How to do E85 correctly?
 

Either the search engine is not very good, or there isn't a single thread on this whole site with "E85" in the title. That doesn't seem right. Anyway...

Pending a local gas station responding to my email and confirming they do indeed offer E85, I'm strongly considering making the switch. No flex fuel kit for me, 100% E85. I have zero experience with the stuff, outside of my hatred for E10. So I'm wondering:

What all needs to be done for a proper, long term, 100% E85 setup? I know you can just get a tune and go, but I want to do it right.

Is a tune alone all I need for smooth running performance and longevity, or should I seriously consider injectors, sensors, etc.? If so, what makes the additional parts necessary?

I believe I read somewhere that E85 doesn't get as good of mileage per gallon as regular gasoline. I'm not even sure if that's true or not, much less whether a tune would bring the efficiency closer to ethanol-free numbers. I don't really care about fuel economy, but considering this one station will be the only one within a 100 mile radius of my house, I'll pretty much be tethered to this store. Not really a deal stopper, but something I definitely will need to be aware of.

I'm also open to and would appreciate any other insight to the mysterious world of E85-onlyness.

I heard people have had good luck with Visconti working on getting different fuel in our cars.

O rly? That sounds promising, I'll have to look into that. I only deal with shops that have legendarily good customer service, so it should work out fine.

If by fuel in our cars you mean fuel on our cars, and the car igniting. Then your right visconti so far has had the best success at burning down someone's car while he's tuning it with his flex fuel system installed...

Seriously though for e85 stay away from visconti.

Fa20club I've heard has a very nice flex-fuel kit.

And moto-mike does e85 tunes as well.

This has got to be a troll thread... I've been hustled!

No, the OP is totally serious, the thread just went full retard immediately after that. Like I said, I'm not interested in flex fuel anyway. I really am asking about the details of owning and maintaining an E85-only car.

In all seriousness, I've been told all you need is a correct tune and you're good to go.

Yeah, that's what I've gathered over time too, but I was just looking at injectors that were claiming they're particularly good for an E85 setup, which in turn got me wondering if there's anything else really necessary for a really legitimate E85 setup.

I guess I was kind of approaching it like nitrous. Like any kid can throw a 200 shot of nitrous on his car and go screaming down the road. But a really good proper nitrous setup with all the tuning and redundant safety systems can run you almost as much as a decent FI setup.

I don't want to be that kid that just does one quick bolt on this blows his shit up 200 miles later. Not that E85 is that drastic, but you know...

It seems like there might would be a more ideal ignition system for E85 than whatever the factory uses. Maybe some more effective spark plugs or something. I'm completely speculating though, I'm certainly not a physicist.

e85 has been known to corrode some components in our OEM fuel system (plastics and adhesives, fuel pump parts, etc)

As long as you do not leave e85 in the system for an extended period of time (IE: let it sit a week or two with a tank of e85) it will not be a problem in the short term.

However in the long term, I do believe you want to replace the OEM in-tank fuel pump and look into which plastics are corroded by e85 and change components out with e85-safe materials.

Like I said though, in the short term its almost 100% safe which is acceptible to most individuals. It goes without saying that if ANY dealership finds out you ran e85 in your car, your warranty will be long gone.

i forget the exact terminology for it, but i no e85 is more "acidic" to things in the car like filters it runs through (like i said, forgot exact term). idk what u would replace them with to hold out better tho, but as im sure u've seen no cars are PURE e85 factory but only flex fuel (mix both. so that way it's less harsh but u get the benefits of being able to mix both and get power AND mpg. just food for thought. i grew up around custom bikes (none dare to use e85 over a properly built bike) and these r ppl that do bikes, cars, track funny cars, full builds, u name it. e85 is nice but i dont get why this forum is so religious by it the same why they are with 400+ HP 1/4 miling the cars (this car was ment to be driven and not launched only). I would say do flex over pure e85, but thats just my input

If it looks like there isn't enough aftermarket support to do E85-only, I'll just hold off on it for a while. I'm not trying to have my fuel system go all to shit.

I want to get headers and exhaust for weight saving puposes, but I don't want to do that without a tune. And if I'm going to buy a tune and if E85 is actually available now, which it seems like it is, I feel like I might as well go with that.

It's always a vicious chain reaction with me. Want to save weight, so need E85.

There was only one car that had problems while running E85 BUT it was never determined of it was due to E85 or something else.

There are tons of STI/WRX running E85 only for years, no issues. Our fuel system uses same components as those cars.

Its good practice not to let a tank of E85 sit for a month but then again I have a friend with an STI who let the tank sit for 1+ years and his car started on first crank, zero issues.


To run E85 on an NA car you dont need anything else, just a tune. Injectors and/or FP are a must only for Force Induced cars and probably down the road when people build crazy NA setups.

I dont want to sound like the biggest fan or defender of E85 but IMHO if run properly, you wont have much issues if any.

Well I do like the sound of that.

Except for that whole high pressure fuel system and direct injection thing. Minor detail though.

Oh yes, FI system is different becuase of DI, but when I said components I mean materials. Those cars have the same material on the fuel lines, same filter inside he in tank fuel pump canister, and such.

Your search failed because the keyword was too short :) Best way to search is to use google in the format "E85 site:www.ft86club.com/forums/"

I did an E85 how to for BRZedit a couple months ago.

There are several web sites that you can use to locate E85 stations and iphone / android apps as well.

Here is a government site for example:

I think the general consensus these days is that all modern vehicles can run E85 without any long term issues, assuming your supply is always clean. If your supply is contaminated you can get some nasty gunk build up on the injectors and the valves. The solution to the gunk is to run a tank of regular premium gasoline every couple months.


E85 requires about 30 - 35% more fuel to be injected than pump gas does. If your fuel system has the headroom all you need is a tune to scale the injectors for the added fuel delivery. Our fuel systems have enough headroom if you stay naturally aspirated, if you go forced induction, your will need to upgrade the port injectors.


This is true. To over simplify it E85 requires 30 - 35% more fuel to reach it's stoich point (ideal ratio of fuel to oxygen for complete combustion) than gasoline does. As a result you need to re calibrate the ecu for the additional fuel flow and you will loose some MPG. In the real world i am seeing about a 20% max drop in gas mileage.

E85 is a higher octane fuel and it is oxygenated, since you burn more of it, you make more power just by using it. You also make more power by optimizing the tune to take advantage of the higher octane. As a result, you use less throttle for cruising than gasoline so the mileage drop is not as bad as the additional fuel requirement would lead you to believe.


You need to decide if E85 is readily available enough to you for you to run it all the time. It's not quite as simple as flashing back to a pump gas map and filling up with 93 if you get stuck in an area without E85. It is, but, you really need to run the tank down as much as you possibly can to avoid fuel trim issues etc. Same is true when you go back to E85 from pump gas.

Flex Fuel kits allow you you mix and match at will but the convenience comes at a high price.

Some of the reputable tuners that offer E85 tunes are Delicious tuning, FA20club (also offers a flex fuel kit), Moto-East. Personally, i would avoid visconti. IF you are a DIY guy you can buy BRZedit and follow my E85 How To and do your own corn tune :)

Thanks so much! Very good response. That link you posted doesn't have the station I have in mind. Of all the websites I've looked at, which is about 10, my station shows up on about 4 of them. That's why I'm not so sure about it. I'm hoping it's just new and not all of the sites' databases have it yet.

And this is a project car, so being doomed to using just one gas station for a really long time is no problem at all. I'll continue to rock the E0 in my daily driver.

Fa20 ALL THE WAY!!!!

Hahaha aaaand the drunk guy bursts into the room. ;)

If it makes you feel any better, I've been running E85 with a @Visconti tune sine December 2012 with 0 issues. I recently switched back to pump gas purely for the sake of trying the newest pump gas tune and see how it is compared to the original one I got. Once this tank runs dry, I'm going back to E85.

I have a fully stock fuel system.

Well, between your, Sportsguy83, and mad_sb's comments I'm feeling pretty comfortable with the idea. I had already figured it was a pretty safe deal, I'm just trying to be really meticulous about it - prevent any long term problems by upgrading anything that needs it from the beginning.

The only reason to need upgraded injectors/pump with E85 is if you are installing an FI kit at the same time. Stock injectors and pump can't can't pump enough fuel into the car to take full advantage of more air. If you're staying NA, you GTG.

neither the Visconti kit, which last I checked had something to do with cutting an OE fuel line with pipe cutters, wtf

and the fa20 kit appears to be barb based, and fwiw, its better in the way of connections but not best

I'm running e85 on my car with OE pump and injectors, go figure

wat

He will not install a flex fuel kit, he only wants to run E85 on his stock fuel system.

I AGREE!! Been using e85 before and after my turbo no problems here :D$3.19 a gallon :) !! beats 4.02 for pump93 IMO

Where are you finding E0?

Robispec had issues with his mostly stock fuel system. He blamed the e85 if I remember correctly. After cleaning and replacing parts, he stuck with E85.

Other than the occasional fire, I'm not hearing about many issues with E85.

The twins are well-suited to E85 because of their high compression. The fuel's octane allows more timing, getting more powah. I'm not sure it's worth the effort, though, without going FI. With FI, there's a lot more power to gain. I've never seen an e85 versus 91 or 93 drag race comparison.

And mad-sb has it right on finding a good tuner. I've seen a long line of people who felt burnt by mail-order tunes. It seems more people are happy with the mail order tunes than not, but the odds don't look that great.

In the end, I would find a local tuner with massive experience and a good reputation. I hear there are also remote dyno tunes possible, but that doesn't sound good to me. A remote tuner won't hear or see the car's reactions as well. They might miss some subtle knocking. Maybe I'm wrong on that, though.

The two gas stations nearest my house offer it. As a matter of fact, the one that's actually walking distance from my house offers ethanol-free 87, 89, and 93 octane, whereas the other one only offers 87.

Well yeah, but that goes for any power adding mod after that point.

I don't have a truck to pull my car, so bringing the car to and from a tuner from MS would be quite the hassle. If I was boosting it I'd do it, but the idea of a NA E85 setup is very appealing to me. An E85 tune costs exactly the same as non-E85 tune, and I'm not doing I/H/E without a tune, so choosing E85 is a no-brainer.

Known to? One person had a failure, one time. Noone knows if it was caused by e85 or some other external source.

I honestly don't think a tune is worth the effort unless you're going FI. After you install a full intake then exhaust system from the block back followed by a tune, you're halfway or more to an Innovate kit, but nowhere close on overall power. I think it's go big or go home.

Now if you're going to add in valves, springs, cams, porting, stroking, and other work to get higher rpm performance, that's another story, but I haven't seen or heard of any seriously built NA cars. I wonder what compression ratio this car can handle on E85.

If I can have 210+ hp to the wheels, I will be quite content. Several people are making 200hp on pump gas, so I think 210+ on E85 is a very reasonable goal. Once I'm all done with my car, I might boost it at that point.

Might be worth ordering a test kit just to be sure that 93 is not really E10 :)

Anyway, cal them for sure, i found that one of the stations listed in my area did not carry E85, but i found another that did that was not listed, so i submitted it. If you find one station that has it, ask if the owner has other stations and if so, if any of those carry E85 as well.

Next to FI, E85 + Tune is going to net you the most area under the curve. If were starting over at the begining, i would do header, e85, tune and be done with power mods until i was ready for FI.

AGREED! but it will drive you nuts you will do that then your going to want more and more power hahaha i went from e85+tune -> FI -> now i want to build lol... call up FA20club.com

Definitely approve of the thorough approach. I am the same way when I commence a build---I want every single facet of the setup looked over and make sure nothing is missed. I was leery on the E85 front for many many years now, but after seeing literally hundreds of locals use it religiously for tens of thousands of miles, my concerns were assuaged significantly.

Mad_SB's post is spot on. Expect fuel consumption to be higher. 20-30% is a fair estimate, and usually the cost-savings per-gallon compared to 93 are insufficient to make up for the extra gas required to meet E85's stoich ratio. So you need to decide if the power's worth it for you (unlike what another poster stated, there WILL be notable gains over 93 tune, even without FI). Beyond peak power numbers, the entire powerband will be significantly smoother due to the aggressive ignition advance you can run on E85's ~108 octane.

I'm presently on Visconti's 93+E85 tune, but I second the vote for FA20Club. Tony's a great guy, with customer service that's second to none in my and others' experience. I'd recommend planning to run FA20Club's flexfuel setup in the future. E85 is notorious for inconsistency in the mix (you rarely get FULL 85%). Flexfuel Kit not only allows it to be perfectly adapted every time, but if you travel and can't find E85 (my E85 locator apps on my android phone have been wrong more then once), it's a nice backup to be able to add 93 to the mix without the laptop in the car.

Final point is, it's a good stepping stone in my eyes if you don't have $3000+ to drop on a forced induction kit right now. The stock map is absolutely atrocious (some might even say unsafe). Going this road with a proper flex kit from an attentive vendor is not a sunk cost if you decide to go forced induction down the road. You don't lose that investment, it only further benefit your new turbo/super setup.

Do you have a specific kit you would recommend? I'm looking at them on Amazon and there are a bunch.

Yeah, that is a good point. I knew about that, but I wasn't thinking about that yesterday when I posted this. I was thinking I might just get a flex fuel kit in the future if going to the same gas station over and over was too inconvenient, but the whole point of a tune is so that car runs at its best. So maybe I will think more seriously about getting a flex fuel kit upfront.

This is the way to do it correctly, have FA20Club dyno tune it with ECUtek. Car is much better now, should come stock like this.

[ame="http://youtu.be/TDUm79psQLs"]http://youtu.be/TDUm79psQLs[/ame]

While the Visconti saga raged on the forums, I was doing research on an alternative to pipe cutting and incorrectly sized EFI hose. Now correct me if I'm wrong or if it's too much of a leap to conclusion, but judging from the way the OEM hose uses FPM/FKM as the inner lining as opposed to the traditional NBR leads me to believe the rest of the fuel system should be more than capable of handling E85.