This is the 85% ethanol, 15% gasoline that many newer cars can use.
It's starting to be available many places here in Michigan.
Should allow a lot of compression or a lot of boost, like running a huge alcohol injection system.
Stoich is lower than gasoline, maybe about 10/1, so fuel economy would be worse and fuel system would need to be larger, and price versus energy content is higher than for gasoline. It's about $3.00 per gallon around here.

What would be needed besides a larger fuel system and possibly injectors?
Are our typical aftermarket injectors and fuel pumps compatible with this stuff?
What about the rest of the fuel system (evap canisters, tanks, O2 sensors etc)?

 

GM & Ford have already converted a handfull of cars/trucks to be E85 compatible.

Reportedly it only costs them $100.00 / vehicle. So .... should be a simple/inexpensive propostion.

E85 sells for about 2.50/ gal. in the Corn State of Iowa.

Wall Street Journal did article on it in yesterdays edition.

 

this ethanol scares me... i was told they use low octane gas (87) and add ethanol to bump the octane to 92. they also fill the tankers with gas and then add the ethanol and hope it mixes on the ride to the gas station thier going to fill. the way i see it im one nitrous pass on some bad gas away from buying a new motor...

 

FYI... E85 "Flex Fuel" GM Vehicles with a Z in the vin, not sure on the spot, states E85 compatible. I did a I/C Maggie on a 03 Yukon which was E85 and after the install/Mag. tune, you can't run E85 with that particular setup.

Food for thought.

Brian

 

Everything I've read gives octanes between 100 and 105.
For example:http://www.agriculture.state.ia.us/e85q&a.html
What made it E85 incompatible? Inadequate fuel delivery, injectors, Maggie's programming?

I'm having fantasies about a 20% power increase by just changing the fuel pump, lines, injectors, programming, and removing a restrictor plate or two.

 

I think to retrofit a vehicle is huge $$$$$. GM can do it on the assembly line cheap. Everything has to be stainless steel or alcohol compatible. You are going to lose alot of BTUs and mileage. Its a terrible solution to our oil dependency "problem".

From Wikepedia..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline

Slightly lower power output from Gasohol.

Gasoline contains about 45 megajoules per kilogram (MJ/kg) or 135MJ/US gallon.
Volumetric energy density of some fuels compared to gasoline:

Fuel type MJ/L BTU/imp gal BTU/US gal Research octane
number (RON)
Gasoline 29.0 150,000 125,000 91–98
LPG 22.16 114,660 95,475 115
Ethanol 19.59 101,360 84,400 129
Methanol 14.57 75,420 62,800 123
Gasohol (10% ethanol + 90% gasoline) 28.06 145,200 120,900 93/94
Diesel 40.9 176,000 147,000 25 (however, diesel is not used in a petrol engine so its low octane rating is not an issue)

A high octane fuel such as LPG has a lower energy content than lower octane gasoline, resulting in an overall lower power output at the regular compression ratio an engine ran at on gasoline. However, with an engine tuned to the use of LPG (ie. via higher compression ratios such as 12:1 instead of 8:1), this lower power output can be overcome. This is because higher-octane fuels allow for a higher compression ratio - this means less space in a cylinder on its combustion stroke, hence a higher cylinder temperature, less wasted hydrocarbons (therefore less pollution and wasted energy), and therefore higher power levels coupled with less pollution overall because of the greater efficiency.

The main reason for the lower energy content (per litre) of LPG in comparison to gasoline is that it has a lower density. Energy content per kilogram is higher than for gasoline (higher hydrogen to carbon ratio).

Different countries have some variation in what RON (Research Octane Number) is standard for gasoline, or petrol. In the UK, ordinary regular unleaded petrol is 91 RON (not commonly available), premium unleaded petrol is always 95 RON, and super unleaded is usually 97-98 RON. In the US, octane ratings in fuels can vary between 86-87 AKI (91-92 RON) for regular, through 89-90 (94-95) for mid-grade (European Premium), up to 90-94 (RON 95-99) for premium unleaded or E10 (Super in Europe)

 

Not exactly sure why and din't ask, just needed to remember to warn my customer about it, he didn't even know he was flex fuel compatible at the time. I will check with my Maggie techs and report back.

Brian

 

I know that 200 proof Methanol sure ROCKS those S/C ProMods

2000 plus HP/TQ from a 500 cubed motor

 

Here's Government fuel economy info for vehicles that can run on both gasoline and E85. There's a loss, but it's not that horrible.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byfuel/FFV2001.shtml

 

All you need to do is lower your CR a little bit with a nice set of used WCCH FI friendly heads (ahem. ), and then run some

 

Get with the program, Mark!
Doesn't over 1000 hp from your new engine on "pump gas" without meth injection sound just a little bit attractive?
It'd be just the thing for squirting through traffic.

 

Wow are you looking at those numbers? 30-40% in some cases!!! I didnt see any that were any good.

 

I didn't mean to say that fuel economy is good. These figures are horrible if people think they're saving money because E85 is cheaper than gas. The bottom line is they wind up paying significantly more per mile.

I'm just thinking that E85 might be good for us, because this is probably the best performance fuel that's ever been available to us at a regular gas station!

NA, you might be able to run 14:1 compression.
Boosted, you might be able to run 12+ pounds boost..........

 

I dont have the time to delv deeply into why not..but you will need a 30-40% increase in your fuel handling capacity. If you think you have an issue keeping up now..hahahah

Phil

 

There you go........since I need to change my fuel system anyway.......
Phil, I figured you'd be the guy to work out the fuel system.
Poor Phil, he's always dealing with my whacky ideas.
I wouldn't do it right now anyway. E85 is still a little scarce. Or would I?
Is my Bosch pump ready to go in?

I keep running into people at the E85 pump at the Sunoco station who purchased duel fuel vehicles years ago without knowing it. A lady filling up yesterday had a 99 Ford pickup. I had no idea they were making them that long ago.

 

From my Magnuson Rep.

 

It is very important to be clear what you are doing. There is a huge difference between E85 flex-fuel and E85. An E85 NON-flex fuel vehicle can get up to 50% *better* mileage than the same vehicle/engine combo powered by gasoline.

E85 has octane of about 105. E85 can be run with up to 19:1 compression. The higher the compression on E85 the better the fuel economy and the performance of the engine. There are many factors here. The only reason today's FFVs are getting slightly lower mileage is because they have to run a low "gasoline level" compression ratio. It is the low CR that "kills" performance in the FFV.

The items of concern (only because I have not verified them) on the C5 are the fuel pump and tank as well as the fuel lines. So long as these are compatible with E85 the damage risk is virtually gone (assuming the res is done correctly it is).

Next is the fuel consumption rate. If you are converting to a non-flex E85 engine, you can raise compression and adjust fuel input to match. For example, you could add forced induction.

In the general case for an FFV conversion you would need to either switch to larger injectors or via computer dump more fuel in when running E85.

Under load, an E85 engine is more efficient than a gasoline engine. A gasoline engine under load gets horribly less efficient than it is idling.

The other "concern" is the gunk already in your engine/tank. As we know, gasoline is friggin dirty. E85 is very clean and will actually clean out your fuel system back to front. So prior to doing a conversion you'd want to account for this. You could gradually increase the the ethanol content to gradually clean it out, or you could clean the tank and the engine. Otherwise you could wind up with an engine that sputters, stalls, and generally performs like crap until it is all cleaned out.

I run E85 in my 04 Suburban, and E10 in the Vette (until I do the conversion which will be after my LG Pro LTs and GHL catbacks hehe). In town the burb gets about 1-2 MPG less, but E85 costs are low enough to make it a wash for the most part (varies). It definitely is sluggish when running gasoline. The warranty is up in March/April and will likely be moving to forced induction at that time. This will boost fuel economy as well as power. Another advantage under this condition is that E85 burns much cooler than gas, so there will be no concerns about thermal problems even with turbos.

I've found a slight MPG improvement in MPG for E10 in the Vette. I'm switching to E20 shortly.

Regarding energy content, don't let this argument fool you. Yes there is less energy in E85. However,the energy is of higher quality, and the E85 engine gets more out of it. The "energy content" is actually a heat measurement. As is so common theory/paper don't jive with the real world. The EPA has not and does not test FFVs running E85, they get their figures my "accounting" for the energy difference; they assume a one to one relationship.

However, several factors are at play which prevent this alleged 1-to1 from being true. First, the engine conditions do not permit the engine to absorb as much heat as the E85 fuel allows, and the engine extracts *more* energy out of the E85 than the gasoline. By way of example, 35% of 70 is more than 20% of 100.

There is some discussion about E85 on the HPTuners boards as well.

 

the other thing about E85 is that 85% of the greenhouse gases released when it is burned have been extracted from the enviroment in the first place unlike oil in which all of the greenhouse gas released has been extracted from the ground and then set free into the enviroment.

the process of growing corn absorbes CO2 out of the air, so when we burn it the net effect on the enviroment (with reguard to CO2) is almost zero.

More Than Zero

 

I think it's a great fuel.

1. It will make more power, based on the combination of heating value and its lower stoichiometric AFR. This is something ignored by most people who focus solely on the heating values of the fuels, but forget that you use much more mass of E85 per lb/air. And this is before even taking advantage of its octane to increase compression ratio, timing, and/or boost safely.

2. High octane - race gas at pump gas prices!

3. lower Emissions

4. Reduced dependence from foreign oil suppliers. I don't know about you guys, but I am willing to pay more for fuel alternatives that do NOT send my dollars to other countries with "odd" agendas.

5. More jobs in North America growing the feed crops and processing/distributing the alcohol fuels.


Biggest downsides are the worsened fuel economy, and the need for a high volume and alcohol compatible fuel system compared to gasoline. We can easily deal with these.

 

I've thought about it quite a bit myself (it makes a lot of sense). The big problem is going to be getting rid of all the non-stainless parts in the fuel system and coming up with some monster pumps and injectors. Converting to low impedance injectors would be a requirement for sure. The $$$ could add up pretty quickly.

The second issue (although not that big) would be the fact that our PCM has no closed loop operation at WOT. I have a funny feeling that each fill up would result in a slightly different fuel (since all the cars running it in the first place are flex). That might be a tuning nightmare.