FA20club.com E85 Preliminary Review

[vubaru]

Originally Posted by Concept-Three-LED's

Is it a simple push of a button to switch from e85 to 91?

Well, it's a simple "pull of the cruise control lever," if that's what you mean.

[chutrain]

Many of the Subaru guys have been running for years and I haven't heard ill effects of the fuel system breaking down. Some recommend running a few tanks of normal gasoline from time to time.

If you are already comparing price and mileage, not sure you want to switch to E85 fulltime. I believe someone was saying they were getting high teens. If fuel costs and limitation of stations are a concern, not worth the effort in my opinion.

[Vicious LED]

Originally Posted by chutrain

Many of the Subaru guys have been running for years and I haven't heard ill effects of the fuel system breaking down. Some recommend running a few tanks of normal gasoline from time to time.

If you are already comparing price and mileage, not sure you want to switch to E85 fulltime. I believe someone was saying they were getting high teens. If fuel costs and limitation of stations are a concern, not worth the effort in my opinion.

Yeah, I had heard as long as you're not letting the E85 sit idle in the tanks/lines for extended periods of time it shouldn't be too much to worry about...but I've also heard the extremes of "it will destroy everything."

E85 is plentiful here in Vegas, and the price is usually about 40 cents cheaper per gallon. Fuel pricing isn't a huge concern for me, in the end it appears it will run a tad more expensive over time but the gains make it worth it.

Thanks for your input!

[vubaru]

I've run E-85 in Subarus and other cars, in mixes and in near-pure form. As I've said in other posts, running a mixed 93/E-85 blend skewed towards 93 showed gains for multiple 2.5 RS owners on NASIOC, including myself, with no ill effects. Ran it on and off and changed tanks with pure 93 every few fill-ups.

I checked that fuel system myself after running 5-10k of the ethanol blend (with alternating 93 fill ups) after another 15k total miles, and I'll be damned if that fuel filter didn't show normal wear. No sign of E-85, period. Couldn't even tell it was there.

Some folks say, "Wait, we have a high pressure fuel system and E-85 can harm it." Well, maybe over time. Pulling our fuel system after running E-85 showed no ill effects according to Visconti, but I'm not sure of the mileage.

The problem is, we all run some percentage of ethanol in our cars, right now. How much ethanol would be too much if the fuel system is already designed to tolerate say, 10%?

I've been trying to get my gas low enough for E-85 for a long time. Shooting for this weekend.

...And now my FA20club flash is done!

[Captain Insano]

With the cruise control map switching, how do you know which map you are on as you switch through the options if you have say 4 map options?

[FA20Club.com]

Originally Posted by 2forme

The problem is more along the lines of cold start in an actual cold environment. AZ isn't a cold environment :-p.

Below 50 degrees causes issues.

The lowest temp ive had a customer start his car in was few weeks ago in the 38-45 degree weather. No startup issues. He even posted a video i linked to in another thread.

[Foobar]

Originally Posted by Captain Insano

With the cruise control map switching, how do you know which map you are on as you switch through the options if you have say 4 map options?

Your tachometer switches from 1K to 4K depending on which map you've triggered. Once you've selected it, it goes back to displaying current RPM.

[Captain Insano]

Awesome, thank you sir.

[2forme]

Originally Posted by FA20Club.com

The lowest temp ive had a customer start his car in was few weeks ago in the 38-45 degree weather. No startup issues. He even posted a video i linked to in another thread.

We had 15-20 degree lows last week .

I haven't run e85 for a little while now. I don't like it's water absorption properties in cold weather and they run different blends for winter up here.

[JoeBoxer]

Originally Posted by FA20Club.com

The lowest temp ive had a customer start his car in was few weeks ago in the 38-45 degree weather. No startup issues. He even posted a video i linked to in another thread.

42 this morning and fired up like pump gas

[Yruyur]

Cold Start - 52 here and gave a tiny tap of gas and seemed like pump gas. Very very happy

Sent from my flux capacitor using Taptalk

[2forme]

Originally Posted by Yruyur

Cold Start - 52 here and gave a tiny tap of gas and seemed like pump gas. Very very happy

Sent from my flux capacitor using Taptalk

I wish my "cold" starts were 52....

[Frostyman]

normally I have no cold start issues, but today it was in the 60s, and still didn't start first crank. Second crank did it. I'm gonna take some logs and send them in after I get car back from the dyno this evening.

[xjohnx]

Originally Posted by Frostyman

normally I have no cold start issues, but today it was in the 60s, and still didn't start first crank. Second crank did it. I'm gonna take some logs and send them in after I get car back from the dyno this evening.

for cold start logs, you're going to want to let the car sit at least 4 hours, (preferably overnight) so that the fluid temps come down completely.

Also, make sure the o2 sensor has preheated before you begin your logging/startup attempts. You can do this by turning your ignition to the on position (without actually attempting to start the motor). Let it sit like this for 10-15 minutes. This will allow the o2 to preheat and provide accurate readings for the log.