Flex Fuel + E85

[steve99]

Originally Posted by FT_86_SM_GP

What is your opinion on Flex fuel kits ?

Versus running a e40/50 tune and mixing slightly higher ratios to aim for e55/e60, given that our ECU kind of adapts to fuel as per Shiv tunings article:

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53477

Flex fuel kit give you added convenience and safety.


ie as the other guys said you don't have to worry about the ethanol content its all automatically compensated for by the flex fuel system.


The flex system will also save you if someone puts petrol in car instead of E85 or the other way round and you don't switch maps or reflash to correct tune.


If you have a stable ethanol content then the map switch or flashing is fine.


I ran E85 with OFT for a couple of years (no flex kit), just reflashing for road trips, but I did keep OFT in car at all times in case I could not get E85.


we have E85 at several stations in our city here in Australia.


Ive now gone to map switch tune, just for convienence and not have to carry laptop and tactrix or OFT in car.


As the others said their no power gain in flex tune vs straight E85 or map switch tune.


Plenty of guys here run just a straight E85 tune done by a tuner with no map switch and don't have a flash device, but we have decent availability at service station pumps in capitol cities.


The OFT based E85 tunes cope quite well with between E60 and E85, ive run it down to about E40 but the trims are a bit high and I wouldn't track it on less than E60.


We have two sources at pups here a guaranteed E85 that 85% always and another brand that 70-85% both fine for NA cars. If your going FI you definitely need flex kit unless you have a guaranteed stable ethanol content and its tuned for that.

[steve99]

Originally Posted by 86 South Africa

We only have 93/95 where I live, and I'm told it ain't great quality fuel either.


We also don't have easily available ethanol (which is 1 reason why I personally went FF... so I don't have to worry about the % content each time I run out or need normal fuel etc).

you could get the tuner to put different fuels on the maps like 95/E40/E60/E85


but yeah flex makes it easy and simple its just expensive :-)

[86 South Africa]

Originally Posted by FT_86_SM_GP

But we live in South Africa, where the ANC kind of determines if Car parts are value for money or not.

Sad but true... Our market is also pretty small by comparison. Even RGM/RMS and those guys do FA20s as just 1 small part of their business.

[Ryan86]

Having had a NA 86 tuned on 95,98 E85 and Supercharged, for me the NA Stage 2 E85 Flex Fuel set up was the best option from a saftey and cost point of view.

before Flex Fuel was available on the 86 platform, I had the switchable tune, 95,98,e50,e85, which I had no issues apart from the concern of the mixing and guess work of the ethanol levels with fuel in the tank vs the mix.

after going flex fuel, I was shocked that the mix I assumed was E80, once in the car and settled would go down as low as 50%. with the Flex Fuel kit I would literally pour E95/E5 staright into the tank and within 1 min the ethanol content would adjust on the analyzer, allowing to pour sufficient ethanol to get to the desired ethanol content required.

stock dyno 95 - 108wkw 189Nm
Tuned 95 - 116wkw 195 Nm
Tuned 98 - 136wkw 208 Nm
Tuned E85 - 144wkw 222Nm
Supercharged - 185wkw 285Nm (using 98 Tune)

the Mods
Drop in filter
Borla Header
BRZ Exhaust
Flex Fuel Tune

Depending who you purchasing your tune and kit from, but at current exchange R15.50, tune, flex fuel kit and license you in for just under R20K. if you opt to be stand alone, you can add another R6k for the Ecutek cable and dongle.
There is no need for fuel pump or injector upgrade for E85 NA.

E95/E5 is available at most chemical distributors in 25l or 210l drums, so if you are not close to a distributor, buy a 210l drum and tap off in 25L.
In DBN we have a group and purchase 2 x 210l drums once a month and tap off, which is far cheaper than purchasing 25L.

Downside oil change required every 5000km.

KZN Drags held last weekend in DBN
stock 86 - 15.3 sec
Stage 2 E80 - 14.2 sec

Ethanol is simply amazing.

[tm86]

Thanks @Ryan86, very useful post.

[Silver86K]

I had my 86 on a dyno in Joburg a while ago, running a 95 tune map, and it only made 108wkw and 150wnm? From what I read above this seems to be well below what a tuned 95 ron 86 should be making?

I ran some logs and saw some knock that I am sorting out now still with some fine tuning

I never had it on a dyno stock so I guess I should get that done as well

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[sav]

Originally Posted by Silver86K

I had my 86 on a dyno in Joburg a while ago, running a 95 tune map, and it only made 108wkw and 150wnm? From what I read above this seems to be well below what a tuned 95 ron 86 should be making?

I ran some logs and saw some knock that I am sorting out now still with some fine tuning

I never had it on a dyno stock so I guess I should get that done as well

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Who did the tuning and which dyno? Also, how bad is the knock? Got some logs we could look at?

Tuned up here on FR's (stingy) dyno should give you at least 110wkw and 175wnm.

[Silver86K]

Originally Posted by sav

Who did the tuning and which dyno? Also, how bad is the knock? Got some logs we could look at?

Tuned up here on FR's (stingy) dyno should give you at least 110wkw and 175wnm.

It was a Mr.Turbo dyno

I did it myself using Oft maps, I have been working on it the last couple of days now and got some of the knock out there was quite a bit of knock at 6000rpm and 6600 rpm, on the dyno graph it made two big power dips there when I did some logs i saw knock occuring there, will get the car on the dyno again soon and see if it has improved, probably will go to FR&R

To add IAM is consistently at 1, AFR is now finally good was pretty lean and Flkc dipped a lot around 6000+rpm now it is finally at 0

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[sav]

Awesome!

What fuel are you using? When I was initially doing mine things would look to be perfect and then next tank I would see some knock and that was from the same fuel station. Like Steve's said in another thread, getting your MAF scaling spot on is the most important step, if it's not right it'll invalidate anything else you do.

From what I've seen Sasol seems to be the best but I've had some bad fuel from them before, especially right before fuel price hikes.

[86 South Africa]

Originally Posted by sav

From what I've seen Sasol seems to be the best but I've had some bad fuel from them before, especially right before fuel price hikes.

Interesting comments!

I don't monitor any of this, but with the flexfuel kit I can sometimes feel a little less power as the car compensates for poorer fuel.

I will watch more closely and see if I can identify any better/worse brands (for interest sake).

On my previous car I did notice that Shell seemed to give me a fairly noticeable improvement in fuel consumption.

[steve99]

Originally Posted by 86 South Africa

Interesting comments!

I don't monitor any of this, but with the flexfuel kit I can sometimes feel a little less power as the car compensates for poorer fuel.

I will watch more closely and see if I can identify any better/worse brands (for interest sake).

On my previous car I did notice that Shell seemed to give me a fairly noticeable improvement in fuel consumption.

Just remember a flex fuel kit\sensor only adjusts tune for changes in ethanol percent.

It measures ethanol content not octane rating.
A flex kit cannot adjust for the differences between say 91\95\98 ron petrol assuming they all had same or no ethanol content.

For octane differences in petrol your still reliant on the ecu standard method of knock reduction using IAM FBKC and FL KC same as everyone else with a standard setup.

with ecutek it would be possible to switch to a low or higher octane base map though using the manual map switching

[Silver86K]

Originally Posted by sav

Who did the tuning and which dyno? Also, how bad is the knock? Got some logs we could look at?

Tuned up here on FR's (stingy) dyno should give you at least 110wkw and 175wnm.

Here is a datalog I did today:

http://www.datazap.me/u/86driver/sas...?log=0&data=20

[sav]

Originally Posted by Silver86K

Here is a datalog I did today:

http://www.datazap.me/u/86driver/sas...?log=0&data=20

That is looking very good, looks like you got your MAF scaling pretty much spot on (AFR vs commanded AFR).

[Silver86K]

Originally Posted by sav

That is looking very good, looks like you got your MAF scaling pretty much spot on (AFR vs commanded AFR).

Thats a relief to hear, cause it was a battle to get it not to run lean, any more advice you can give me?

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