E85 fuel...is it a good thing???
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torbs 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 fuel is obviously higher octane which is good for high compression/ turbo motors. Problem is that it is an alcohol based fuel as opposed to a typical petroleum base. Alcohol fuels WILL dry out any rubber/plastic fuel tubes or fittings. I'd say it's cool to maybe run a quarter tank on race day to when you turn up boost, or add a quarter tank to three quarters regular on the street. But don't run full tanks of it all the time, or you will be replacing fuel components.
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You must drive a car that is able to burn it and not wreck lines as seanjohn said. I think gas lids will be marked with unleaded or E85 only if you're car can run it. Vehicles with the FFV markings can run it for sure.
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i wouldn't use e85... being as it is an alcohol based fuel, you need to use more of it to achieve the same power as with normal fuel.
trust me, i tried a 50/50 mix of e85 and 92 octane... it resulted in having to richen up quite a bit just to idle normally -
yeah, i understand the principle of having to run a lot more fuel, but what about a potential of more power?...is it there?...im not saying i would use this fuel daily or anything, but it'd be a great alternative to methanol on street legal days to save some $ IF it were to work...
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Just spend the money on real race gas... its not that big of a difference; if your worried about saving a dollar or two on gas, you shouldn't be racing.
If you have to richen it up to run E85, you would be losing power....
Just buy race gas and lean it out...
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out there wrote:
if you have to burn more fuel, then you're going to spend more... so it would cost more to run e85. not to mention the cost of adding parts... trust me, i had this conversation with nick and kevin a while backBut you still had to try it didn't ya? Haha. Tell us how it worked out for ya.
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Through a little more research I found out that the stoichiometric coefficient for ethanol about 9.0:1, meaning you'd have to burn almost 1.5 as much just to get the same amount of power. But, that would only be if you are burning 100% ethanol. If you ran 20% ethanol, 80% 91 octane you'd have an octane rating of almost 94 and need about a 12.4 to run correct air fuel. Seems like this wouldn't be to hard with a properly tuned car.
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it's not hard to run e85, it just takes more. to be more specific about the problems i had... normally i idle just fine at -30% with my afc, but i had to richen up to -22% to get the vacuum needle back into the proper place. when i did a couple of 3rd gear pulls, i had to richen the entire curve 3-7% (something like that) to maintain the same knock counts as with my 92octane settings. sure, with e85 you can get better octane and run more boost... but there are so many other factors that need to be considered.
also keep in mind, these numbers are at +/-19psi on the 14b -
well...now that the idea of e85 working isnt true, im wondering if this stuff called xylene and tylene (sp?) work. a lot of ppl use it in dsmtuner as an octane booster...seems like they use it in a 10-15/85-90 mix with gas because xylene has an octane of 117 and tylene has an octane of 114...im not sure how much they cost around here exactly, but it would be great if you could make your own "home made" race gas, so you could run a little bit more on the street if you want, cuz we live in ND/MN and nobody seems to have over 92 octane at the pump around here (correct me if im wrong, cuz im not totally sure)...have any of you tried either of those to things?...later
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I use Touelene (sp?) on the street. It reduces my knock
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the advantage of Tuolene is that it is unleaded so doesn't mess w/ my O2 sensors. Tuolene isn't too badly priced either if you buy it in larger quantities (Fargo Glass & Paint can get upto 55 gallon drums, I buy it by the 5 gallons..special order)
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