E85 fuel...is it a good thing???
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torbs;10929 wrote:
I recently read a forum on dsmtuner and found it quite interesting...i was wondering how you local guys feel about this stuff...afterall, it is always gonna be 20 cents cheaper than gas, but you burn a lot more...plus, with the right tuning, you can make a bit more power...anywho, jw if u guys think this is a good thing or not...laterE85 is a terrible idea. Lets turn food, into fuel. Then over charge the be-jesus out of it. Not a good idea.
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XJHEAD;223682 wrote:
I couldn't imagine using that stuff....LOL...yeah, I've heard it's only good for 9 second passes on street cars making well over 1000 WHP.
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tjamz;223685 wrote:
LOL...yeah, I've heard it's only good for 9 second passes on street cars making well over 1000 WHP.Maybe if I used 91 octane it would go 8's.
On a serious note next time out the cage will be done and hopefully a few supsension changes will be done. I don't think they will let me back out there until then. Going to turn it up and see if it will blow.....Then time to build a real motor..
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Race gas for less than the price of low octane pump :icon_thumleft:
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XJHEAD;223687 wrote:
Maybe if I used 91 octane it would go 8's.On a serious note next time out the cage will be done and hopefully a few supsension changes will be done. I don't think they will let me back out there until then. Going to turn it up and see if it will blow.....Then time to build a real motor..
bah, don't blow it up. I'll take that clunker of a motor off your hands if you need me to.
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PSI2HI;223712 wrote:
Rumor has it corn is supposed to rise to $8/bushel which is going to make things interesting.I see already E85 is up to the $3.30 range around town.
Hopefully they will start doing more with making ethanol from other starches.
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I like the idea of ethanol as a cheap replacement for race gas. I think E85 from Corn in the US is probably a bad idea.
It would be interesting to have a corn farmer (Parker?) give his opinion on things, but a book I am reading ("the Omnivore's Dilemma) talks about the development of industrial agriculture in the US.
According to this book, the corn boom in the US took off after World War 2. There were lots of US factories that had been making nitrates into explosives and gun powder. They needed something to do.
To a very large extent, the limit of a piece of earth for producing food is based on the nitrogen extraction potential from that peice of soil. While 75% of the atmosphere is nitrogen, getting it a form that plants can use is tricky, and biologically, depends on bacteria growing on legume root systems.
A clever German guy (Haber, i think) figured out how to suck nitrogen out of the atmosphere as part of the Nazi war effort to make explosives. It didn't take more than a few clever Washington politicians to repurpose all of our ammo factories into making synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.
Once you have artificial fertilizer the yeild of a given peice of land goes way, way up, because you're bring in outside energy into the system. The green revolution is largley a product of industrial fertilizer production.
As it turns out, the Haber process for nitrogen fixing requires... fossil fuels to work. I beleive that specifically they burn natural gas to do it.
It's a bit ironic that the massive over-harvest of corn we have is only possible due to the Nixon era farm bill (that basically said the government would pay a certain per-bushel price irrespective of what the market did, instead of the earlier New-Deal era loan/cover program), and the infusion of synthetic nitrogen, the latter of which is only possible via fossil fuel depletion.
What's the point of turning fossil fuel into E85, via subsidized corn, and then claiming that it's a renewable energy source?
Naturally, if your corn operation isn't using Haber-process nitrogen in its fertilizers, that's a different story.
Anyway, that's what this book is saying about the industrial farming cycle. My post is getting too long for certain peoples tastes, so I'll stop here and see if anyone else wants to chime in on the natural of industrial corn production.
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Colin;223684 wrote:
E85 is a terrible idea. Lets turn food, into fuel. Then over charge the be-jesus out of it. Not a good idea.+1
Yeah it may claim to reduce dependency on foriegn oil, But has it? It costs way more to make a gallon of E85 than regular gasoline. It wasnt the right choice.
Now supposivly they are working on making ethanol from Garbage. But yet again they will probably charge an arm and leg for it.
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MisterCMK;223765 wrote:
The E85 haters need to realize that it is at least a step in the right direction. Rome wasn't built in a day. You need to take things one step at a time.exactly, be part of the solution not the problem. there isnt going to be a one clear cut fix all for our energy problems, but supporting the move in the right direction is going to get us somewhere much faster than sitting around spreading hate on whats already WORKING
here a psht, there psht, everywhere a psht psht
PVC SQUAD MEMBER #2- 95 CIVIC EX- DD 320whp on a mustang dyno
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I have been reading into E85 for the past few weeks, I will be converting my eclipse to it over the winter, hopefully before. I have read many threads on dsmtuners and talk about it. People on those forums and been running it with no longterm effects on the fuel system with the proper upgrades. All that is needed to run E85 is bigger injectors (around 1000cc) to compensate for the amount of fuel that needs to be used, larger fuel pump, upgraded fuel lines, and a good tune. People on talk have been making 450+ horsepower on a 16g.
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quik97GSX;223771 wrote:
I have been reading into E85 for the past few weeks, I will be converting my eclipse to it over the winter, hopefully before. I have read many threads on dsmtuners and talk about it. People on those forums and been running it with no longterm effects on the fuel system with the proper upgrades. All that is needed to run E85 is bigger injectors (around 1000cc) to compensate for the amount of fuel that needs to be used, larger fuel pump, upgraded fuel lines, and a good tune. People on talk have been making 450+ horsepower on a 16g.The size of injectors depends on how much power you are going to make, you don't automatically need 1000's, you just need a bit bigger injectors then you would on pump gas. And actually all you need is bigger injectors and a fuel pump with a tune. Stock fuel lines will work fine.
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true story^
ive been researching e85 for school for 2 years now and ive yet to find anything that makes me not support it
here a psht, there psht, everywhere a psht psht
PVC SQUAD MEMBER #2- 95 CIVIC EX- DD 320whp on a mustang dyno
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What about the fact that it takes fossil fuels to make the corn tha makes E85? I was hoping to have an enlightened response to what I wrote earlier.
Also, without the outrageous government subsidies, corn wouldn't be anywhere cheap enough to make corn-E85 worth doing. Corn is in absolutely everything because it's so cheap -- artificially.
"Do something" is not a valid reason for political action. I understand the desire to try and develop an alternative energy supply, but corn-based E85 appears to consume fossil fuels right at the start -- during the fertilization stage.
Consider this:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=grass-makes-better-ethanol-than-cornwhich is also going on the dakotas.
Note that corn has displaced other grass products all over the US primarly because of subsidies. It turns out that it's worse for cattle, worse for people, and worse for making ethanol, based on the admittedly limited reading I've done.
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