Hey guys, can someone tell me the benefits of running E30 in my C7Z? I realize that I would need a custom tune to run E85, but what about E30? Sounds like it has an octane rating of around 98. Is this safe to run in a bone stock C7Z?

Thoughts. Thanks.

 

Never heard of it.
If its 98 octane and has a stoichmetric efficiency of 14 to 14.7 it may not need a tune.

If that's the case you have found the fountain of youth.

 

It is 30% ethanol. After further research, it looks to be between 95-96 octane. Minnesota seems to be a test state for it but others have been blending E85 with premium fuel to get E30, I'm just not sure if I'll need a tune to safely run it? I hate to be the Guinea pig.

 

Running that is extremely risky. The maf will have some compensation built in, but as you might have noticed someone above stated a "stoichiometric" ideal for gas is 14.7:1. Stoich for E85 is 9.765...a much higher volume of fuel is necessary to achieve normal combustion, hence why tuning is needed. E10 can be tolerated by most cars, because stoich isn't deviated much. At part throttle modes, there is some learning, but the base tune will be so far off, due to being for gasoline, you run the risk of being quite lean. It's one thing to stick this in your cobalt...use the octane to attempt to offset the lean condition, but in a high hp application, under load with a Z06...no way would I attempt it. It may tolerate it by compensating and by knock retarding the timing, etc...but then it's all counter productive.

I tuned E85 on a few platforms...I'm not as well versed with the ecm of Corvettes so I can't say how much flexibility there is personally. All I know, is that compensation will begin with the base tune, and at wide opened throttle, most ecu's quit looking at the o2's for data at all...so no correction is available. At that point, you'd be lean...without question. Lean equals damaged ring lands, melted piston, etc.

 

You will need a GM Flexfuel sensor and tune to take advantage of any blend of ethanol over 10%. The tune will also unlock the E85 tables on the ECM allowing you to run gasoline or a blended ethanol mix on the fly. Just search the forums here there is lots of detailed information on how to do this and vendors that sale plug and play FlexFuel setups. To answer your question yes your car will benefit but needs to be setup correctly.

 

Don't run more than E15 unless the vehicle is set up for Flex Fuel, which it is not.

You cannot just add the sensor as the fuel pump(s) cannot flow enough to support the car's power levels on the lower powered fuel.

Now this (below) applies to E85 but not E15. Whether it applies to E30 is anyone's guess, because we don't know:

You CANNOT just add the sensor and tune or GM would have done that. They've said the intank and the mechanical pump are both too small. Some have had success upsizing just the intank pump with a second lift pump, but then you'd imagine GM could have easily done that too.

 

Ok, thanks guys. I appreciate it

 

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...corvettes.html

You could work out some good benefit with a stock vehicle FOR SURE!
I believe I recall Fasterproms was using around 60% with a couple of MODs and he wrote most of the benefits were being realized.
Anyway, if the car was tuned at a theoretical 90% at some % you couldn't go wrong at that %, but, that's what they make AFR gauges for!

 

Oh and I forgot DA. Of course a Good Tuner would have worst case greatest DA figured in.