I'm considering a fuel system to support E85 in my '06 Z06 with Magnuson blower. Currently sitting 660/580 on 5# of boost with only ID1050's and fuel pump booster. I ran E85 on my former '03 Cobra and the power it gained + more safety margin was wild. I don't have any E85 pumps for about 20 miles but, considering just making runs on weekends with 5 gallon cans to have plenty on hand. Kind of a pain but, curious what I might gain without swapping to a smaller pulley?

Thanks - Todd

 

I run a Vortech V-3 Ti+ on a factory LS3 with a cam with the SC limited to 9.5 PSI. The differance between E85 and Shell 93 with no other changes is about 75 WHP.

 

I run e85 not only for the power but the cooling and knock resistance effect as well. I want a peace of mind, especially in the summertime, that I can be as detonation safe as possible.

I do monitor the ethanol content very closely though to ensure that it is high grade. They say anything above 55% results in marginal gains, but I like to have at least 70% in mine as that was the percentage of ethanol it was tuned with.

 

Using 105 as the octane rating for the ethanol used in E85 (Or whatever the actual percentage is.), the calculated octane for what we get at the pump is;


E85 with 93 octane mix = 103.2 octane
E85 with 89 octane mix = 102.3 octane
E85 with 87 octane mix = 102.3 octane

E51 with 93 octane mix = 99.12 octane
E51 with 89 octane mix = 97.16 octane
E51 with 87 octane mix = 96.18 octane

E85 is available at many Speedways so that is where I usually get it. The pumps there post an octane rating for gasoline but the button for E85 does not list an octane rating.

I contacted Speedway to ask what grade of gasoline they use to make E85 and was told they don't have that information. They did offer to make an inquiry and get back to me.

I googled for a state requirement for publishing the octane rating of gasoline and uriously, Ohio does not require gasoline retail outlets to actually adhere to the octane rating.

There was a bill considered last year to make adhering to correct octane rating a law but it didn't go anywhere. In fact, there is no requirement for any testing at all. There can be water contamination that goes unnoticed.

Fuel Quality

Gasoline ground tank showing water accumulation;

When a consumer goes to the gas pump to fill up, they are assuming what they are paying for is gasoline. In Ohio, that's a big assumption. Because Ohio has no regulatory program to test and ensure the quality of gasoline, Ohioans are using blind luck at the pump.

Over six billion gallons of fuel are sold per year in Ohio, which is one of the largest consumer states in the nation. Yet, Ohio is one of only three states, along with Alaska and Nebraska, without any regulatory authority to test fuel quality.

 

Heartbeat blower? Got more power left in it? cooling an issue?

 

Thanks for the info.

 

If you can afford alcohol fuels its almost always 'worth it' even if you don't get any extra power and happen to lose economy - ethanol is much safer and cleaner for any combustion gasoline compression ratio engine.

That said it can tolerate much more heat than gasoline without reacting violently so you can turn up boost/compression and make more power with ethanol than gasoline. But even without doing that its still 'worth it' as long as your goals aren't economy. If your goal was economy then its not 'worth it' at all because there is nothing economical about ethanol over gasoline generally.

 

E85 is a $1.70 a gallon cheaper than 93 where I am

 

but it burns almost twice as fast. trust me you are not saving any money by increasing ethanol content.
Ethanol is an extremely high quality racing fuel so far superior to gasoline it doesn't even compare, there is no contest.

It will cost more to run ethanol in every way. More fuel volume, more expensive pumps, lines, fittings, coating quality of parts, filters, filter maintenance, tank check valving and pressure testing devices(modern flex fuel vehicles have pressure test pumps to ensure tank is sealed to keep out water and protect emissions). Ethanol is a powerful solvent and will dissolve items in fuel systems that gasoline will not causing clogs in fuel injectors. Ethanol is a powerful water scavenger which will quickly corrode parts made of metal such as fuel hangers and fuel injector internals if it can pull water from air and sit in contact with those parts long enough. The cost of keeping out water and keeping quality fuel components is much higher than gasoline.

 

[QUOTE=Kingtal0n;1609621219]but it burns almost twice as fast. trust me you are not saving any money by increasing ethanol content.
Ethanol is an extremely high quality racing fuel so far superior to gasoline it doesn't even compare, there is no contest.

It will cost more to run ethanol in every way. More fuel volume, more expensive pumps, lines, fittings, coating quality of parts, filters, filter maintenance, tank check valving and pressure testing devices(modern flex fuel vehicles have pressure test pumps to ensure tank is sealed to keep out water and protect emissions). Ethanol is a powerful solvent and will dissolve items in fuel systems that gasoline will not causing clogs in fuel injectors. Ethanol is a powerful water scavenger which will quickly corrode parts made of metal such as fuel hangers and fuel injector internals if it can pull water from air and sit in contact with those parts long enough. The cost of keeping out water and keeping quality fuel components is much higher than gasoline


I get it...I don't care about the price...can run flex fuel if people want to save $.

 

On E10 a typical LS engine over valve injected 5 to 6L will 600 to 700rwhp with 112*F iat turbocharged and about 100hp less supercharged assuming other fluids are kept in check temp wise
On E50 the same engine is generally able to produce anywhere from 300 to 500 more hp with extra boost pressure and a higher iat

On E55-E85 the rpm, compression ratio and other factors such as injection timing and fuel temp start to accumulate risk when pushing beyond that you really have to know what you are doing but say 1000rwhp with E50 at 9.8:1 compression injecting post EVC with 125 to 135*F iat is generally 400 more hp than gasoline would be able to achieve without some kind of ice-water based intercooling and reduced compression type of stuff