Trying out E85, anyone else? Seems to be debate on conversion
 

Do I need to convert any fuel lines, fuel rails, FPR, or fuel tanks to do this safely? Some people say yes, some people say no. Feel free to make this a debate. If so what's the cost? Right now it actually costs more for E85 due to mileage loss but I'm running with no cats so that could help the pollution and stop the smoking at startup. Today $2.76 E85, $2.98 regular, or $3.16 premium. But hopefully if enough people start using it the price will drop. I've got a farmer nearby that is interested in making his own on 5 acres but he's got regular GMC trucks, but then again I'm not usually boosting (stock turbo is maxed as far as boost on a large streetport but I'm usually being outaccellerated but everyone so they must floor it or something) so I'm probably losing power too.
I decided to break down and give E85 a try in the T2 with Microtech LT-8 and Dynojet wideband. I put in a 50/50 mixture of E85 with premium today and added 15% to the mix trim setting. I probably should have started with 25% but too late now.
I have blueprinted primary injectors with Marren secondaries for now with RC Engineering secondaries to drop in and place the Marren's into the primary once I upgrade the turbo. Also a Walboro 255LPH pump. The rubber fuel lines are new and the vacuum lines are Hose Techniques silicone and the engine has the Rotary Aviation rebuild kit.

Never did it in my 7. I did it in my DSM plenty of times, generally 50/50 and tune for no knock. Of course, this is back when E85 was 1.50 a gallon and gas was 2.50. Here in san diego E85 price has exceeded gasoline so I don't feel a need to try and make the 7 run right on it. I was more into a cheaper, alternative fuel than the octane rating.

On the DSM, I had stock fuel tank, stock fuel lines, stock aluminum fuel rail. No problems.

You need to convert all fuel lines/fuel pump/injectors over to E85 safe plastics/rubbers/metals

Then you need bigger fuel injectors and a method to manipulate the fuel tables because E85 needs more to be injected to reach the same levels as gas.

So some dyno time will be needed to get your base maps down.

There has also been some debate on the alcohol washing away lubricants in the combustion chamber.

E85 is an environmental fad that WILL NEVER become economically feasible as an alternative to conventional gasoline unless the US can begin to cultivate corn on the moon...

To put it another way, don't bother with the swap. :icon_no2:

Tell that to the people in brazil..

Wow, that is pretty cheap... I saw $3.99 for 91 octane last week. I remember gas as cheap as yours last year sometime.

I can't wait for gas to get to $5 a gallon!

and Digi7ech's answer is correct

Except I have been burning alcohol for years and have not experienced any lubrication issues.

I assume you are referring to sugar cane used for biofuels in Brazil. If they produced it at maximum capacity it STILL WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO MEET CURRENT OR FUTURE DEMAND WITHIN THE UNITED STATES.

Regardless, much of their excess biofuel is under contract with Western Europe, specifically Sweden.

E85 or other current, alternative fuels will not satisfy growing US demand for oil / gasoline. Sorry, we're all screwed. Enjoy cheap gas while it lasts. :101384_l:

obviously youve never been to Iowa. we have so much f**king corn, most of it gets thrown away. the problem is that refining it takes so much energy, it hardly makes it worth it. so lack of corn isnt the problem there, chief.

VERY true. It is calculated that to produce enough ethanol for the US alone would require something like 99.7% of US land. Biodiesel is a much more viable alternative.

Ha, that's another one. When producing alternative fuels on a large scale it takes about just as much energy in coal as is produced by the alternative fuel. Through ethanol, almost no difference is being made in polluting the atmosphere as an end result.

E85 is the worst push ever. It's not a green energy at all. The fertilizers used to grow the corn are derived from petroleum. In addition to that you may not be producing a lot of CO2 but you would be seriously offsetting the nitrogen cycle which has serious repercussions as well.

:rolleyes: You're right, a lack of corn is not the problem. The root problem is a lack of land.

Again you are right, ethanol has a negative EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested). So even if there was enough corn in the world (there isn't) we would have to spend more energy / $$$ producing ethanol (using current methods) than we could obtain by burning it in our vehicles. Not to mention the fact that we wouldn't have enough corn left over to feed ourselves... :aroused:

"You need to convert all fuel lines/fuel pump/injectors over to E85 safe plastics/rubbers/metals"
What about the fuel rail? And any idea where to get these parts/how much they will cost?
If I stayed at a 50/50 mixture would it still do damage and how long would it take? I found a site where I guy has been running E85 in a WRX for 3 years with no problems yet, don't mean there isn't any. Then there is supposed to be a guy that's been running it for like 30 years and just changing out fuel filters. How long would the stock system last? Enough to save up for the switchover? And some guy was saying usually engineers overdesign for chemical resistance so if it can run on 10% ethenol it should run on much higher concentrations, which is logical but still theory.
I ran it for a day on the mix and I do like it, my clothes no longer smell of car, much less smoking at start up, and hopefully no more buildup on the bumper above the exhaust tips. But if it's going to damage the car it's not worth it, I've got at least 10k in mods/rebuild and the car has less then 80k on the odometer.

hydrogen owns all.

-Aluminum corrodes in the presence of alcohol
-The plating on the mild steel fuel lines as well as the mils steel it self corrodes in the presence of alcohol
-The lining of the tank is not sufficient for long term ethanol use
-Aluminum is electrically conductive (gasoline is not) so in short NO IN TANK FUEL PUMP SHOULD BE USED.
-All rubber needs to be rated for 100% alcohol use, organic rubbers (like the stuff sold at the parts store) very quickly degrade in the presence of alcohols.

that stinks, so even at 50% it'll be a problem?
I'm serious about this so where can I get parts for the conversion? Might have to save up but not like I don't waste money on the car already.

"Hydrogen owns all", show me how to run it and store it, I'm all for it. Maybe I'll just say screw it and do a Paul Pantone GEET conversion, that probably don't work with turbo EFI even if it does work though.

If you are trying to tell me people the differance between what you THINK you know and what you know then at least do some research before you talk smack. E85 is a great alternative and im attending a college that offereres bachelor degree in alternate fuels. There is plenty enough corn to make this happen. Not only that, it will bring the economy way up in the aggriculture world. It has alot of benefits you obviously dont know about.

LOL, everything I have stated has been based on research I have done or classes I have taken at the university level.

E85 is "a great alternative" in the eyes of the ignorant or politically motivated. :pat:

The sad fact is that if we geared domestic agriculture toward wholesale alternative fuel production the price of feed stock would drastically increase. Some of this is already occurring, check the price of meat this coming grilling season. When it comes to E85, the costs far outweigh the benefits at this time.

YOu keep coming back to corn. Now there is an extra step or two involved in refining corn that causes it to be in a negative NEB. However when you look at sugarcane or other alternatives that require less energy

Nothing else you are saying is groundbreaking. The problem is, alcohol based fuels here in the US are in their infancy, and they may not solve the problem but at least someone is trying a solution instead of saying "we are screwed".

l

ditto


At this point, ANYTHING we do to ease the strain on fossil fuels could be a blessing.

I'm not sure who you quoted in the second part of your response, but I never said alternative fuels should not be further researched and developed. The problem with E85 is that it has become popular due to agriculture lobbyists not because is better for the environment in any way.

My argument is that E85 is not a viable alternative and converting an inefficient rotary engine in an 80s car to run on E85 is a huge waste of time.

E85 can never replace the power/price of gas BUT it's not about price/effectiveness.

It's about the fact that is burns VERY clean.
It's a trade off. You lose some power but you gain a cleaner enviroment.

As for corn... Been over that in other threads. Almost ANY sugar based organic matter can be used for ethanol production.

A great example would be infected corn crops which can't be sold can be used.

Gas has become the wonder fuel of our era. It's going to be very hard to replace and maybe we never will. These are all second choices which help benefit our enviroment.

The arguments would be so much easier to address if everyone cited their sources.

And everyone seems to have left out electricity, the real "green" future of the automobile is the electric car. So we need more focus on Nuclear power, high capacity battery technology, solar energy collection and high efficiency electrical components.

E85 might be an important stepping stone to break away from the Middle East, Hydrogen may be the best possible replacement for the gasoline engine, but almost anything at this point is better than nothing.

Agree/disagree?

-Max

Agree.

Plus, farmers have been getting screwed for years, who cares if they make a little coin off this if they can get us off foreign oil?

I agree with that 100%, especially the electricity part. What we REALLY need is a more efficient rail system to take the strain off of the roads. If you look at Europe, far less people drive cars because they have such a good rail system. If I could ride the train to work I would do it in a heartbeat. It is far easier and less stressful, not to mention much better for the environment. If you use Nuclear power, it has no effects on the environment (except the storage of nuclear waste, which is nothing compared to what happens to the environment with fossil fuels). It can supply the needed energy in a very green manner. And don't even start about the unreliability. The only 2 problems have been directly related to poor management and inadequate training. Since the regulations have been stepped up there have been no problems. If you look at Europe there are nuclear plants everywhere with no problems.

http://www.thefuelman.com/fuelmanstills.html (bottom of page, gallons yeild per acre, 200 corn, 1200 jerueselum artichoke flower)
http://www.thefuelman.com/fullflexfaqs.html (confusing claims of no damage to rubber or alcohol if fuel is unadulterated with chlorine, solvents, additives, and water ie make your own)
Of course this is a website selling products so one should be skeptical.

http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php?js_enabled=1 (now this car is pimp, and pays for itself after 666000 miles with gas at $4/gallon, now just need to come up with the 100k)

Theres always the choice of running pure E. Im not sure where the prices are but last I heard you can get it for about 85$-100$/55 gal if you buy straight from a distillery . This was awhile ago and I'm not sure how much it is now but if your willing to have a few 55 gal drums of ethanol in your garage that might certainly save some short term cash.

Oh yea I could be completely wrong about those prices.. thats just what I heard awhile back

Yes, but it evaporates quicker putting raw hydrocarbons into the environment faster because of its smaller polymer chain.

E85 will never take off unless it gets below $2 a gallon and because of the amount of energy(uses natural gas/coal)it takes to make one gallon of E-85. E-85 even though it's manufacturured domestically, the price per gallon will still be influenced by the current fuel prices. You can also use almost anything that decomposes to make E-85, corn, tall grass, wood chips, dead bodies...we need some other type of fuel that we can make relatively cheap here in the USA.

What really get me, LPG(propane/butane) and NG(natural gas) are very readily available to every consumers as a alternate fuel source, but as a product of the US oil cartel, it costs just as much as a regular gallon of gas and wouldn't be a feasible conversion. Belive me, I've been researching it lately. I even found a company in Australia that makes a kit for RX7s for $2400us. You can refill a LPG converted car just as quickly as filling your car with gasoline, but NG will take up to 13 hours for a refill.

Didn't someone convert their Ford Escort to run off gas/water? It was in the news sometime last year. This was the same guy that made a cutting torch that uses nothing but water.

Where does LPG come from anyway?
Really? I've got plans I found at a website called spirit of ma'at or something like that (I'll have to look) on how to run a car on pure water. The only problem was you have to ceramic coat your cylinders and pistons (or rotors) and install stainless steel valves (no problem for us) and it had only been tested on carberated NA cars, though they did mention someone testing a gas/hybrid one in Mexico but did not give any info on where to find it. What you end up doing is having a "bubbler chamber" with electrodes in it and a control box the uses electrolysis to convert it to hydrogen and oxygen and the amount varies with throttle sensor (you tune it to 30psi at idle and 60psi at WOT).
The Paul Pantone GEET device looks promising, but again NA carb'd from all I've seen, I'm going to try it out on a lawn mower. Reason I'd like straight ethanol is cleanliness and ability to make my own. Why can't you run a still on ethanol to make more ethanol? I'll have to see about buying the drums of it, still need to find where to buy conversion parts.

Oh yeah, and would it be possible to get away with running a GT35/40 on the stock IC due to burning cooler? I've seen a 400hp late 90's Tiburon in a magazine with 2 400hp turbo'd 4cyl motors running on methanol with no IC at all, was dubbed the ultimate sleeper in the magazine. If so I could sell off my universal IC parts to pay for the conversion.

heres a link on how to make ethanol. but more important, this site seems to tell truths about ethanol, including the issues like corrosion and efficiency.

http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/

talking about ethanol or like ethyl alcohols, we use that alot in canada.

i am highly against that type of thing.

Lets see corn -> fuel

so,
price of corn goes up
price of food using corn goes up
price of animals who eat corn goes up (cows, pigs, the works..)
what else did i miss?

sorry to change this to a fuel crisis topic, but really the whole world should be using hydro electric plants, and everything else should be electric. Would never happen but that makes the most sense. im no tree hugger, i love burnin me oil, just a thought...

You make some good points. Corn cannot both feed us (and our livestock) and sufficiently supply our energy needs.

Hydro power is a great, clean power source but there are not enough sources to meet current or future energy needs.

True, but you can make it from anything that breaks down into a sugar/alcohol. If I buy jerueselum artichokes for growing as fuel I don't think anyone else uses those for food, i'd never heard of them and they yeild 10x more per acre then corn.
Thanks for the link, I've actually came across that site before. What I need is a place to get the parts for the conversion, like either a coating for fuel tank, or fuel cell,fuel rail, fuel pump, and fuel lines.
Another project I'm considering with the spare oil/coolant leaking car is an electric conversion. With a $1500 motor I can get top speeds over 70mph at least with a range of at least 40mph. But I think I'll try to pickup a used fork truck motor to try it out first. There was a guy with a 2.5hp golf cart motor in an Isuzu pickup that can go 20mph :\ Still want to keep the turbocharged beast of course, but wouldn't need to daily drive it.

hydrogen or H3 > anything else. There i solved all the arguing :D

E-85 and premix? I premix and Im trying to get all the little answers before i go trying e85.

on ethanol subject ,

Ford's first prototype model was fuel by hemp ethanol. This would great as it does not deplete soil nutrients like corn.



apreludem- H3? Whats that? I happen to be familiar with cH3, i think. toluene? I say we all try toluene with fuel heaters of some sort.

I'm crossing my fingers for Algae gas to take off.. >_> 100% compatible with all cars, carbon neutral, grown in the wastelands.. Sounds like a plan to me!

Instead of spending the cash on converting your car to a fuel that will go by the waste side of alternatives. Many My self included) find it ridiculous that 70% of corn grown goes out out tail pipes while creating more pollution to cultivate them than would be made by using straight gasoline.

Consider instead a conversion to compressed natural gas or CNG. A conversion kit can cost under $1000 installed for a DIY'er. No new injectors, virtually plug and play.
Here's the kicker, running CNG with no catalytic converter will pollute 20% less than E10 with a cat! And will cost about $1.30 per gallon (after you convert units).

You might guess i am very interested in it. My current dwelling makes it impossible for me to convert now. But I might go ahead and convert to LP.
http://www.cngnow.com/EN-US/Vehicles...verttoCNG.aspx

http://push.pickensplan.com/group/cn...dtheirvehicles

http://cngoutfitters.com/

How did this come back from the dead?

Hydrogen does not exist in a usable state in nature. It is either made from natural gas, at a significant net loss of energy (and we're still hydrocarbon dependent and contributing to GHGs), or its produced via electrolysis of water, at a huge net loss of energy. Since hydrogen production requires other energy sources that can be used for transportation, and at net loss of energy and efficiency, it can't be economically viable.
/hydrogen

CNG does still use hydrocarbons. But it is a cleaner form of hydrocarbons than any other hydrocarbon fuel. It has more energy per unit than alcohol, almost as much as gasoline. Just cleaner.
Plus, transporting CNG requires no fuel. Gasoline and alcohol have to be trucked. CNG is piped everywhere.
We have the largest (land locked) reserve of natural gas in the world. If we converted every vehicle in the US to CNG tomorrow, we could drive and heat our homes for the nest 300+ years, with no oil imports.
We have a cleaner burning alternative that has a smaller carbon footprint to distribute, and we would be independent. No change in fuel economy. All at less than 1/2 the cost to consumers.
I can Google that for you.

Awesome! But has anyone tried to do a Rotary CNG conversion yet? Could the tank replace the gas tank location[to do pure CNG driving] - or how much of the hatch space would be used for the tank[s]?
And do you think this is a better solution than algae gas? [Pollution/cost/production #s]

the corn that is used for livestock feed is not the same corn used in human consumption and is also not the same corn use for making ethanol.

diesel > everything



while were at it

Yes, you are correct. however, those thousands of acres could be growing something else for human consumption. Or a tree farm to increase O2 production.


Diesel has more energy per unit than most other fuels out there. But, it takes energy to refine it and distribute it. It also has much higher levels of pollutants than most other fuels. It is the most stable transportation fuel. Meaning it's very hard to ignite.
Natural gas however, disperses into atmosphere quickly and has a very narrow range for ignition.


There are small tanks available where you could fit two in the stock location. though your range will be limited. A CNG tank is considered empty @ around 700 PSI. Below 1000 PSI you may notice some drivablility issues. A tank in the hatch is a good way to go because you can not only extend your range, but have options for fuel.

Algae gas is not feasible. It costs thousands of dollars to make a few gallons. Not to mention lots of land. If it ever becomes viable, I don't believe it will be in my lifetime.