Lateral-g Forums - Anyone using E85

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We built a Supra that puts down 1060ish on E85.

A couple of problems to consider:
The one station in the area that carried it stopped selling it. He stopped selling it because of the wear and tear on his equipment.

The same goes for the car. There are no Ethonol "approved" lines. Well there were not a few years back when we built that supra. Regular fuel line works but it is soem nasty stuff and regular maintenence or monitoring is suggested.
The main thin we found is that fitting started to seap within 6 months and the first lines we made became gummy inside. So we made new ones of course.

The other issue is that there was ABSOLUTLY no consistency with the ethonol content of the fuel. It would be as low as E-70 and upwards from there. That can wreck havoc on a tune.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sniper (Post 361710)

Summit has fuel lines compatible with Ethanol.

I've seen disasters with this on people putting E85 into daily drivers that were not built for it. The problem is coming from damage to the fuel delivery system - not the engine.

As the price goes up on fuel, more people try to sneak E85 in their daily driver to save a few bucks.

E85 attracts moisture and will corrode your lines, injectors, pump - etc.

In an old hotrod with a metal tank, steel lines, etc, you are asking for trouble unless you upgrade.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wmhjr (Post 346674)

105 octane is a very common myth for E85. E85/Ethanol is not 105 Octane. it is actually using 93-95 octane. Any quotes of 105 octane are based on an "interpretive" method of labeling octane based on the blending ratio of E85 - and NOT an actual octane measurement. It behaves differently, allowing a cooler fuel burn which sometimes results in similar effects such as you would get with high octane gasoline, but it is not 105 octane. If you're running wideband, it also requires a far far richer A/F ratio than gasoline. Almost 50% richer. General guidelines for gasoline are around 14:1. E85 is around 9:1.

By itself running E85 does not make more power. It actually makes less. You can sometimes however increase compression, etc with ethanol/alcohol to make more power. Typically that involves boost.

A recent engine builder shootout using E85 to build the highest power output naturally aspirated engines resulted in those engines producing less power than similar gas engines.

With you on 50% more fuel flow which makes it hardly worth it unless it is 2/3 the price of hi octane. But it is a lot more knock resistant than the highest rated gas I can get (95).

Been running it for almost 3 years in a 68 Camaro with LS7. Ricks tank but regular fuel lines even with bare steel in them and no issues.

More power? There is no traction below 4th gear so hard to measure :).

It is very clean, cleaner than gas by most measurements, but is way over on formaldehyde.

:cheers:

If you're running a boosted application and you're already fuel injected, you can always set up the system with a fuel composition sensor and just dial the boost back when you don't have access to E85. I know White Racing and Marine has the ability to set up FAST, BS3 and Accel to work with flex fuel. I'm sure they're not the only ones around with the capability.

I wonder what the OEM do differnetly (if anything) on the lines and other parts for the flex fuel vehicles to make them Ethanol compatible.