E85 Conversion

My latest project has been to convert my Tiburon to run on E85 Fuel. Why you say? E85 is almost over a dollar cheaper than Premium, which my turbocharged car requires, and its 105 Octane. Need I say more? Only things need to be done is adding 30% more fuel to the car. With larger injectors and a pump able to support that, I’m almost done completing the conversion. I will post results when I am done.

Yeah its an excellent fuel for boosted cars. I usually put a few gallons in my SE-R before I go to the track. There is a great thread about e85 over at NASIOC with tons of info about using it both as a primary fuel and as an octane booster.

I have seen quite a few turbo neons run E85 with amazing results. hope all goes well

I think i might be willing to mess around with this fuel. I am just worried about the inconsistancy of the fuel.

good luck let me know how it works out

I’m still coming to you for a tune on good ole’ 93 octane. But cheaper, higher octane gas sounds much more fun.

I’ve heard that using this fuel in cars not designed for it can cause some major problems. I think something to do with gaskets and leaking.

alot of the dsm guys run e85 with great results. turbo cars eat that stuff up. you need alot more fuel though about 40 percent more if i remember right.

I dunno about making stuff go bad i know alot of dudes just swap up and change their tune and go for it.

That hasn’t been the case, check the NASIOC e85 thread.

doesn’t make sense. why spends thousands to save a few bucks at the pump?
it will blow up before you get ahead of the fuel game :rolleyes:

i also heard it can rot away the stock fuel lines in certain cars as well. there was a nice write up on it in a issue of hot rod magazine

True. But mostly the older pre-1980’s cars are the ones effected. Alchohol based fuels, like ethanol can be more corrosive on rubbers, certain plastics, and metals. This is no longer an issue in most newer vehicles as most are already designed to resist the corrosive nature of Alcohol fuels when many states started requiring 10- 20 % Ethanol in all gasoline fuels sold .

I like the idea, Curt Brown told me about running it in his DSM, but he was back to petrol gas the last time I talked to him.

Will it actually save money after you factor in the additional fuel, or basically come out the same miles per dollar, just with higher octane?

^^^that’s what I was thinking…

At $4 a gallon for petrol…roughly $3 for E85…that’s only a 25% reduction in cost…but 40% increase in fuel volume for a given tune calibration appears to cost more?

If you want great gas mileage go buy a scooter. People use e85 for performance reasons not mpg. I couldn’t care less about gas mileage in my turbo car. Show me another widely available 105 octane fuel available for only $3.35 a gallon…um yeah, didn’t think so…

how much gas do you have in the tank when you do it?
I would love to switch injectors, and get a tune to run e85 in my sentra

Walt the most I would put our cars (to get a full tank) is 4 gallons which comes out to about 33% ethanol. If you use any more than that you would need to start adding more fuel.

If you want to run 100% e85 and max out your turbo then I would suggest 850cc FD injectors.

ppl arent switching there cars from gas to ethanol because of gas prices, they are doing it for the octane levels. so basically any argument about the price should be thrown out the window

I see what you’re saying, but price is somewhat of an issue.

If it weren’t, people would just use race gas all the time.

oh yea compared to race gas sure, but i meant towards other pump gas prices. i should have stated that!

The concept of running some random E85-gasoline blend and getting a totally unknown mixture seems mildly retarded. E85 is not gasoline and while I acknowledge the potential for performance gains with a proper conversion, I would never run E85 through a motor that was only set up to burn gasoline. Aside from not really knowing the properties of the aforementioned 33% blend, E85 as a classification denotes “up to” 85% ethanol by volume, so not all E85 has the same amount of ethanol.