E85 Update

[d0n_3d]

Well finally got the car running and all is well. I ran the C-16 almost dry after it had been sitting for 6 months and went to fill it up with E85 at $2.65 a gallon (93 was $3.20!). Drove the car for about 20 miles and then let her idle for 5 minutes since I was checking and filling the transmission with fluid. Car seems to like this stuff. No engine lights or nothing abnormal happened. I did not get on it knowing I am running extremely lean now since the E85 is not like gas and you need more of E85 to run the car. The BLMs during cruise pegged out to 150 (they were about 128 before). I got home and adjusted the translator to give it 10% more fuel at idle and also adjusted the fuel pressure from 43.5 to 50 psi static. That brought down the idle BLMs to 139 and INT was around 128-136 (still on the lean side). I can't adjust the fueling anymore unfortunately and will either need to have the chip re-programmed for richer cruise or I'll have to get a translator pro system with a wideband. But just wanted to let everyone know that I'm in the process of trying to get this fuel dialed and tuned. It smells really good too! Smells like you are constantly spraying alcohol injection.

I have to get this thing emission tested tomorrow morning which was another reason why I love this stuff because I know this thing will pass with flying colors. I'll keep everyone posted on what else I discover. This will be a slow learning process but well worth it I hope in the long run.

 

[Quiky One]

Very interesting. Was reading your other post and was wondering about the rubber section of the fuel line as well. Make sure you keep your eye on them. So you think you will need about 20% more fuel or so with the e85?

Jason

 

[d0n_3d]

according to my "experts" we will need about 25-30% more fuel...this should be easily obtainable with a translator pro which allows you to adjust to plus or minus 64% i think...all i know is that this stuff is like 105+ octane, doesn't give off emissions, it totally cleans out your fuel system and engine, and is cheap...i really don't care if i use more fuel or not...and my good customer that runs this stuff in his race car told me not to worry about the rubber lines...it takes years for that stuff to eat through...if it ever does who cares, i'll just go with stainless braided lines!

 

[72firebird]

E85 has about a 27% decrease in energy content compared to Gasoline. E85 is rated at 83,263 BTUs compared to gasoline which is rated at 114,132 BTUs. However it's suppose to decrease emissions by 35% which will help you with your emissions test. Why do you need an emissions test out of curiosity? Since IN doesn't require it... If you PM me your mailing address I have a couple discs that I recieved from a guy at a CICCA conference in Ft.Wayne ( http://www.cicca.org/ ). I'm really suprised that you were able to find it for $2.65/gal. Lately the spread between gasoline and E85 has been about 10 cents after the ban of MTBE in California.

 

[BandAid]

Ok so you need more fuel to run correctly,and its only a a few cents less than premium,doesnt that defeat the purpose

 

[72firebird]

Ok so you need more fuel to run correctly,and its only a a few cents less than premium,doesnt that defeat the purpose

that's why E85 hasn't been very effective with the public. Around here you get there's a 10 cent difference so right now it's about a 4% savings, but it decreases your gas mileage by up to like 15%. However, once the production is increased on Ethanol in the next few years the price will hopefully drop (or stay the same while gasoline continues to quickly rise). As of right now the production of Ehtanol is no where near where we need to be in order to supply for the demand in the United States.

 

[TURBOPOWERED68]

If there is another available fuel then may be they will compete against each other. I mean e85 has to be better priced because you would use more of it and right now every body is mad about oil so may be the competition would help bring down the price of gas.
As soon as e85 is available near me I will use it even if it cost the same as gas just not to give the oil companies my money.

 

[d0n_3d]

Ok so you need more fuel to run correctly,and its only a a few cents less than premium,doesnt that defeat the purpose

yeah but like I said previously I don't care about the price. I'll run it if it's $3.00 a gallon. I'm concerned about it's OCTANE rating of over 105 AND the fact that it keeps the entire fuel system clean and the motor. And alcohol DOES make more horsepower than gas on a given tune. That's a well known fact. Plus the emissions helps too....yes unfortunately I live in northwest Indiana and we do have emissions requirements. we are one of only a few select counties that emission test!

btw I'm not just saving a few cents...we are talking 2.65 a gallon for E85 as opposed to $3.20 a gallon for regular 93. that's a huge spread. that's 55 cents...

 

[TurboBuRick]

This is good news. I'm going to try it.

 

[d0n_3d]

DOH! to my very surprise I actually failed emissions (they are REALLY strict here)...I was 4.90 GPM on HC (standard is 1.40) and I was 43.60 on CO (20 standard). Yikes guess me being completely out of tune has something to do with it but I figured it wouldn't have mattered with this fuel. The car is running extremely lean so the computer is trying everything it can to make up for it...that's why the BLMs don't budge from 150 during part throttle. Idle it's not bad at 135-140. Time to step it up to a Translator Pro I guess. At least they gave me a 30-day temp plate. I forgot to mention I had about a quarter tank of C-16 race fuel (sitting for 6 months) mixed with this stuff. Maybe that hurt the emissions. Oh well I'll figure it out.

 

[Nashty]

I'm really interested in this. I'd like to run it in my car but I don't think even 105 octane is good enough for 30psi and a 100 shot in a stage motor. I'll use it for street driving then I guess.

FYI...

E85 was $2.24 this morning here in Illinois, Regular is $2.89.

 

[d0n_3d]

Well I did some calculating and looks like I'm already too lean on the injector size. If I really want to make power and turn up the boost I will be out of injector and pump. You figure you take 65 lbs times 6 then times 2, you get 780 horsepower worth of fuel at 100% duty cycle and this is flywheel horsepower (on gas). When you switch over to E85, say you need another 30% more fuel to make the same volume as gas, you take 780 times .70 and you only have 546 flywheel horsepower at 100% duty cycle. 90% I only have 491 horsepower! I would actually need 84 or 95 lb injectors and probably another fuel pump to really make this work. Other than that, those are the only drawbacks I can think of. I'll keep playing around with it and see what I can get.

 

[72firebird]

DOH! to my very surprise I actually failed emissions (they are REALLY strict here)...I was 4.90 GPM on HC (standard is 1.40) and I was 43.60 on CO (20 standard). Yikes guess me being completely out of tune has something to do with it but I figured it wouldn't have mattered with this fuel. The car is running extremely lean so the computer is trying everything it can to make up for it...that's why the BLMs don't budge from 150 during part throttle. Idle it's not bad at 135-140. Time to step it up to a Translator Pro I guess. At least they gave me a 30-day temp plate. I forgot to mention I had about a quarter tank of C-16 race fuel (sitting for 6 months) mixed with this stuff. Maybe that hurt the emissions. Oh well I'll figure it out.

I also don't think that your ECM has adjusted to the new fuel. There was a right up on how to reset your ECM and make it adjust for your best chances of passing emissions. I don't exactley remember the steps but I'm sure it shouldn't be too hard to find. I would probably try running a couple tanks of either E85 or just regular gasoline and work on the tune for the E85.

 

[Pablo]

Thats awesome news man, im glad to hear you are trying it.


If we had e85 stations here I would have done the same.

There is a thread on turbo mustangs.com where a guy with a 347 tt running e85 made 1000 hp at 30 psi

 

[loki993]

definitly keep us updated, id like to hear more about this. i always heard that if you put e85 in a car thats not suppose to run it it will run like crap. its interesting that yours seems to be running ok with it, other than the lean issues.

 

[loki993]

i though about trying it in my truck, to pass emmisions, also just to see how it would run, but im pretty cure i cant tune the carb rich emough the get it to run right, now i think about it, it really dosnt run right now anyway

 

[ijames]

There's one station nearby that sells E85 but the one time I pulled in and checked the price, about 2 months ago, it was $0.30 more per gallon than 93. If you still had C16 in the tank that's a lot of lead, so even if you put a cat on you probably killed it, and if you had been running the cat before with the C16 it is almost surely dead. The fact that the INT isn't pegged at 150 or 160 like the BLM tells you that you are within the overall adjustment range of your chip, but you are at the end of the blm range, so I don't think that would necessarily make you lean for the test (and the ecm has finished learning the new fuel combo). If you run that tank dry and fill again with E85 you will shift the mix again and then the INT might also be pegged and the ecm would be out of range and you would be lean (how's that for a run on sentence? ). That's all for normal closed loop operation; there's no telling if you will be lean or not in PE mode. Around here the dyno drivers for the state IM240 test like to use digital mode, stomp the gas until the speed it too high, then let off and coast down until the speed is too low, then repeat, so we get lots of failures and PE mode is really important (that's why I turn it off in my emissions chips ). If you are really, really lean in PE mode you could be getting misfires which would kill your readings. Flush the lead out and put on a new cat and O2 sensor, for starters.

 

[TurboBob]

what chip are you running........?


B

 

[Sydwyndr]

Wouldn't a chip for a set of 50lb injector and a set of actual 72lb injectors be pretty close??

 

[TurboBob]

Sort of. The problem of tip-in stumbles would be an issue due to the opening speed of the different kinds of injectors. A 55lb chip, with 72lb injectors might be a better match.

B