Anyone used this fuel long term and what kind of problems can it cause.

 

Any rubber component in your fuel system will react to it, hoses, pump, carburetor, etc. Your carburetor isnt jetted for it. I have not used it, my comments are based upon articles on the topic.

 

I have other cars with fuel injection as well.

STAY AWAY from E-85. Melts EPDM rubber, absorbs UNTOLD amounts of water....if it hasn't already.
If you have a rubber bladder fuel tank....yikes. Can sink the float in the carb, depending on construction.
Any existing varnish in the lines may get dissolved and redeposited where it hurts.

Forget it!

Besides; " no food for fuel".

Unkahal

 

I have a lifelong friend with a 76' Nova.....it has a 468 with Dart heads, intake.....big .748/.714 bracket roller in it and it runs a 4500 series E-85 Quick Fuel carb.
He plumbed it with all of that Earls non deteriorating braided line, a Viton sealed Magnafuel pump and ancient BG return regulator.......it is a 13:1 piece and he drives it on the street regularly......runs 9.90 on motor, 9.40 on a 175 Big Shot plate.
His only gripe is having to put in a 20 gallon stainless fuel cell to have anything that resembles range......as it gets like 3 MPG. Ethanol needs about 75% more liquid to create the same energy.......

Jebby

 

Its along the lines of trying to run methanol in your car. Like everyone is saying you can use it if you change the fuel pickup, the fuel hoses, the fuel lines if they aren’t all steel, fuel pump and carburetor.....the gain isn’t worth it if your just a weekend cruiser unless you want to race it, then it could be similar performance to 104 octane

 

Huum. Well i know ill be high duration cam and my favorite 4.56 rear. I guess i could make 11.1 work ok on pump gas without the drastic fuel consumption. But damn 13.1 sure would be nice to work with. Have my eye set on buying the latest auto gear M23 with an N with latest stronger case and up grades. They can slick shift or do what they call semi slick shift. Not sure what the second one is. Thanks for all the replies.

 

Sometimes the good ole days were really good, just pull up to the pump with your old trw 13. 1 slugs and pump the gas in.

 

Little Mouse. An observation/ rhetorical.

Now my C-3 (in question) is a 11:1 L-46 that requires lead. Lets throw the 'applied chemistry' bit out for a second. I have to add 'real-lead' or rebuild the 36k original heads. It HATES 91 octane with 10% ethanol. I even put a drain in the tank to get that stuff out almost immediately. The car was built for 102 octane.

So you spend XXX thousands of dollars building a fantastic engine, and for sure, you want performance and lack of detonation... I got it!

Why not just put 104 AVGAS in it and call it good? No further mods or worry is needed. AVGAS is super-dry....virtually no water in it...they check it!

There are at least two outlets for this with 10 miles of my house, one 2 miles away at the public airport. In fact, the fuel farm is easier to get to than the airport!
I view this as 'hang the cost'. Not accusing or implying ...but I get a little 'miffed' at "the money in THIS pocket, is worth more than the money in THAT pocket" 'drivers'. {Prius Owners are the poster children for this tortured thinking!} $30,000 to save $1000..ridiculous! The depreciation on those little POS's is more than that!

I also know that driving a car cross country from airport to airport is problematical... understood.

Discuss your needs/ wants!

Best of luck, this is a decades old problem.

Unkahal

 

Compression makes Power.

I used 12.25-1 in my 427 when rebuilding it. I have L88 pistons and the cast iron version of the L88 cylinder heads. I built this engine to use high compression. I used a "Closed Chamber" cylinder head to keep the detonation to a minimum and it works. "Open Chamber" cylinder heads were the next big thing for GM and the only problem was they love to detonate. They do make better emissions but the cost is they ping like crazy with far less than the 12.25-1 that I use. I would love to replace my cylinder heads with aftermarket aluminum heads but they don't make them in closed chamber configuration.

Using Sunoco 93 I have been able to enjoy this engine on the roads for over 8000 miles. I have a total of 38* of timing and still no detonation. I installed a MSD Knock sensor into my engine and it shows no activity unless the engine is very Hot.

I am a Private Pilot who kept my Cessna at a small airport where we had a gas club for a discount on the 100LL they use for most small single engine aircraft. I used to drive over in the early hours and fill my Corvette up at the 100LL pumps and thought it would "Help" my 427 with it's compression. After 1500 miles or so the engine started developing large deposits of lead byproducts on my intake valves and spark plugs. It got to be a problem that required the removal of my cylinder heads to clean the deposits off. A gentleman from Shell Oil company told me that AVGAS has several times the lead used in the 1960's for automobiles. He suggested that I stop using the 100LL and I did.

At Corvettes@Carlisle I was lucky to find some tetra-ethyl Lead to make high octane gasoline. I have three cases of the stuff but it is dangerous and the lead very toxic. I learned it also eats paint... Not a good long term option.

Next I bought a Snow Performance Water/Methanol injection system. I installed it temporarily to see what it would do. It works great and can keep my engine out of the detonation range by adding octane when under a load and water to help cool down my intake manifold and combustion chamber. This type of system is great when you have compression issues. I have mine injecting from both sides of the intake manifold to get good coverage. It doesn't use a lot of the water/methanol liquid which helps. If I am on a trip I can stop and buy a bottle of windshield washer fluid and I am back in action.

I recently purchased a Holley Sniper Stealth 4150 and it has software that can control the water/methanol injection as well. I am a big believer in high compression engines and they can last with a little work and a few tricks.

 

The other issue with E85 from the pump is that the amount of ethanol in the gas varies quite bit. Car buddy of mine runs a turbo LS drag car and they started running E85 because it was cheap but had some tuning issues. They bought tool to measure the E85 and the amount of ethanol varied widely. They changed to race gas

 

They stopped us from doing that around here fo rsome reason. We can buy 100 at sunoco or Hefners but its 10$ a gallon

 

MR. McCloskey always great to hear this cogent info. Not hi-jacking this thread.

As stated my C-3 was designed to run on leaded fuel. Without hardened valve seats, this is the bed I have to lie in.
The two stated amounts of lead in AVGAS (sorry typo of 104 Vs 100). is about 400% Attributable to to the litres/gallon ratio. So with only 91 octane and 10% ethanol available. Might I suggest a 4:1 ratio of 100LL to 91 bat-****!

Do you have further insights. Gratefully accepted!

Cordially Unkhal

Avgas 100LL
This grade is the low lead version of Avgas 100. Low lead is a relative term. There is still up to 0.56 g/litre of lead in Avgas 100LL. 1969 lead content of 0.52 g per Gallon of Gasoline.

 

Up above 10.1 you start to get less of a percentage gain from compression in what most would consider a normal cammed say hydraulic cammed engine that is doing 6000/6500 rpm. But you want a very high rpm cam in your car and say you want that same 10.1 compression or 11.1 you can go negative on trying to help the cam. Another words a lot less power then the engine could have had then a milder cammed engine that happened to be under compression for it say a 9.0 compression with the milder cam. This is the reason I would like to get greedy with a lot of compression
I'm in texas now where there is at least 93 octain. But in three years I intend to be in San Diego or Oceanside area where its 91 octain. I have had a CDL since 1974 and as much as I like high speeds even one ticket and you have to have a shady lawyer that's in with a judge to keep it off your record, been there done that. I'm going to do 4.56 gear and set the car up for to clearence both lager dia. Tires and then smaller dia. To take advantage of the 4.56 gearing.

 

the smaller in dia. Closed chamber head could well help with less area of flame travel to help from detonation ( ping ) but has a big flaw with the big L88 size valves in shrouding the valves at all the lower lift points of the valves that the valves go through twice. In 1969 there was no concern with GM about dropping compression, only power. This is why the 69 aluminum head L88 head came out with the open chamber to unshroud the valves through two cycles ( valves only stay at full lift for less time) then buy 71 and the poor gas thing it was just a matter of keeping the bigger open chambers and doing a head in iron with flat top pistons. What you need is the edlebrock aluminum head that's open chamber with 100cc size chamber. This would unshroud the big valves and dissipate heat more through the aluminum heads, better power everywhere with no worries. Ya there are better air flowing heads then the edelbrock but only all out smaller chamber race heads in other brands. Chevy never built the first of the open chamber heads with any emissions in mind only power to race with against there competition of the time period 1969.

 

I have a reasonable amount of experience with E85 fuel. The primary benefit of E85 is the higher octane- between 105 and 108. This allows for more ignition timing which creates significant power gains in high compression or supercharged applications. Fuel use is about 40% greater for E85, compared to gasoline, but the fuel is also about 40% less expensive than premium unleaded. Your fuel system must also be built for E85, which entails the use of specific components. E85 also burns much cooler than gasoline.
So why run E85? I have a 2018 Jeep Trackhawk with a 7 liter supercharged Hemi. We very recently dynoed 977 whp on E85 and a comparable 885 whp on 93 octane. I also feel like E85 is a “safer” fuel option for this application.
Conversely, my 68 Vette has a fuel system built for E85 also, with a Holley Super Sniper 4500 on a normally aspirated 632. This motor has an 11:1 compression ratio. We dynoed 720 whp on 93 octane and 755 on E85. As you can see the NA motor had significantly less power gains than the supercharged application. I actually only run 93 octane in the Vette for simplicity and may run some 104 at track events.
Sorry to ramble on, but hopefully this added some clarification to your question.

 

Now your giving me the want of greed for 14.1 compression on the street. LOL

 

More horsepower is never geed!