[madmike]

Just wondering if anyone has done an e85 conversion. I want to try one, but the kits (like White Lighting, etc.) i read up on all they do is double the sine wave pulse to the fuel injectors.

If you done tuning you know the ECU is using the 02 sensor to adjust stoich trying to hit 14.68, well thats for gas, E85 9.87 thats a huge difference, so I dont know how these kits can work that good.

You know the ECU will see what appears to be a rich condition and try to change the pulse to lean it out.

Would like to hear from someone who has done the conversion.

there are a ton of different kits on E-Bay, 2,000 on there right now, and of course White lighting dot com and a few others,

Fast dont even have a plug and play E85 kit and they are the masters of fuel injection.

FYI you get 5% increase in HP from e85 alone across the boardm and its $1.00 a gallon cheaper here in Wisconsin by me, some places as much as $1.18

madmike...

 

[DrivenDaily]

But don't you also end up with less mileage, so much less that it's cheaper to use gas instead?

 

[RalphP]

But don't you also end up with less mileage, so much less that it's cheaper to use gas instead?

Typically yes, about 1/2 or so the gas mileage.

Which isn't surprising, the Ethanol is more of an oxidizing agent than a fuel - so you're running about 15% of the gasoline! We do good that it doesn't drop us to about 15% to 20% of the gas mileage!

Not surprising, on most cars, E10 (10% Ethanol) gives ... a 10% reduction in gas mileage (!!).

Alas, it's almost impossible to find Pure Gas (tm) anywhere nearby.

RwP

 

[madmike]

well another consideration is, there is an E-85 Plant by me.

I have friends that both work there, and farmer frieds who sell corn to them.

I am retired Air Force Jet Engine Tech. I did 5 tours to Iraq including the 1st war and I would rather pay and support my local brothers than send that money over there.

and sooner or later we are going to have to do something, I would also rather have a higher horse power internal combustion engine than an electric car.

Another thing, I have built race cars, and muscle cars, tuner cars too, and a turbo charged e-85 car is the way to go for power, here is where it pulls way ahead as it burns so much cooler.

Im sure you have seen Fox Lake Racing http://www.foxlakeracing.com/index.php on Pinks, many 347 stroker turbo e85 stangs winning over big block supercharged cars.

They are 20 miles from me, and Wegner Motor sports http://www.wegnerautomotive.com/

is five miles from my part time car shop.

anyways, I think it would be cool to build a 3400 turbo e85 Malibu, use the supercharged 4T65E Transmission TCI High perf rebuild kit (so trans dont blow up) or a gretag five speed from lumina, and surprise some people, he he, im getting old but still like doing this

 

[TheMuskr]

i hear that e85 eats the fuel system slowly. but i do know that with a tune you can make serious horsepower

http://www.raceone85.com/

 

[madmike]

i hear that e85 eats the fuel system slowly. but i do know that with a tune you can make serious horsepower

http://www.raceone85.com/

Wow nice site thanks TheMuskr

 

[Adandos]

most of the people that convert to E85 do it for it's power adding benefits...

Checkout our complete article on E85 Conversions and our E85 calculator here (CMF EDITORIAL NOTE: Using the calculator is part of a free trial that will want you to sign up and pay for further services. The article can be read for free.)

Most oxygenated fuels like Ethanol, Methanol and E85 can virtually increase an engine's displacement.

Since the car only breathe in so much air through the intake system, delivering oxygen through the fuel system (through the use of an oxygenated fuel like Ethanol or in radical cases like Nitromethane) allows you to make more horsepower on the same displacement engine.

With E85 this is a potential 19% boost in power ...same engine, E85, E85 specific tune

With nitromethane it is closer to 80% boost in power, same engine, Nitro, Nitro specific tune.

The other advantage of E85 is it is a much higher 'auto ignition temperature' ...so it's very friendly on cars with really hot intake air (turbos , supercharged...etc)

So most people do the conversion not for milage, but for added power and to run higher boost levels safely...

 

[DrivenDaily]

I was checking out my car from the underside last week while it was on a lift getting a quote for possible muffler mods. There's a sticker on my gas tank that says E85. I don't have a flex fuel car but apparently the tank is ready. I wonder if the fuel lines and/or pump are as well?

 

[John K]

If you done tuning you know the ECU is using the 02 sensor to adjust stoich trying to hit 14.68, well thats for gas, E85 9.87 thats a huge difference, so I dont know how these kits can work that good.

Hi Mike, That's not correct. Stoich is stoich and the O2 sensor doesn't care if it's 14.68 or 9.87. It's just looking for too much or not enough oxygen.

 

[John K]

I was checking out my car from the underside last week while it was on a lift getting a quote for possible muffler mods. There's a sticker on my gas tank that says E85. I don't have a flex fuel car but apparently the tank is ready. I wonder if the fuel lines and/or pump are as well?

Watch the video in the second slide on parts interchange:

http://www.ohiobiosystems.org/OBSC-NTEP_files/frame.htm

 

[MalibuKen]

FYI you get 5% increase in HP from e85 alone across the board

No you don't.
Ethanol has LESS energy per unit volume than gas.
IIRC, it's about 15% less.
How much of your other information is wrong ??

 

[MalibuKen]

Most oxygenated fuels like Ethanol, Methanol and E85 can virtually increase an engine's displacement.

And if you believe these snake oil marketing claims........I have some ocean front property in Arizona for sale.

However.......the othe post that proposed a 50% LOSS of power is wrong too.
It's not nearly that drastic.......in a vehicle that is really designed for it, that is. Might be a 50% loss with a "bolt on kit".

 

[John K]

No you don't.
Ethanol has LESS energy per unit volume than gas.
IIRC, it's about 15% less.
How much of your other information is wrong ??

Yes, but the injector pulse is nearly doubled to insert more fuel to compensate. Also since the octane is 105, you can tune for more power. If I understand correctly, the anti-knock sensors may be telling the ECU that more advance is safe even without custom tuning.

 

[madmike]

ok lets do this the smart way, this is a good forum and we dont want to sound like little kiddies on honda boyz dot com who just trash each other, lets read up all, and 1/2 the stuff on line is bs, we can all agree that Hot Rod Magazine does full research and testing so here is their take on E-85

http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/hrdp_0801_e85_ethanol_alternative_fuel/index.html

ANSWERS What we have been chatting about, we are all a little wrong and right too.
bottom line on a turbo or supercharged car E85 has the advantage

 

[MalibuKen]

Yes, but the injector pulse is nearly doubled to insert more fuel to compensate.

The problem with your original statement IS that none of that stuff happens "across the board". It may not happen at ALL in some kind of "conversion" to an engine that wasn't designed for it.

And if there is any power gain, it isn't free. It takes more fuel to do it.
So......given the same volume of fuel, there is a power LOSS, not a gain.

 

[MalibuKen]

bottom line on a turbo or supercharged car E85 has the advantage

True but ONLY if the engine in question has been designed specifically to use E85.

For those who don't want to read through the whole article, here is the part that most pertains to our discussion of using E85 in an engine not designed for it:

" And that points directly to one of the clear tradeoffs with E85: When you pump in roughly 25 percent more fuel, you take an approximate 25 percent hit in fuel economy as well, though it can be offset somewhat with careful tuning. And while drivers can switch back and forth from gasoline to E85 at will with the flex-fuel vehicles currently offered by the automakers, that is some fairly advanced technology beyond the reach of most backyard tuners. Once you've recalibrated your fuel system for ethanol, you're committed to ethanol until you change the calibration back again."

 

[DrivenDaily]

Here's where a little common sense combined with math comes in.

If gas costs $4/gallon and E85 costs $3/gallon, and if the car gets 20 mpg on gas but 15 mpg on E85 (based on the 25% figure in the post above) here's how I see it:

300 miles on gas takes 15 gallons. At the price above that's $60.

300 miles on E85 takes 20 gallons. At the price above that's $60.

It takes E85 being 25% less than gas to equal the price per mile of gas. But the downside of E85 is you get fewer miles per tank, meaning more fill ups, and the fuel is more corrosive, meaning parts degrading more quickly and the parts cost more to replace in general.

So, unless or until they can make E-anything that doesn't kill the systems in my car, and until or unless they can figure out how to get better mileage and/or power, I'll be most pleased to continue using gasoline!

One final (long-ish) comment: E85 contains oxidizer. If you've ever heard of Nitrous Oxide, E85 is similar. It causes the fuel to carry more oxygen into the cylinder, but doing so requires more flammable liquid (gas) per cube of air volume, increasing the ratio of fuel to air. Since E85 is carrying the oxidizer AND the fuel, more E85 must be pumped in to raise the quantity of flammable fuel to a point that the air and oxidizer are at the correct proportion to the fuel. When using N2O you can have a dry or wet system. Dry means that you shoot only N20 and supply the additional gas required through the existing injectors. Wet means you include nozzles for the extra gas. In either case, adding the oxidizer requires more fuel, which is the same issue with E85. Ethanol is mostly an oxidizer, not so much an actual fuel. Using it requires a greater quantity to do the same work. I believe the biggest attraction is that generally the ethanol is derived here at home instead of from foreign sources. I'll still take gas over it.

 

[John K]

True but ONLY if the engine in question has been designed specifically to use E85.

"And while drivers can switch back and forth from gasoline to E85 at will with the flex-fuel vehicles currently offered by the automakers, that is some fairly advanced technology beyond the reach of most backyard tuners. Once you've recalibrated your fuel system for ethanol, you're committed to ethanol until you change the calibration back again."

The popularly priced DIY E85 conversion kits are generally plug-and-play kits that depend on a modern FI car with an OBD II compliant ECU. If you are running a carburetor, you can only tune for one kind of fuel. The E85 kit only increases the injector pulse to deliver the additional fuel required for the correct mixture. The ECU compensates when running regular gasoline. I don't know enough about stock ECU tuning to know if it will advance the timing to allow for ethanol's superior octane and anti-knock properties.

So, yes, if you are running a carburetor or tuning for performance, you may not be able to run both gasoline and E85, but if you are running a stock OBD-II compliant vehicle, you can run both. The plug and play kits are easily installed. Here's a brief video showing how easy it is:

Also look at the link I posted above showing the part numbers for GM gasoline and flex fuel vehicles are often 100% the same, and only 3 or 4% different in most cases. The site also has a video showing a teardown of a non-flex-fuel Chevy Tahoe that was run on E85 for 100,000 miles without any of the fuel system component degradation we have been told to expect.

 

[madmike]

thanks John K thats awesome. I think I will try the White Lighting when I get a chance.

I did a total of 5 Tours in Iraq including the 1st war over there & Iraqi Freedom and I dont want to keep sending them all this money for gas, I would rather burn E85 and support my local farmers in America

Mike

 

[DrivenDaily]

Well, here's the first piece of evidence that suggests we've been bamboozled about our fuel systems. I guess like Mr. Reagan was quoted as saying, "Trust, but verify", now it's up to us to find out if we're being fed a line about our cars already being over 95% ready to run ethanol or if it's actually true.