ford and GM are trying to fastrack a blend of 85% ethenal and 15% gasoline into the marketplace. just wondering what affect this will have on octane since our finnicky motor is prone to detonation? if you want more on the story go to yahoo news or some other news organization.

 

shouldn't that ratio be around the other way?

they're running a 5% ethanol mix in australia now (100RON - that's not equivalent to US ratings). 10% is said to be a no-no for all rotars, except for the rx8. 15%??

 

ethenal is basically starting fluid. Most cars would have a problem with that.

 

It's called E85 and is 85% Ethanol. We have a three stations locally that carry it for $0.10 less than regular unleaded.

It's 100-105 octane and it also pulls alot more heat out of the charge than gasoline does. It's a GOOD thing for power. Problem is there are alot of issues in switching a normal car over to E85. Even if you retune the car for it (which is a requirement) you're still going to have fuel system problems. Rubber hoses don't like it and the flash point of the vapor in the tank is much lower than gasoline so you're supposed to run some sort of flame arrestor on the filler neck. Most of the injectors and pumps are fine with it...even though they're not rated for it. Stock fuel pressure regulators are iffy but aftermarket ones are usually OK.

I have a friend that's looking at converting his turbo 1st gen to E85. Should make for a monster.

 

pretty good info about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E85

 

http://www.turbomustangs.com/smf/ind...?topic=47094.0

Turbo mustang making over 1000whp on E85

 

Ok, now you guys have me worried! I run strictly Sunoco 94 octane in my Rx7 and also my bike (R6). It states on the pump that Sunoco fuel contains 10% Ethanol, or atleast here in PA. Should I be concerned. If so I will go to BP 93, not a big deal or anything, just dont want to be running something that is slowly eating away at my fuel lines and such. Just a note, i have run Sunoco 94 in the car since i bought it 2 years ago (approximately 15k miles), with upto this point, no noticed problems.

 

would some kinda 2 cycle oil or MMO help at the corrosion of the fuel system

 

All the refineries used to use extra MTBE to up the octane of the premium fuel but that was found too harmful to the enviroment. Now-a-days they use a 10% ethanol mix to kick the octane up cheaply. It's perfectly OK to run that. Even my 94's owners manual says that anything up to 10% ethanol is fine. Back then ethanol infused gas was alot more scarce and they still approved it.

Ultra 94 is good stuff...I wish we had Sunoco around here.