That's great. Thanks!

 

But if something does go wrong, it WILL blow up your warranty. That's not debatable.

 

How would the dealer know it was E85 gas?

 

They take a sample and test it.

 

The question is how do you test it?

 

 

Thank you. It's great learning something new. Is there any way we can test gasoline octane levels?

 

FYI, much of the "E85" in Arizona tests out at about E57. The only way to get real E85 is buy it in drums from specialty dealers (or maybe at some race tracks). When I did my LS7 build I did not do flex fuel because there is no E85 within 50 miles of where I live and usually not even that close to where I ran performance events.

I would never put E85 labeled fuel in a normal stock gasoline powered production car. I am OK with Flex Fuel kits from auto makers or with aftermarket systems.

 

You test it like post #16.

To take advantage of E85 not only do you need a sensor (the sensor tells the ECU that a fuel with a different stoichiometric has entered into the fueling recipe so that the ECU can choose fueling volume based on that different stoich) and make an AFR adjustment to accommodate that new fuel mix.

But in order to do that, there has to be alternate injector data available to the ECU, injectors with capacity to handle much more fuel, and the ECU needs instructions how to access new tables that don't exist now and how to use those.

To make the chemistry simple:
Gasoline has a stoichiometry of 14.7:1
Pure ethanol has a stoich of 9.003:1

If you tried to burn just ethanol and given that an NA engine is an air pump (where air volume is a physical constant), you will need much more fuel to reach stoich than you would if you were burning pure gasoline.

An engine NOT designed (or modified) to run Ethanol, or blends of it would run out of fueling capacity with pure ethanol. Injectors not capable of the increased fuel volume needed, AND (not mentioned yet) Ignition timing table not capable of using the much higher Octane in pure ethanol.

Those just throwing some E85 in their gasoline tanks, the ECU spent a lot of time trying to adjust out fuel trims that ran VERY lean until the mixture was burned off, consumed and replaced with all gasoline.Constant use of E85 in a gasoline engine is going to give you a CEL (P0171/P0174).

And, BTW, if you were successful in accomplishing the sensor and the ECU modifications, MOST LIKELY, then the weak link in the chain will be the fuel pump - incapable of delivering the higher volume of ethanol.

 

I don't believe so from a practical standpoint but I'll let someone with more expertise chime in.

 

I was going to post essentially this but you beat me to it. Well said.

E85 is an outstanding fuel and I run it in all my modified performance vehicles, but you guys running straight E85 (or even worse, E70 or even E51) are being incredibly stupid. The fact you're doing this demonstrates you lack a basic understanding of how an engine functions and stoichometry. Sure, the trims can likely compensate with enough fuel pressure and injector flow, but you're risking lean combustion and everything that goes with it for a stock ECU that may add a couple degrees of timing translating to 10-20hp on a NA engine. What do you think happens when you run advanced timing AND go lean from lack of fuel flow? Boom.

I hope your "testing" didn't include any WOT pulls.

 

Only benny to E85 is the octane rating is usually around 102, trying to use it in a 11.5/1 compression ratio engine is going backwards. E85 works best in boosted engines, Tuners can crank the boost way up and gain huge power on E85. Fuel rates are eye popping though, these boosted little power houses need higher flowing fuel pumps and injectors and uses fuel faster than you can pour it out of a gas can.

 

Always entertaining when guys play FAFO with untuned engines.

 

After the research I did . I do not see the risk .

 

This is mostly correct except for the "only" benefit being increased octane rating. There are additional benefits such as increased thermal efficiency, heat of vaporization, and cooling properties (which is exactly why e85 is so good in FI and high compression platforms). In fact the octane improvement in increased ethanol to gasoline ratio is NOT a linear function, there are diminishing returns above e30-e40 which makes it even dumber to run straight e85 in an untuned c8.

Here's a concise video explaining everything you ever wanted to know about e85.

 

This is likely because your research was incomplete and ineffective. It's fine if you want to damage your engine but don't lead others to believe it's completely safe when you have a limited understanding of the actual risks involved.

 

thank you. Glad I posted here . With this information I don’t need to be dumb again

 

Knowing that the LT2 is direct injected, the cooling affect of alcohol in the intake track is mute. Yes F1 still uses pure gas, mainly because gasoline is more power dense than alcohol. Indy Car however uses E85 because years of using soluble and clear burning alcohol, E85 fires are nearly as easy to put out with water and the flames are visible. In a nut, E85 is pointless in a naturally aspirated, direct injected stock engine engineered to burn gasoline.

 

Some great informative posts here after I told you guys about my e85 experience. I have to agree. Not a good idea to do it again.
thanks to all that took the time to enlighten me with the research’s and that YouTube video did it.

 

I think you may have misread or misunderstood my post, I never mentioned cooling of an intake tract specifically. In fact, e85 is MORE effective on direct injection platforms than port injection because it keeps cylinder temps down due to the nature of, well, DIRECT injection. The C8 is a good platform for e85 with proper fueling as far as NA platforms go - high compression and direct injection both benefit from e85 more than low compression or port injection platforms.

That said, without proper fueling and tuning, it is a dangerous idea and absolutely not worth the potential benefit. You're probably fine at E30-E40 but there's absolutely no reason to push it past that, and honestly not a good one to run E30 without tuning to take advantage of the existing fuel system.

Clarification Edit: I see where you misunderstood me - I said FI being short for "forced induction" (turbo/supercharged) and you read that as F1 i.e. Formula 1.