is anyone using E85 on their big forced induction build rather than 93 octane+meth? if so how is it working out and what kind of costs are involved in switching over?

 

first are yo goig to daily drive the car????
the only downfall I see from meth is that the pump could go bad and there goes ur engine..
but e85 is good if u havelot of pumps around ad don't mind spending bit more money on gas on a daily basis.

 

I think you're must be talking about 1st generation meth. equipment. Most of the current systems I've read about are installed/programed to pull timing if the pump fails. I've read many posts on this site of people losing their pumps without losing their engines.

 

depends on what type of fuel system you currently have and what hp you are looking for... it can get pretty expensive to go E85, I built my fuel system to run E85, but still haven't made the change... currently running 93+methanol injection, just not ready to make the jump yet, there aren't many stations in my area with E85 yet, even though there is one close to my house, I'm waiting to see more stations before I make the change...

 

The biggest hurdle is the reduced fuel flow vs HP capacity. Since E85 flows 30% more fuel for the same HP level, it eats up your fuel system capacity. A fuel system that handles 1000HP will only support 700hp on E85.

You can mix it 50-50 and get 1/2 the capacity back with 99 octane as the result with 850rwhp capacity on a 1000hp system. Tuning it would look for about 12:1 a/f for stoic (50-50). I think E85's stoic is 9.7. The only other thing you need is more injector. I would expect 80lb'ers to be the best option for cars already near the limits of a 60lber. You can also increase the rail pressure w/60's if youre under 700rwhp. It could expand the 60's ability close enough for a mixed application. I guess this would be like E47.5 assuming your gas is 10% ethanol now.

Other options would be a gallon or two of E85 per tank with an adjusted stoic value more like 13.5:1. Its the cheapest octane booster method while preserving fuel system capacity. Most places now sell E10 as regular gas so stoic should be 14.4 if thats what you use. Here in Colorado, 5 gallons of 91 plus 2 gallons of E85 is 95 octane. This 5:2 ratio is how you calculate the new stoic for tuning. 5:1 is about 93 or two full points in compression bumped. Using this minimal amount, you wont be outside the stoic range by much if you cant find E85 stations as you need to fuel up.

Just throwing out ideas.

Meth injection would still have a chemical intercooling benefit. It cools IATs quite a bit. While E85 has all the octane you would need, it doesnt have this major benefit so it will always leave that aspect of detonation suppression on the table.

 

Once you are dealing with multiple fuels, I think it just makes sense (avoids confusion) to start thinking in terms of lambda values rather than AFRs for specific fuels. Most gauges and wideband sensor readings are simply a linear voltage range based on lambda that is then converted to an "AFR" somewhere else (display time) and thus not show you the true AFR for whatever fuel you are burning but rather the AFR calculated under the assumption you are burning fuel XYZ. Example: Innovate's LC1 with guage -- the gauge shows an AFR however it's input from the LC1 is 0-5v corresponding to 0.5 - 1.5 lambda, all the guage does is multiply this by 14.7 to show you "Gasoline AFR". Consequently, it doesn't matter what fuel you are burning, this gauge (from this sensor's out of the box config output) will always show you 14.7 at a stochiometric burn for ANY fuel.

Not entirely accurate; even small quantities of injected E85 have excellent evaporative cooling effects. There was an MIT study in 2005 on this and this spun off a company called Ethanol Boosting Systems, the premise being that an E85 piggy back setup can be implemented on any gasoline burning motor fairly cheaply and this provides significant benefits to FI motors that otherwise run purely gasoline. Anyway the point is that E85 (due to its ethanol content) provides significantly better evaporative cooling than Gasoline, and has a cooler combustion temperature as well (which certainly helps keep EGT under control).

http://www.ethanolboost.com/EBS_summary_2-10-09.pdf

 

Actually E85 requires more like 45% more flow not 30%.


Gasoline stoich = 14.68
E85 stoich = 9.87

14.68/9.87 = 1.487

So that is almost 49% more flow to support stoich.

Although our current gasoline already contains about 5% (on average) ethanol at the pump so it's more like 45% more volume needed.

 

My friend runs it on his Turbo BMW. Here is the summary:

Advantages: High octane and good charge cooling; it will make power like race fuel.

Disadvantages:
There are ZERO E85 stations in New Jersey, and a similarly low number in a lot of states. He is limited to a small area around his town where he can drive, otherwise he'll run out of gas and not have a way to refill (this could be mitigated by having a gasoline tune).
Fuel consumption is enormous. He gets sub 200 miles from a full tank. His fuel pump is the size of a fooball.
It will absolutely, positively NOT start when it is very cold. When it is cold but not that cold it will positively NOT idle untill the engine is up to full operating temperature.

All in all I think its a great solution for people like him who have a joyride around town and don't stray too far from the pump, but for me, driving cross country, it'd be completely impractical.

 

When using HPtuners (I dont know about EFIlive), you tune using an input AFR for stoic not a lambda value so you do have to calculate it.

 

It guess it depends on the wording here. 700HP is 70% of 1000HP but 1000HP is 45% more than 700HP.

 

I rarely take my corvette out of town but we have 7 stations in town with it and lots up in Denver so we can see that availability is a big issue for some but not others.

Cost is also great here with E85 being 2.09 per gallon and 91 is 2.69 a gallon now. For economy its a wash being that you flow so much more of it, but for race fuel its insanely cheap.

 

Interesting link but E85 use as the OP asks isnt going to be injected as in a meth system.

 

Really just trying to make the point that ethanol offers very similar evaporative cooling properties to methanol.

 

supra guys continually make close to C16 power on E85.

Considering Q16 takes 15% more fuel to make the same power at C16, another 15-20% isnt an issue.

The biggest hurdles are the actual fuel system components. Lines, pumps ( walbros dont live in E85 well) aluminum corrosion, fuel line size, injectors, etc.

 

Doesnt GM use a walbro in the stock in tank pick-up? It was my understanding that all GM vehicles are flex fuel compliant and they use the same pump in flex fuel vehicles.

Does anyone know if aeromotive A1000 and bosch 044 pumps are E85 safe?

 

Bosch 044 yes. Aeromotive, I do not know.

GM cars are fine, but from what I know, they do not use a standard issue walbro 255 like what many people like to use.

I would run 2 densos if you have the option, or the boschs.

 

Aeromotive is E85 compatible for sure.

 

GM's fuel pumps are made by Delphi. To my knowledge no OEM uses Walbro pumps; they are strictly aftermarket.
GM also uses a variety of different pumps. Even within just the Corvette lineup you have different pumps on the C6, C6Z06 and C6ZR-1. Supposedly they all tolerate E85 well though. It is the rubber O-rings at the injectors that I'd be concerned about for long term longevity.
The Aeromotive 1000 IS E85 compatible, but it has two filter options; The 100 micron stainless steel pre-filter (12304) is ok, but the 10 micron post-filter with fabric media (12301) is not compatible with alcohol and will swell up. Aeromotive recommends using another 100 micron stainless steel filter in the post-filter position.
Anecdotal evidence points to the Bosch 044 being OK with E85, but again you'll want to check what filter you run.

 

I’m confused….

If I am tuning for E10 with HP Tuners using 14.4 for a Stoich value and reading AFR thru my LC-1 wideband do I understand correctly that my laptop display will show a value of 14.7 if I’m hitting my 14.4 stoich value?

Second question….what math do you use in the PE Table? 14.7/x or 14.4/x?

 

Stoich / Desired PE = Input number.

Example:
14.68 Stoich / 11.6 PE = 1.265. You would input 1.26