bheiman

yes i searched and got some info on this but here we go...

OK, E85 (85% ethenol, 15% Gas) has been slowly being pushed in the us.
Well, I live on the border of nebraska and iowa, two of the highest corn and ethenol producing states in the country and within a 5 mile radius of my house there are 3 gas stations carrying e85. the price of gas station A(which is in nebraska) is 2.65, gas station b(iowa) is 2.69-- actually it was right across the street from where i get gas and i paid 2.58 for 92(up to 10% ethenol though) and then a few blocks down the road gas station C is selling e85 for 2.19 a gallon!

hmm... i thought to myself what if after i finish upping my fuel system and engine management if i prepared it to run e85 also.

now i get the fact that there are differences in e85 and gas, and i understand that gas milage would decrease, but who needs gas milage when you drive a rotary(and for some weird reason i have been getting 20-26 mpg over the last 1000 miles) so i can take a hit for more performance(in more ways than one) for around 10mpg.
being that race gas around here (100 octane and 110) is going upwards of 6-7$ a gallon, i would much rather run clean with ethenol, even if it did cost me a little more in the end, plus being an alcohol, it would run cooler, and even though it would use more gas, wouldnt it give more power?

so what this comes down to is, what would i have to do to my car to be able to pump in e85?
but, i would also like to run if i had to 92 and 110-114 if i wanted...

thanks and have a great day...

also, if anyone has any experience in this stuff, can you pm me so i can discuss it with you a little more

DamonB

First off the entire fuel system (tank, hoses, injectors, breathers etc) has to be able to handle e85 as it's highly corrosive. If you wanted to be able to run gasoline as well you'd also need the proper sensors and ecu capabilities for the vehicle to know what the content of its fuel tank is and therefore tune the engine accordingly. Long story short the conversion wouldn't make sense from a money standpoint.

Joe Geiman

Damon is right. The fuel supply system must be made of materials that can tolerate the high corrossiveness of ethanol.

For example, Ford FFV vehicles have stainless steel components such as fuel pumps injector parts and fuel lines to resist corrosion.
Also as Damon said, there is a sensor in the fuel system to detect the type of fuel in the tank to alert the fuel controller in the ecm to adjust the delivery rate.

A conversion makes no economic sense. I'm told the FFV stainless pump for the Taurus was $2200 approx.

Joe Geiman
Gasoline Alley Fuel Injection
Indianapolis, In
www.lindertech.com

mcfly

I was hoping it would be easy to run e85.

appears not

airborne

From what you're saying E85 is 20% cheaper. Keep in mind that it gets about 65% of the mileage regular gas does. Here's the familiar Car and Driver graphic:




edit: sorry didn't read whole post

bheiman

ok, on the system of what type of gas is being used, i would just have different tunes on the megasquirt ems


and also, what about using AN lines for the fuel system...

so it would eat at the fuel tank, fuel pump, and what about a aftermarket fuel pressure regulator, and fuel injectors?

DamonB

Not that simple; wouldn't work. You're assuming the contents of the tank is always E85 or always gasoline. It's not. When you have a half empty tank of gas and then fill up with E85 what have you got now? The ratio of ethanol to gasoline in the tank changes everytime you fill up. The ecu system must be capable of knowing the exact concentration of the fuel entering the engine and it must be able to adjust for this on the fly. The ecu and fuel system must be specifically designed to do this; a few different fuel maps or switch settings can't cope with it.


All of those items must be able to stand up to ethanol. Ethanol is merely a type of alcohol and alcohol is highy corrosive. Any standard steels, plastic or rubber parts which come into contact with alcohol would deteriorate quickly. If we were to look at making the entire fuel system ethanol friendly you'd need a lot of ethanol friendly parts. Anything that can come in contact with the fuel:

fuel tank cap
fuel filler tube
fuel tank
fuel tank breathers and vapor recovery
fuel pump
fuel hoses
fuel injectors
all seals in fuel system
all parts and seals downstream of fuel injectors in the intake manifold
all emissions controls and valves
etc...

...and in the case of a rotary we probably don't want to know what ethanol does to the rubber seals inside the engine which seal the combustion chamber

And that doesn't even cover the electronics. This is why you don't see backyard E85 conversions; it makes no sense. Something like biodiesel for instance doesn't have these issues.

CodyHokieFD

Here is an excellent E85 running and dominating the competition:

http://www.me.vt.edu/hevt/

FLA94FD

E85 is a fad without government subsidies is would cost significantly more the normal gas. Hell part of reason gas prices went up was because of a government mandate to replace a petroleum additive with a alcohol based version. At some point when the truth is accepted that this is just another welfare project for the agriculture industry it will go cease to be produced in any significant quantity.

Kento

smg944

iTrader: (34)

a little off topic but all the pumps in the NE now have E10, will that effect the longativity of my fuel system? i didnt know that ethenol was that corrosive. 10% is still something....

poss

iTrader: (5)

I ran E10 in my car for several years without any problems.

Joe Geiman

Nearly ALL cars sold in the US since 1989 have the proper hardware and fuel system components to safely use E-10.

Joe Geiman

Gasoline Alley Fuel Injection

www.lindertech.com

monkhommey

as far as i know.. which isnt far... e85 alone will not help with performance.. e85 has a octane rating of 100-110. so for your average rx7 you would probably loose power unless your are goin to increase boost..

afterburn27

iTrader: (5)

Someone posted a few months back about converting their FD to run on E85... he seemed to be pleased with the results. I'll see if I can find a link.

*edit*

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...&highlight=e85

DamonB

^ That car is not running E85, it's running a 70% gasoline to 30% E85 mix. Big difference. The concentration of E85 is still low in that case.

fsae_alum

Putting a higher octane fuel in your tank will not typically cause you to lose performance. Octane rating is a measure of a fuel's resistance to detonation. The higher the octane rating, the more resistant it is to detonation. Putting VP 103 in your tank will do nothing for you if your car is tuned to run on 91. The beauty of running a higher octane fuel is that is that you can tune the engine to take advantage of the increased resistance to detonation and thus increase the boost, etc... to get more power. Not flaming....just informing.

E85 is more than just higher octane though and as mentiond above has it's own fair share of problems in other aspects.

afterburn27

iTrader: (5)

Whoops! That's what I get for not reading the thread

jprcars

We have e85 running in a 1990 Miata, The power has been great, MPG very good also, The Change over took less than 30 minutes, the Kit was Flextek unit ask for Allen, Now we have a Flex Fuel Miata. The only Problem is the e85 Gas Station is 120 Miles away, But that is about to change will be getting a 500 Gallon tank for home and 1000 gallon for work and buying @ wholesale Price $1.55 a gallon

jprcars

We have e85 running in a 1990 Miata, The power has been great, MPG very good also, The Change over took less than 30 minutes, the Kit was Flextek unit ask for Allen, Now we have a Flex Fuel Miata. The only Problem is the e85 Gas Station is 120 Miles away, But that is about to change will be getting a 500 Gallon tank for home and 1000 gallon for work and buying @ wholesale Price $1.55 a gallon

Gurew

iTrader: (4)

im having a hard time finding it wholesale here in arizona, i had a source for that price but they no longer sell it to the public and only sell it at the pump for 2.41 a gallon

Gurew

iTrader: (4)

e85 is no fad my friend....where else can you get 110 octane that burns cleaner and cooler for about the same overall cost or less than regular gasoline? the pluses far outweigh whatever negative you guys may think it has...e85 is quite simply badass...nuff said