E85?

JimmyDean

Registered User
Im wondering if it would be possible (or plausible) to run half 91 octane gasoline and half E85. This would make the octane effectively 98.5. My friend has an 05 V6 mustang, with a tune that requires 91 octane. He says he put half 91 and half E85 in, and its running fine, better than fine actually. He says he seems to have more power, and its running slighly better.
 
hmm. I don't think I would recomend it....... E85 should only be run in vehicles designed to run it. I, personally, would not risk it.

Look here for more info on 85. What it is, and why you should not run it in cars not listed as E85 compatible.

http://www.e85fuel.com/e85101/faq.php
 
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Thats roughly 40% Ethanol 60% Gas. Even that site says it will be ok if you accidentally use E85 in a gas engine so I can't see why 40% Ethanol would hurt it. I'm seriously considering setting up a spare 3.8 for ethanol and putting in my daily driver, that and that other 3.8 has a T-5 bolted to it :D (my brother's old mustang V6.... he put a 4.6 in it)
 
Accidentally putting in E85 once or twice probably would not cause any issues. Continued use would likely raise hell with most of the fuel system. Tank, Lines, Injectors, Etc. in a non E85 compatable vehicle are not gonna last running higher than 10% concentration of ethenol. Besides that, your computer isn't setup for that much ethenol and would likely not deliver the correct amount of fuel. One last thing to consider (and this is the big issue if you are looking to save a few bucks), cars running E85 get poorer fuel milage. Most of the E85 compatable cars are not even getting 20 MPG with E85 but much higher than that with regular unleaded gasoline. SO.... If you figure on running E85 because it is cheaper, be aware that you may pay less at the pump, but will be returning to that pump more often. The benefit of E85 is the fact that it is cleaner burning (In E85 compatable vehicles, but "dirtier" in vehicles requiring reg. unleaded). Overall E85 ends up being about the same cost per mile as 87 octane. That's the reason it is cheaper.... How many people would pay the same price for "alternative" fuels when they end up getting fewer miles per gallon? It is meant to be priced comparably with 87 octane with the differences in milage factored in.
 
From everything I've managed to dig up, E85 gives roughly 5-15% lower mpg over gas. That's really only a couple miles per gallon in most situations. It's also 106 octane, and it burns slower and cooler. Ford says their FFVs make 5% more power on it.

He's talking half E85 though. I'm betting it's less than 10% difference in fuel milage, and considering that E85 seems to generally be 30c cheaper than premium, you're averaging out at about regular unleaded price for a higher octane fuel. I personally wouldn't notice 1-2 mpg lost.

Alot of cars that just require a chip to run straight E85. There's a car on this site: http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id36.html that's run over 300,000 miles on the stuff with only a chip. After reading that site, my buddy and I are tempted to try and make some though.... I guess we'll see how that works :p If the N/A Bird can take to it well enough, I may consider building the SC for it.
 
That would be great to build an SC/XR7 motor to run on E85. As long as you set up the fuel system to be able to run the alcohol without breaking down and/or corroding. Then get the chip programmed for it. There may be other issues to deal with, but it would be cool to see someone do it.
 
XR7inWI said:
That would be great to build an SC/XR7 motor to run on E85. As long as you set up the fuel system to be able to run the alcohol without breaking down and/or corroding. Then get the chip programmed for it. There may be other issues to deal with, but it would be cool to see someone do it.

I figure if we can work out making ethanol, I should do it. Cooler air charge temps and slower burning along with a nice long rod setup sounds like a winner to me ;) I can always use a dual program chip or tuner if I need to run gas in it (for road trips where E85 may not be available). We'll see.
 
I have done it twice by putting in a few dollars and then filling the rest with 87. I dont recomend it. Not because there was a problem, but because I also believe that there is not enough volume to get the harmfull effects of the alcohol low enough in the tank to make it worth it. The car actually seems to run at a lower temp longer but that could also be because I am concentrating on trying to shift at a lower rpm to conserve fuel at 3 bones a gallon. It also smells nicer when its burning. :rolleyes: I wont do it again though. It is true that it gets less milage then the regular gasoline equipped vehicle.

Chris
 
Im not talking about running straight e85 at all... Im talking about running half 91 or 89 or 87 or whatever you want, then the rest E85. Im not really looking for it to save a few bucks either (even though It might). Im interested on how well your engine will run on it. In a few days here (when I get some money), I plan on filling with half 91 and the rest E85. Ill let you know how it all goes. This should put the effective octane at about 98-99
 
I wish they had it here. Our 04 explorer is a flex fuel vehicle and can take it. But nobody here in the state of Arkansas sells it. From what I understand, the conversion involves fuel injectors, and a system capable of reading the oxygen in the fuel and changing the running based on it. Also remember something about fuel lines being different so they wont break down with the ethanol or something. The owners manual says you can run straight E85 or any mix of it with gas and not notice a difference in performance, but you will get less mileage.
 
7birdslater said:
I wish they had it here. Our 04 explorer is a flex fuel vehicle and can take it. But nobody here in the state of Arkansas sells it. From what I understand, the conversion involves fuel injectors, and a system capable of reading the oxygen in the fuel and changing the running based on it. Also remember something about fuel lines being different so they wont break down with the ethanol or something. The owners manual says you can run straight E85 or any mix of it with gas and not notice a difference in performance, but you will get less mileage.

The injectors themselves should be ok, the o-rings may need to be replaced. The lines themselves probabaly need to be replaced also. I'm thinkng of running braided steel anyway, as my fuel lines a little messed up. Really, in an EFI system, you just need a chip to run it (as E85 requires a little more fuel, around 8:1 A/F vs around 12:1 for gas). My thought was to use a chip or tuner with 2+ programs and be able to switch between a gas or E85 setting. I'm told that ethanol does better under higher compression (some places recommend 12:1) so under boost it should work well.
 
For Jimmy Dean, I ran less then a quarter tank of 85 and the rest with 87. The 85 is 100+ and that was good engough to be able to stand on the fu**ing thing and not have it ping. I almost always have to run AT LEAST 89 if I am going to stand on it. That being said it runs rich as he11 now anyway. I need to step up but I HAVE GOT to finish my v-8 car before the fall.

Chris
 
From what I have read, it looks like they use different injectors, teflon coated fuel lines and most are using stainless steel fuel tanks to be able to run the E85 without having problems with rubber parts breaking down or other metal parts corroding. Along with that, as stated above, you need some sort of sensor that will sense the amount of oxygen present in the fuel and adjust the air/fuel mixture accordingly. Without a sensor to detect the oxygen content you would need to make sure you had the SAME mixture every time you filled up or you will end up running either too rich or too lean depending on the mixture and the tune you are running. Also without the sensor for oxy. content in the fuel, you would really want a 2 program chip so you could run straight regular unleaded if you ended up somewhere that you could not find E85.

Setting up a car to run E85 or a mix of it and reg. unleaded could be done, but it probably would cost muh more than it would ever be worth. Besides, if you ever need to do an emissions test you DEFINATELY dont want to be running a mix of E85 and gas as you would fail the tests for sure. EPA has approved the use of a 10% mix of ethonol (commonly found at the pumps) and the E85 which of course is 85% ethonol. Other mixtures/concentrates are not allowed because they produce significantly higher emissions. In fact, it is actually a federal offense to use E85 or a mixture of it with gas in a vehicle not setup for E85. You can get away with it if you accidentally put it in, but to knowingly put the wrong fuel in a vehicle which will cause an increase in emmisions can get you a hefty penalty. I would imagine it would carry a similar penalty to removing cat. converters. Alot of us remove the cats but our cars run pretty clean with a good tune. Running E85 and increasing emissions (in non FFV's) just so you can save a buck or two or hope to pick up 1 or 2 HP is just plain irresponsible. There is enough crap in the air we breath, why would you want to make it worse? :rolleyes:
 
takotruckin said:
if more people ran e85, it would effectively conserve gasoline, and consequently, lower gas prices

Maybe. If that were the case, then why has E85 gone up in price right along with regular gasoline? Gas prices are out of hand and just having more people using E85 may not bring them down. The gov't needs to step up and do something but that wont happen as long as we have Dubbya in the White House. He always has and will continue to make money in the oil industry, so no matter what lies he tells us, I am quite certain he LOVES seeing the price of crude at $70+ per barrel (ya think he didn't have that in mind when he got us involved in Iraq?)
 
E85 is tied to the price of gas because its mixed with it. I also believe that if we had more demand for it, the refining of it would get more widesread and cheaper. Plus its renewable, and no matter what the price, 85% of it is from USA grown products, not the middle east.
 
alcohol vs. gas

Actually, years ago I looked into converting my 8 mpg muscle car to straight alcohol. I bought a bunch of books on how to do it, & how operate a LEGAL home distillery. Also found out what federal forms you need.

Anyway, alcohol has ony half BTU's of gasoline. So basically, in order to equal the performance of gas, you need to use twice as much alcohol.

Also you can not have any rubber parts in your fuel system. Alcohol will slowly deteriorate the rubber, which will eventually fail. But with todays plastics, you shouldn't need to use REAL rubber for anything in the fuel system.

If we use corn or wheat to make the alcohol, we'll also keep our farmers from going bankrupt!!!!!!!

The byproduct of combusting alcohol, is carbon dioxide & water vapor.

If we can run alcohol dragsters & funny cars, why not use it in our everday cars?

68COUGAR
 
Just the facts

XR7inWI said:
Continued use would likely raise hell with most of the fuel system. Tank, Lines, Injectors, Etc.

Besides that, your computer isn't setup for that much ethenol and would likely not deliver the correct amount of fuel.

Most of the E85 compatable cars are not even getting 20 MPG with E85 but much higher than that with regular unleaded gasoline.

The benefit of E85 is the fact that it is cleaner burning (In E85 compatable vehicles, but "dirtier" in vehicles requiring reg. unleaded).
Most of our fuel system is plastic, so Alcohol will NOT affect it.

20 mpg on alcohol would = 40 mpg with gas. That's because alcohol only has half the BTU's of gas.

How is E85 going to burn "dirtier" than gas, regardless of what engine it's run in? The by product of combusting alcohol is carbon dioxide & water vapor. Combusting alcohol burns the same, no matter what engine it is burned in. How is that dirtier?

68COUGAR
 
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