E-85 Fuel and FI Engines...

[TNVIPER]

I was reading on another forum about a SRT-4 Turbo that had been dyno tuned. The poster stated in his thread that the tuner told him that if E-85 fuel had been available he could have pulled more HP.........anybody here have knowledge with this?.............below is a link to an article in Hot Rod magazine discussing E-85 as a performance fuel...Seems E-85 is 100-105 octane...

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


,,

 

[Cudajon]

I suspect its true, but Ethanol holds less energy than Gasoline, therefore requires 30% more for combustion. In other words a much lower AFR ratio.

 

[dnz28]

my alky engine on my old camaro never reached temp even after a hard run. you will pull more power cause timing can be increased along with compression ratio on a true alky engine. e-85 iis junky once you hit that consentration just go all the way to the pure stuff.

 

[Begood]

And your fuel usage goes way up.

Bill.

 

[TNVIPER]

I know about the loss of mileage and power in NA cars but a FI tuned with E-85?.....E-85 sells around here for about a $1 less than 93 octane...

 

[DevilDawg3097]

Good book on that subjsct, "Alcohol can be Gas", by David Blume, he answers all the questions and myths about ethenol and alcohol, which is funny the first cars built ran on alcohol. All kinds of good stuff worth the read.

 

[Annu Kumar]

Good book on that subjsct, "Alcohol can be Gas", by David Blume, he answers all the questions and myths about ethenol and alcohol, which is funny the first cars built ran on alcohol. All kinds of good stuff worth the read.

dave blume is my client I made his books:rock: He resides here in South of San Francisco

 

[DevilDawg3097]

No shit, then you need to pick that mans brain about running it through our trucks.

 

[TNVIPER]

Any comments from some of out tuner/vendors?....no interest in this?.......what I have read this could be a substitute race fuel with the right combo of mods...FI or high compression, tune with aggressive spark advance......:dontknow:

 

[Dom426]

it is a waste of time

 

[Prof]

Ran straight methanol in a Harley Drag Bike...had to drill out the jets in the S&S carb with a 1/16th bit to get enough fuel...got about 20 miles to a tank of meth (2.3 gals).

Ran very clean, cool, and shot blue flames out of the straight pipes...popped like every alky engine! Kewl

 

[JTS VENOM PERFORMANCE]

TNVIPER I have no freaking clue bud,

the only person I can even think of is Fstjack, maybe when he gets home and a little rest I will call him to make sure he made it ok and resting and will pick his brain a little on the subject.

i think we wore his fanny out in panama

 

[NightRunner385]

I started a thread a few months ago about the possibility of using an SCT tuner (or similar method) to reprogram the computer to compensate for the different air/fuel ratio that would enable us to run E85. The thread never really got much traction, so to speak.

I would think that the FI guys would take a serious look at this option as there could be several benefits to using E85 such as: ability to run more boost from the increased octane, but also (and this is a biggie for FI) the natural intercooling effect that alcohol creates as the fuel vaporizes. I believe this is due to an effect know as the "latent heat of vaporization", I'd have to dig up my old Physics text books to explain the science behind it. This could significantly lower intake air temperatures and allow even higher boost levels to be reached.

The down side is, as mentioned in some of the posts above, that when running E85 (or any alcohol) more fuel must be used per unit of air than with gasoline. Gas engines use an air/fuel ratio of about 14:1, pure alky engines use (I believe) an air/fuel ratio of about 9:1, so E85's optimum air/fuel ratio must lay some where in between those two, say 10 or 10.5:1 just as a guess. So this means that a larger amount of fuel must be introduced into the intake charge than one would need when running standard gasoline.

Other changes needed to run E85 would be changing the rubber seals in the fuel system to a material that can handle the new fuel and possibly changing some of the metal parts in the fuel system to resist the increased corrosive effects that E85 has over gasoline. Anyway, sorry for the long post, but this is a topic that I've followed for a while.

edit:
Here's a link to the previous thread I mentioned above. It's got some interesting links if you'd like to read more about E85.

http://www.vtcoa.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24772&highlight=e85

This topic seems to be very politically charged for many people. I'd like to submit that we take a look at this topic from a performance standpoint as opposed to some political football--it that possible?

 

[Dom426]

the afs are more like 7 or 8 to 1 justin chime in on this he was tellin me about a e85 dyno shootut that they had somewhere help me out with this one justin thanks

 

[TNVIPER]

I started a thread a few months ago about the possibility of using an SCT tuner (or similar method) to reprogram the computer to compensate for the different air/fuel ratio that would enable us to run E85. The thread never really got much traction, so to speak.

I would think that the FI guys would take a serious look at this option as there could be several benefits to using E85 such as: ability to run more boost from the increased octane, but also (and this is a biggie for FI) the natural intercooling effect that alcohol creates as the fuel vaporizes. I believe this is due to an effect know as the "latent heat of vaporization", I'd have to dig up my old Physics text books to explain the science behind it. This could significantly lower intake air temperatures and allow even higher boost levels to be reached.

The down side is, as mentioned in some of the posts above, that when running E85 (or any alcohol) more fuel must be used per unit of air than with gasoline. Gas engines use an air/fuel ratio of about 14:1, pure alky engines use (I believe) an air/fuel ratio of about 9:1, so E85's optimum air/fuel ratio must lay some where in between those two, say 10 or 10.5:1 just as a guess. So this means that a larger amount of fuel must be introduced into the intake charge than one would need when running standard gasoline.

Other changes needed to run E85 would be changing the rubber seals in the fuel system to a material that can handle the new fuel and possibly changing some of the metal parts in the fuel system to resist the increased corrosive effects that E85 has over gasoline. Anyway, sorry for the long post, but this is a topic that I've followed for a while.

edit:
Here's a link to the previous thread I mentioned above. It's got some interesting links if you'd like to read more about E85.

http://www.vtcoa.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24772&highlight=e85

This topic seems to be very politically charged for many people. I'd like to submit that we take a look at this topic from a performance standpoint as opposed to some political football--it that possible?

Hell...I have been against the stuff but then I started reading more and discovered it might be a substitute for racing fuel.....and dang it I am not saying it is as good but just a sub.....better than adding octane boosters.........and with the SCT you can jump back to E-10 (about all gas has 10% ethanol).for the road...:dontknow:

 

[JTS VENOM PERFORMANCE]

I did a little looking today on the subject and found this info, its a little long but may help answer some of your questions sir


http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/hrdp_0801_e85_ethanol_alternative_fuel/e85_race_fuel.html

 

[TNVIPER]

I did a little looking today on the subject and found this info, its a little long but may help answer some of your questions sir


http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/hrdp_0801_e85_ethanol_alternative_fuel/e85_race_fuel.html

Thanks Stink...interesting..

 

[davo19]

my buddy wants to do his blown z06...

 

[NightRunner385]

the afs are more like 7 or 8 to 1 justin chime in on this he was tellin me about a e85 dyno shootut that they had somewhere help me out with this one justin thanks

I think that methanol has the air/fuel ratios that you're talking about here. I'll do some more research and see what I can turn up on this.

EDIT: I found a website by a guy that drag races (and sells) carb'ed E85 setups. It's got some good information on it about using E85 to replace 110 octane race gas. Under the "Basic E85 Tuning Tips" section of the site he states:

"Stoichiometric ratio for E85 is 9.8:1 shoot for an air/fuel ratio of 7.0 (max power rich) to 8.5 (max power lean) @ WOT for best (safe) power. If you use an EGT meter to tune off of you know that ideal temps. will vary greatly from one combinations to another. It has been our finding that if you keep it below 1500 degrees while you are sorting out your tune up you don't have to worry about hurting anything in the process."

So it seems that your statement above was correct. I think this is true for gasoline as well. The stoichiometric ratio for gasoline is 14.7:1 but when tuning a race setup for optimum power you would go richer than this and end up somewhere around 12:1.

Here's the link to the site I'm talkin' about:

http://www.raceone85.com/

It's even got a link to a brand new message board on it that looks like it just started up at the beginning of August. A lot of the questions that we've been pondering on this thread can be answered on the site--check it out!

 

[TNVIPER]

Spoke with Torrie from Unleashed Tuning (he did the tuning for my truck)...he said our trucks lack...forgot what it was....anyway he said it would not work right and would cause drivability problems...