Ethanol Fuel FAQ (E85 explained)

red98teg

Keep on Truckin
yeah... but i would still be going every 2 weeks...
 


Rich-PMS

New Member
Once I get fuel pump internals in my Mazda speed3 I'll be running a 33% e85 mix and hoping to break 300whp with this shitty k04.

There's someone in the forum that's running 59% e85 with basically an intake, test pipe, fuel pump internals, uograded top mount intercooler, and Cobb access port and tuned by himself. And he's just shy of 300whp.


E85 USA great power added with a boosted car.
 

speedin

The Transporter
Once I get fuel pump internals in my Mazda speed3 I'll be running a 33% e85 mix and hoping to break 300whp with this s***ty k04.

There's someone in the forum that's running 59% e85 with basically an intake, test pipe, fuel pump internals, uograded top mount intercooler, and Cobb access port and tuned by himself. And he's just shy of 300whp.


E85 USA great power added with a boosted car.
Yea as you can see from my posts back in 07 I started with a low mix of E85 and slowly stepped up. I found on my Accessport Stage 2 tune I was running at the time 34% was my sweet spot. But id start at 25% then slowly work your way up to be safe. But definitely get a fuel pump, because as I found in those reports back in 07 stock pumps die up in the higher pressures on boosted cars (common knowledge) and on E85 thats real bad. If I were you Rich id pick up one of these new 340 pumps from areomotive, they are made for E85 and have killer flow. If those were out back when I got my 255HP wally I would have gone for them. And buy them from Justin (AKA JayJay, AKA the guy who runs this site, AKA Tunersports). http://www.clubintegra.com/store/aeromotive-340-stealth-fuel-pump_mp664.html
 


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Rich-PMS

New Member
My intake pump flows 220lph. I need fuel pump internals for my CDFP (cam driven fuel pump) my fuel flows at 1700+ PSI and once you start doing a FMIC, or down pipe the pressure randomly drops to 900psi. Which is lethal. There's a few people making over 500whp uncorrected with stock pump in the tank. The CDFP is very weak, but with upgraded internals you can make 500+ whp, but the injectors are are 98% duty cycle, and there's no aftermarket injectors for us yet. The one person who's over 500whp is still on stock block! Also, there's no aftermarket cams/valvetrain for our platform either. So in a year or two when there's injectors and cams, I see 700whp very achievable. And nearly 600whp on stock block.


Not bad for a $24k car brand new, with 5k in mods!
 

rinkymehra

New Member
The electrical conductivity issue is not significant in the case of ethanol. It is detectable with a dialectic constant tester. It DOES become a significant issue with methanol blends which is why methanol blended fuel is so aggressively corrosive. The main issue with methanol is it aggressively attacks certain metals like magnesium and zinc. One of the reasons everyone is looking at ethanol is the 30+ years of successful use of high ethanol fuel blends in Brazil and low ethanol blends here in the U.S. with essentially zero problems after they changed fuel line and O ring and seal materials in the fuel system. - stream videos via tubemate apk
 
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sansadavi

New Member
Taken From NASIOC but not in its entirety. Edited version of the NASIOC post taken from Flat4NC.




Part 1


The one problem is that currently E-85 sites are a little difficult to find, but the more of it we use the more available it will become.

The folks backing E-85 production are pushing as hard as they can to get stations to make it available, but its a slow process. They need customers to start asking station owners if they plan on carrying it to motivate stations to add a pump/tank.
There are currently dozens of FFV's out there that are designed to run on the stuff if folks can find a place to buy it. Simple way to drastically reduce oil demand as well, and put money in our economy instead of some other countries coffers.

I currently drive 20 miles each way to get to the nearest E-85 stations, but it is still a good deal as I am paying $1.59.9 / gal for the E-85, vs about $2.05.9 / gal for premium. ( some E-85 vendors charge at a premium fuel rate of about $2.00/gal)

With the added octane of the E-85 you can actually splash blend it with mid grade gasoline with out problems.

When I suspect it will be difficult to locate E-85 from the pump I just make a point of topping off the tank before it drops below 3/4 full. This keeps the ethanol blend up to a high enough level to avoid any drivability issues with my oversize injectors.

I think it is important to note that they don't recommend greater than 10% ethanol, ie they warrantee the car will run fine with up to 10% ethanol but greater than that your on your own. But they do not say you should avoid higher blends of ethanol and other tests have shown modern cars can run on upto about 30% blends with no problem.

They do specifically mention that methanol is not to be used over 5% concentration, and that is due to corrosion issues with methanol, which is Much Much more prone to corrosion than ethanol.

As mentioned above any "damage" should be easily remedied, ie replacing a hose, or some O rings, possibly changing to a different fuel pump. It is very difficult to predict long term corrosion, or materials compatibility so I've decided to bite the bullet and be the test dummy and see what if anything breaks.

Based on my tests, the short term conclusion is you can run concentrations of >10% fuel ethanol for periods in excess of 1 year with no detectable damage. We'll just have to see how things go in another year or so.

What is the history of large scale conversions to high ethanol fuels

When Brazil began making a wholesale conversion to high ethanol fuels back in the late 70's following the energy crisis, they made several studies on the ability of normal cars to run ethanol blends. They found that the cars of that period could run up to about 22% blends on the stock system with no problems, which is why they settled on a 20% blend as one of the fuels available. The issue was one of control authority of the ECU to compensate for the leaner mixture. Some could handle more than others.

During the 70's and 80's when oxygenated fuels and "gasahol" first saw wide use here in the U.S. there WERE fuel component compatibility problems. My 1969 VW fuel lines really didn't like the ethanol and began to leak like a sieve, some carburetor needle valves softened, some carburetor floats would soak up the ethanol and get too heavy to function as a float. There were lots of problems with clogged fuel filters on cars that had been running on gasoline only for decades and had lots of varnish build up in the fuel system. The ethanol in gasohol was a very efficient fuel system cleaner and all that crud got carried to the fuel filters. Once the fuel filters were replaced those problems disappeared.

At that time All the auto manufactures moved to ethanol compatible fuel line components, ie. o rings, rubber hose etc. They warrantee that they are good to 10% but my experience shows they are satisfactory to much higher concentrations. The VW showed its compatibility problem in a matter of months after we went to ethanol blended oxygenated fuel here in Denver. Engineers typically don't solve a compatibility problem by making the new component "sorta compatible ome tv" they change compounds to materials that are not effected by the chemical in question.

The Denver area has been using ethanol oxygenated fuels (ranging from 5% - 10%) concentration for over 30 years. Every modern car works just fine with these low ethanol blended fuels. Rubber hoses and O rings last for the life of the car.


The electrical conductivity issue is not significant in the case of ethanol. It is detectable with a dialectic constant tester. It DOES become a significant issue with methanol blends which is why methanol blended fuel is so aggressively corrosive. The main issue with methanol is it aggressively attacks certain metals like magnesium and zinc. One of the reasons everyone is looking at ethanol is the 30+ years of successful use of high ethanol fuel blends in Brazil and chat roulette low ethanol blends here in the U.S. with omegle tv essentially zero problems after they changed fuel line and O ring and seal materials in the fuel system.

Dialectic Constants
Gasoline 2.2
Ethanol 24
Methanol 33.6
Water 48 - 88

Keep in mind that absolutely pure water is a good enough insulator it is used to cool electronic components. It does not become an effective conductor until is dissolves minerals that act as charge carriers (electrolytes).


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.


What about the evaporative emissions system in my car

The higher vapor pressure of ethanol gasoline blends is not ideal for the evaporative emissions system and the vapor recovery canister. For full emissions compliance these will need to be modified. Currently there are no kits available to upgrade this part of the emissions system. At very high ethanol blends you may see CEL warnings because the evaporative emissions system is not happy with some of its sensor readings. This does not appear to effect the cars performance, or fuel mileage in any way and is mostly a nusince CEL.
What about Ethanol? if i want to? any suggestion?
 

maafkari4

New Member
ohhh ok i see. well i guess i would be saving money... except there arent any E85 locations around me. i know the number is growing... but everything around me is 10%
get-mobdro.com
 
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