavalier. My cavalier even has spark timing adjsutments for alcohol use, even though they have no effect.


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Re: E85 and the great debate...
Thursday, October 23, 2008 8:31 PM
I'll stick with 110 leaded.

(No, O2's are not an issue for me.)

Chris




'02 Z-24 Supercharged
13.7 @102.45 MPH Third Place, 2007 GMSC Bash SOLD AS OF 01MAR08


Re: E85 and the great debate...
Thursday, October 23, 2008 11:18 PM
Ian Brydon wrote:
Charles (the haha one) wrote:haha see like I said I dont know exactly how it works. Its true it may not be the best for an engine but its a step in the right direction. I emailed Ron just to ask a few questions and I will see what he says when he gets back to me.


How exactly is it a step in the right direction? A new "wonder fuel" that requires more volume to accomplish the same things that normal fuel does. It burns cleaner, but you burn more of it. How far ahead are you really? It costs the same/volume, but you get less mileage out of that same volume, so it costs you more to use. Have you ever looked into what is involved in producing ethanol fuel? The amount of fuel burned and emissions created in that process pretty well wipes out any benefit to the environment that may have existed. You may be able to run increased timing, but we've had C16 race fuel for years already, so this is nothing new.

Do more research before forming your conclusions. Do you really believe WMD was the reason for the war in Iraq? The parties who fund the research can have the results read however they would like.



You gain benefits from a engine MADE for that fuel. You see little benefits from running a high octane fuel in a vehicle setup for 87; same will go with any 'flex-fuel' vehicle. A engine that was built specifically with be more economical than a flex-fuel running E85.

Manufacturing Ethanol is in its infancy stage, sure we have been producing ethanol for a long time but on a scale like this, no. There is alot more refining to the process of making ethanol to make it clean and efficient.





now The L61 Powered Fiero
PURE DICE, PURE Design.Innovation.Creation.Excellence.
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Friday, October 24, 2008 1:54 PM
There's too much misinformation in this thread to even dissect it all! There are a few people here that need to do some real research and not just believe what 1 or 2 websites say. You'd be surprised at all the BS on a lot of sites these days, especially the ones claiming to be experts on the subject.



I used to race cars, now I race myself.
5K PB: 24:50
10K PB: 54:26
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Friday, October 24, 2008 2:45 PM
There are 5 plants making Ethanol within a 20 mile radius from my house so to me it makes sense to support the local econ.

There is a guy in town with a blown v8 running e85 and he says it really helps make power for him. He did have it tuned to run on e85 but other then that has not changed anything and has no problems at all. Truck is putting down 500HP so with boost e85 is deffiently something that you would want to use but be tuned for.


Thanx Charles
Re: E85 and the great debate...
Friday, October 24, 2008 3:02 PM
Taetsch Z-24 wrote:I'll stick with 110 leaded.

(No, O2's are not an issue for me.)

Chris


no wonder ur car hit a 13.7.....



failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
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