running E85 in your nonflexfuel car

NYSpeed Automotive
1

but its only for state vehicals:

http://www.e85fuel.com/news/110802_ny_thruway_release/110802ny_thruway_release.htm

so yea, all that work to fuel up like 100 vehicals, compared to the 40k+ vehicals in cheektowaga alone

so, uh … how hard would it be to send extra trucks to the area to start selling e85 to the public ?

fuck it, im tapping into the tank and running a hose all the way to west seneca … anyone who wants e85, PM somedude for his address, there will be a pump on his front lawn (best place for it by far, considering he burns like a tank a day)

2

http://www.gt-labs.net/e85conversion.html

read it, talk about, give it a hug

3

Apparently his stock subaru fuel system has taken it like a champ for 15k miles. If I could get my hands on e85 I’d try it in the daily driver.

4

only problem with E85 is you dont get the same gas milage as you would with regular gas. But it all depends on the set up.

5

anyone know the difference in the parts used in LEV vs ULEV systems?

this site claims its because the car is ULEV that it is capable of using e85 without eating any seals and bla bla bla.

6

I believe somedude has done quite a bit of research on this also, and has everything set to take E85 on his SHO at this point. Except the whole lack of E85 part.

7

ENJOY :slight_smile:

Soo you want to use E85? I´m getting alot of question about E85 and i try to answer but i dont have the time to answer everybody. Soo i have put together some info for you… First the info you need and later a small howto.

There is tons of info about sparktiming and best AF to use with Gas but on E85 it is almost nothing, We have to work together here and share our experiences.

Be patient please, more info will be added :slight_smile:

First of all, what is E85?:
E85 consists of 85% ethanol and 15% additives. The additives vary a lot depending on where you live and time of the year. But roughly, the 15% additives is mostly made up of gasoline, additives that helps the engine to make a complete burn, additives that helps the engine start when it´s cold and additives to color the fuel and the flame (so you know what substance it is, and also to help you see that it is really burning).

(Positive) facts about E85:

  1. It is not corrosive to the fuel system or the engine. This is a myth and ethanol is often confused with methanol, which actually have corrosive properties. I´ve run my car for well over two years on E85 without a problem. Some models before 1988 on the other hand may have some parts that is not ethanol resistant. If we are talking Volvo´s, then this mainly applies to the non-electronically injection systems such as K-jet etc. Most cars with electronical fuel injection (EFI) should be resistant to ethanol. Some people say it would kill your engine right away and that you should buy there racefuel instead (of course they say :eyes: )

  2. It is not as harmful to the nature/environment as gasoline or any other petroleum products for that matter. Ethanol is made out of renewable energy resources such as crops and trees to name a few things. The carbon dioxide that an ethanol powered car emits is not contributing to the greenhouse effect, but is taken up by the plants and is being “re-used”. The carbon dioxide then goes around in a closed loop. Gasoline on the other hand is made from oil that comes from old dinosaurs , plants and other stuff 100 000 of years ago, and it doesn´t take part in the closed loop but only adds to the amount of greenhouse gasses. Ethanol is also easily bio-degradeable if it should leak into our environment.

  3. E85 is 104-105 octane and therefore it´s more knock-resistent and can tolerate more boost or a higher CR.

  4. E85 cools the intake charge more and therefore it´s more knock-resistent and can tolerate more boost or a higher CR. And it also makes the engine run cooler and to some degree, even safer.

  5. E85 is in most cases at least 5% more effícient than gasoline at the same lambda value (up to 25% more efficient on some cars optimized soley for E85). Mill your heads :slight_smile:

  6. Since E85 has very good cleaning properties as well as leaving behind a rest-product of water, it is cleaning the fuel system and it will keep the injectors nice and clean. The combustion chambers, valves, ports and the exhaust will also be clean(er), almost like the car had water injection.

  7. In most cases it will cost less $/mile to run on E85.

(Negative) facts about E85:

  1. Cars running on E85 have some trouble starting when the engine temperature drops below +5C. Cars running E100 (not very common) have some trouble starting when the intake (the air) temperature is below +15C. This is easily solved by using an engine heater in the winter, electrical or fuel-heated (this is recommended on all cars regardless of fuel to get better mileage, less wear on the engine and less impact on the environment etc., but that is another matter to discuss and will not be brought up here…). Some people also adds a little extra gasoline to the tank of E85 to help with cold-starts.

  2. Since cars running E85 requires roughly 30% more fuel, a tank of E85 will not get you as far as a tank of gasoline and you will have to refuel more often. This is often disregarded by E85 users who learn to live with it because of the economical gains.

Technical facts about the mentioned fuels:
E85 requires 39% more fuel to reach stoich even if that is not what you may come up with when doing calculations based on the table below. This is because the injector flow is slightly different when using E85 among many other things I can´t really think of at this time (will be added at a later time).

Fuel … AFRst … FARst … Equivalence Ratio … Lambda
Gas stoich … 14.7 … 0.068 … 1 … 1
Gas max power rich … 12.5 … 0.08 … 1.176 … 0.8503
Gas max power lean … 13.23 … 0.0755 … 1.111 … 0.900
E85 stoich … 9.765 … 0.10235 … 1 … 1
E85 max power rich … 6.975 … 0.1434 … 1.40 … 0.7143
E85 max power lean … 8.4687 … 0.118 … 1.153 … 0.8673
E100 stoich … 9.0078 … 0.111 … 1 … 1
E100 max power rich … 6.429 … 0.155 … 1.4 … 0.714
E100 max power lean … 7.8 … … 0.128 … 1.15 … 0.870

Ethanol reaches max torque at richer mixtures than gasoline will.
The term AFRst refers to the Air Fuel Ratio under stoichiometric, or ideal air fuel ratio mixture conditions. FARst refers to the Fuel Air Ratio under stoichiometric conditions, and is simply the reciprocal of AFRst.

Equivalence Ratio is the ratio of actual Fuel Air Ratio to Stoichiometric Fuel Air Ratio; it provides an intuitive way to express richer mixtures. Lambda is the ratio of actual Air Fuel Ratio to Stoichiometric Air Fuel Ratio; it provides an intuitive way to express leanness conditions (i.e., less fuel, less rich) mixtures of fuel and air.

As you can see from the table shown above this section, the ideal target AFR´s under boost for both gasoline and E85 are listed. For gasoline it´s 13.23-12.5, and for E85 it´s 8.47-6.975. However, with E85 you will not need to richen the mixture under WOT/boost as far as 6.975 or beyond. It does not need to be proportionally richer when compared to gasoline.

Why? Again, Because the fuel has a cooling effect on the intake charge and the space in which the combustion occurs. And at such a low AFR as 9.765 (lambda=1 on E85) or lower the fuel cools pretty good, don´t you think so?

Many people with some experience in mapping an ECU for use with E85 says that as high AFR as 8.5 or lambda=0.80-0.85 works well. No need to go to the extreme end of the useable scale to get safe power. It only uses a lot of fuel without giving any benefits.

E85 burns faster than gasoline at best mixtures so it is an inherently more effecient fuel. It also produces more exhaust gas for a give weight of fuel air mix giving higher average cylinder pressures inspite of lower EGT’s. With streight E85 in a properly tuned car its good for about +5% power / torque increase. I suspect on a turbocharged car the benefit is larger.

Since you don´t have to richen the mixture as many percent (proportionally) as you have to on gasoline, you can make more power without having to use as much fuel.

How does ignition timing change on E85 ?
Timing on ethanol blends will not change very much. MBT timing for both gasoline and E85 are very nearly the same at light to moderate engine loads. At high engine load the E85 will want just slightly more advance. The big difference will be fuel/air mixture. The E85 will give improved torque with much richer mixtures than gasoline. Both gasoline and E85 will give best thermal effeciency at about 15% rich of stoich, so the equivalent of 12.78:1 on gasoline would be about 8.5:1 on E85, but E85 will continue to give better torque numbers up to about +40% rich of stoich or 7:1 mixtures, so on a utec you would want to richen up your WOT high load cells and add a tweak of timing to get the most out of E85 from what I’ve read. I run my car on 8.3:1 right now. I have tried much richer mixtures but i have not compared it on a dyno yet.

Quote:
Are you sure you don’t mean that E85 will allow more advance?
Just passing on what I’ve found in the various sources. Logically you are correct, but one source says simply that MBT timing is the same for E85 and gasoline, and another report says at low loads the E85 and gasoline like the same MBT timing but at high loads MBT timing for the E85 is slightly more advance.

I suspect this is due to them not running ideal max power mixtures but cannot confirm it. Burn speed for E85 changes quite a bit with mixture, so if they were just a little bit lean or rich of ideal the burn rate would be lower.

Lots and lots of variables not well covered in some of the sources and in general they are focusing on emissions issues not max power torque so that would incline them to use less than best power timing advance. In a couple of the reports they also had limited control authority over timing and may not have explored the extremes very thoroughly.
I have also read that E85 burns much quicker than gas at rich mixtures soo if you have your timing advanced and go WOT you could get powerloss (And you micht not pick up any knocks) because of the burnspeed being to fast.

Economical gains:
So let me tell you guys about the fuel prices here in Sweden.
98 octane gasoline cost 12sek/L = $1.68/L = $6.36/gallon.
And 104 octane E85 cost 8sek/L = $1.12/L = $4.24/gallon.

Even that my car wants more fuel with E85 i still save money.

8

My experience with E85:

  1. Better power (cooler intake charge, higher octane and the fact that it is cleaning the engine pretty good).

  2. Smoother power and better stability at part-load.

  3. I don´t want to go any higher than 16psi on the stock 13c piece of **** turbo, but it pulls harder and harder all the way to redline.

  4. After only 50 miles the tail-pipe began to get a lighter color. It was black inside before, now it´s brown and very transparent. My pipe is chromed and now you can see the chrome on the inside as well. When I have driven the car for a couple of 100 miles more I will tell you if it has got any cleaner inside.

  5. The sound from the engine is different. It sounds more powerful.

  6. The smell from the exhaust is much nicer. I cant describe the smell, When the car is hot i dont smell anything wierd. BTW i drive without cats.

  7. The ethanol is cleaner and does not cause problems and if used in an E85 mix it will promote better lubrication of the parts in contact with the mixture and thus, will increase the engine useful life and ensure a significant increase in fuel economy.

Will my O2 sensor work with E85 and high ethanol blends?
The O2 sensor is not an issue, all it cares about is if your at stoich combustion at low throttle settings, it doesn’t much care how you get there, so no need to change it. There is a thread about this on this forum somewhere where i explane this… (see if i can find i later)

What about oil contamination?
Modern lubricants, especially the synthetic oils are much much different than the oils used during those studies, and modern engines run at higher temperatures today which will quickly boil any traces of alcohol out of the oil.

How much will my miles per gallon of fuel drop with E85?
The only negative to E85 is that it gives a lower fuel milage on a gallon for gallon basis to gasoline. The actual difference in energy content between straight gasoline and E85 is about 27%.
The drop in milage is not as significant as you would think based on that difference due to the higher effeciency of the ethanol as a high performance fuel.
The lower milage is not really a big deal, ethanol has lower energy per gallon but your reduction in milage is not nearly as large as that difference would imply. Due to the higher torque,you use slightly smaller throttle openings to get the same level of preformance, and due to the greater quantity of combustion products (more moles of gas) per lb of fuel the engine effeciency actually goes up slightly.

Will a wide band O2 sensor accurately read fuel air mixtures with E85 blends ?
To get an accurate AFR reading you need to switch the meter to Lambda or equivalence ratio setting rather than AFR. Most O2 sensors assume you are running gasoline and will report a stoichimetric mixture as 14.7:1 which is the proper value for gasoline. E85 has a Stoichemetric mixture of between 9.7 - 10:1 and a max power mixture of about 6.98-8.5:1 or so, where with gasoline it is 12.5:1-to 13.1.

If you must use an O2 sensor that only reports gasoline AFR information simply divide the numbers it reports by 1.47 - 1.50.
The O2 sensors would still work. They don’t understand AFR, they only understand rich/lean. If you are using regular or E10 the stoich AFR is ~14.7:1 (as you well know) and when the O2s are switching, this is the AFR it is indicating. When you are using E85 (AFR 9.765:1), the O2s will still work, switching between rich/lean. It’s just that the point they are switching at is 9.765:1. You have to know what fuel you are burning to properly interpret the information the O2 sensors are providing.
Lambda 1 is always Lambda 1 no matter what you drive your car on, the o2 sensor doesn´t care if the AFR are 14,7 or 9.765… it measures the available o2 in the exhaust gases.

Is Ethanol less corrosive than Methanol?
Methanol is much more corrosive than ethanol. It attacks certain soft metals that are not much used in modern fuel systems. Years ago, the carburators were made of un-anodized aluminum and if methanol fuel was used, you had major problems with electrolytic corrosion between the aluminum and copper components used in the fuel system, since they were in continous contact.

That sort of corrosion only occurs when you have a current path between the dissimilar metals AND, a conductive path through the fluid in the system.

In Brazil where they have run high ethanol fuels since 1939, they found that to convert older cars designed for gasoline, long before ethanol blends were common, needed several changes to convert the cars over. This led to changes in valve materials, piston rings choices, nickle plating of the fuel tanks etc.

Modern cars in the U.S. are designed for use with ethanol up to 10% concentration in the fuel. That has led to several changes in component materials over the last 30 years that the U.S. has used ethanol enhanced fuels. All modern fuel lines and such are designed with the expectation that some ethanol will be in the fuel.

What about fuel system corrosion?
Corrosion does not appear to be an issue with modern OBDII cars. They are all certified by the manufactures to be safe to use on 10% ethanol fuel blends, and industry insiders say they are safe for much higher percentages. You don’t install components that are “sorta safe” with a chemical, you put in a fuel hose etc. that is ethanol safe for concentrations well above what you expect to use. Not to mention that folks have been talking for years about raising the ethanol level to 20% or more.

Many years ago there were studies that indicated engines that ran on alcohol ALONE as a fuel, had issues with lubrication and valve seat wear. Keep in mind, those studies were done a long time ago, when engine oils were much less sophisticated than they are now, and some engine manufactures in the 1940’s,1950’ and 1960’s made stupid engineering decisions and did not use hard valve seat inserts like stellite in the cylinder heads. This resulted in valve seat recession problems if you did not have lead additives in the fuel to protect the valve seats.

To sum it all up
Why is Ethanol a better fuel ?

  1. It has a much higher evaporative cooling power than gasoline so the intake air charge in the cylinder is significantly cooler that it is with a comparable mixture of gasoline — that means higher VE.

  2. Its octane as blended in E85 is about 100, its blending octane when added to gasoline is rated at 118, so it is a very cost effective octane booster.

  3. Ethanol burns faster than gasoline but has a slightly longer ignition delay during the slow burn phase of combustion so the engine does not do as much negative work fighting rising cylinder pressures due to large ignition advances. The total ignition advance for E85 is almost identical to the ideal advance for gasoline so it does not cause the PCM problems when you mix them.

  4. At proper mixture you actually are releasing more energy in the cylinder due to the higher quantity of fuel you can burn. ( Ethanol can burn effeciently at much richer mixtures than gasoline can) That means about a 5% increase in energy release all by itself.

  5. Peak combustion pressures are actually lower for ethanol than for gasoline but the cylinder pressures stay higher longer, so you have more (longer) crank angle that is usable by the engine. This lower peak cylinder pressure also helps with detonaton control.

  6. Theorethically, the gain is 5% just by switching fuel. 350 hp X 5% = 15 hp, plus what can be gained from timing.

9

And what about the HowTo?

Actually there isn´t much you have to do…

1. Buy HPTuners.

2. Buy bigger injectors and istall them. I´m using #42. I´m going to upgrade to a better fuel pump in the future (at the same time that i´m installing new heads… AFR with high compression to take advantage of E85´s high octane)

3. Empty your fuel tank, just run the tank as empty as you can, Doesn´t really matter if there is some gas left, When you fill it up the next time you´l know you only have E85.

4. To save valueble “tuningtime” use HPTuners and change your Stoich AFR to 9.799 (look at picture). Or you can leave it alone but then you have to increase your VE-table alot more.

picture 1 http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=3918721

I found out that raising the Cranking fuel tables by 20% made the car easier to start and adding 15% to the OLFA makes the enging run smoother on warmup.

5. I´ve put my PE to look like this (and i´ve also added a couple of degrees timing up top). Start with your standard timing and standard PE… We can talk timing and PE later on in this thread.
My stoich is put to 9.799 and my PE to 1.18 - 9.799/1.18=8.3 which if you look at the tables earlier in the post you would se that it a good value for lean power.

picture 2 coming later…

picture 3, it´s an old picture iv’e added more timing since… http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=3918723

6. Fill up your tank with E85 and put the new values in your PCM. Since the Stoich is changed the VE-table might not change so much it depends of how well your car was tuned before. But take it slow and tune in the low map at first. WB is recommended but you can tune in the lower part af the VE with stock O2. You should be able to feel the extra torque that E85 gives you :drive:
Of course you can mix it with gasoline if you want to and start with maybe 20% E85 and go from there and next time tune with 40% E85 and so on.

7. The E85 will clean the tank and fuel lines from old “crap” i recommend that you change your fuel filter when the fuel tank goes empty. Buy two because you really want to change it after a couple of tanks again. Better safe than sorry. E85 acts as an injector cleaner which is really nice, This means that your injectors are always in perfect “shape”.

8. When you have your whole VE tuned in, Start experimenting with PE and timing (Be aware of the octane (104) of E85, you can use so mutch timing that you will loose power and possibly also damage your engine, This WITHOUT any knock) , A dyno will help alot here…

9. Post up your results. I am very interested at which timing you find most power at. Also if you have alot of dynotime experment with lean and fat WOT PE.

I can´t think about anything more right about now, But ask questions…

More info will come :slight_smile:

10

Some interesting links

http://www.flextek.com/faq.htm

http://www.fullflexint.com/pages/FAQS.htm

http://skeptically.org/oil/id12.html

  1. problem with E75

  2. Watercontamination.

  3. Yes this is a problem. They are not yet using E75 in Sweden but they are talking about it. But it looks like this is the system thats going to be used.
    But since i dont use my car in the winter it´s not a problem for me but i understand that it might be different in USA.
    But the Lambda adjustment doesn´t have any problems with compensating for the small different between E85 and E75. You already have pumps with E10 (and there are talking about E20 correct?) and pumps without and the cars are adjusting for the difference without trouble.
    We have a HUGE carpark with cars that have been convertaed be the owners themself and we are trying to convince the goverment not to use E75 or atleast give us the option to decide for usself which fuel to use.

http://korridor.se/aryan/acadiane/E85/norrland/Norrland-Thumbnails/3.jpg

  1. Yes, Water contamination is a problem, I agree.

It would be really interesting to see a test done on an open and closed fueltank, How long time it takes for the E85 to suck up water from the air to the point to it is dangerous to use. It might come in the future, But up til then keep your fueltanks closed :slight_smile: I only damage i have seen from E85 yes is a rubber hose that couldn´t take it on my -82 Datsun :slight_smile: Yes it is possible to run it on E85, Hell i even run my lawnmower on E85. I just wish i had a Turbocar to experiment on. Since E85 is perfect for boost, I have many friends here in Sweden with forced induction that use E85… Thanks to the cooling effects and higher octane you can use alot more boost.
Just look at the Saab 9-5 Turbo with Biopower engine (big seller here in Sweden) that when it is fueled with E85 gives 20% more hp and 16% more torque compared with regular gas.

Water contaminated fuel from the pump isn´t much you and i can do anything about but hoping the gascompanies have there shit together :slight_smile:

Is E85 more toxic or dangerous than gasoline?
No. 100% ethanol (not 100% E85) can be and is ingested by human beings. The fuel ethanol must be “denatured” with gasoline or a bitter agent to prevent ingestion. Also, ethanol does not contain the harmful carcinogens and toxins found in gasoline.

Statement below is taken from the flextek page.
If I have a gasoline vehicle and convert it to alcohol, am I going to damage the engine?
No. There are currently over 50,000 vehicles on the road using the FlexTek to burn alcohol fuels. There have been no reports of engine damage due to the conversion. In fact, burning alcohol instead of gasoline has been shown to decrease engine oil contamination and extend engine life. Alcohol burns cooler than gasoline providing additional benefits in terms of engine life and performance.

11

Perfect…

Here is a tip that goes for almost anything in life. Always listen to both sides then make up your own mind based on the information you have. I have no gain trying to convince people to use E85. But the oil industri have alot of money to lose if people find E85 useable, just read this link http://www.e85fuel.com/news/101206_api_release.htm

“it’s clear that Big Petroleum see renewable fuels as competitors and that is unfortunate for their shareholders, the environment, and ultimately the American people”

BTW here is a link to an international part of the Swedish E85 forum http://etanol.nu/forum/viewforum.php?f=42 you can post questions there if you like. If it is against the rules to link to other forums, PM me and i´l remove it.

You just have to read this http://www.turbomustangs.com/techarticles/e85dyno.php 1066rwhp Mustang on E85

12

I stumbled over this while searching for something else.

Materials that have performed well in E85 systems include, but may not be limited to, those listed below. U.S. Department of Energy

Metals:
Unplated steel
Stainless steel
Black iron
Bronze
Non-Metallic Materials:
Teflon
Nitrile
Viton
Polypropylene
Buna-N
Neoprene rubber
Non-metallic thermoset plastics
Thermoset reinforced fiberglass tanks
Thermo plastic piping

DURABILITY OF VARIOUS PLASTICS: ALCOHOLS VS. GASOLINE (Mother’s Alcohol Fuel Seminar)

-----------------------------Ethanol----------Methanol------------Gasoline
Conventional Polyethylene—good-------------excellent-------------poor
High-density Polyethylene—excellent---------excellent-------------good
Teflon----------------------excellent----------excellent--------------excellent
Tefzel----------------------excellent---------excellent------------excellent
Polypropylene---------------good------------excellent-------------fair
Polymethylpentene----------good------------excellent-------------fair
Polycarbonate---------------good------------fair-------------------fair
Polyvinyl Chloride------------good------------fair-------------------poor

Excellent: Will tolerate years of exposure.
Fair: Some signs of deterioration after one week of exposure.
Good: No damage after 30 days of exposure, should tolerate several years of exposure.
Poor: Deteriorates readily.
NOTE: All tests were made with liquids at 122 deg F.
Compare Gasoline to Ethanol and make your own decision.

13

BTW a converted Firebird http://www.bio-etanol.se/ it´s all in Swedish but press “konvertering” and you´l see a pic of it. All they have done to convert it to E85 is increase the fuelpreassure everything else is stock. And it´s an old -92.

14

yeah, my threads always turn into sticky material.

man im fucking good

HRK :tup: +100 karma for good info

the idea behind that flextek joint is pretty cool. those who havent, i suggest clicking that link and taking a look at it. its a pretty simple device.

15

This is a good thread, but without a cheap source of e85 in the buffalo area we’re all just sitting here talking about it. Beck how about getting me into the highway dept. location that has it? :slight_smile:

16

when its readily avaliable here it will be in the SHO almog with a couple of really high boost pulls (aprox 18-20psi) on a dyno and at the track just to show off :).

to convert the SHO i need a fuel pump , new fuel lines (see below) and retune the car.

the taurus was offered in flex fuel trim I believe as far back as 1994. there ha been debate weither or not the plastic lines are compatable with it. I wil find out soon enough I guess.

17

this may be beyond many of your capabilities of comprehension, :gotme: :lol:, but a good writeup none-the-less.

http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=602091

Discuss…

and, do we have any E85 stations around here? how much $

18

one, and its not open to the public

http://www.nyspeed.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21024&highlight=e85

19

Hmm that would be nice if we could get it around here.

20

merged all the e85 threads