Max NA HP on pump gas as of now?

[TyperRspec789]

lol, well.. I guess that would be my only advantage. We have pretty similar setups. I posted my dynos on a dynapack running e85. We have pretty similar gains as well.

[GingerExtract]

Originally Posted by jesperswe

If you read the manual that came with the car, it states that using fuel with more than 10% E in will cause "wear" to the engine and fuel system. Not sure how true it is but the manual says so atleast.

But with a proper tune that might not be true.

An ECU tune is not going to change the fact that components in the car were physically not designed to handle running on corn. Let's see how many issues people on E8x run into in a few years regarding fuel pumps, seals, and lines. Please note that I used the term "E8x" rather than E85. Speaking of local stations that sell it, there is enormous variance in quality supply, which to me shows poor fuel regulation. A friend of mine runs his built SC300 drift car on corn, and carries a fuel sample tester handy to measure what the fuel content actually is before he fuels up, so he doesn't break things @600+RWHP.

[xwd]

The biggest issue is the variance in the quality of the E85. You can find guys on NASIOC who have run E85 for 100K+ miles at this point, it doesn't really do anything to the fuel system.

[ultra]

Anybody explored meth injection yet?

[2forme]

Originally Posted by TyperRspec789

lol, well.. I guess that would be my only advantage. We have pretty similar setups. I posted my dynos on a dynapack running e85. We have pretty similar gains as well.

We could do a rolling race hahahaha.

Although I'm not on corn right now. Move back to 93 for the cold weather. Didn't want to risk condensation buildup.

On a side note, doesn't Dynapack read high compared to Dynojet?

[brichard0625]

Originally Posted by 2forme

We could do a rolling race hahahaha.

Although I'm not on corn right now. Move back to 93 for the cold weather. Didn't want to risk condensation buildup.

On a side note, doesn't Dynapack read high compared to Dynojet?

I want to race too! and from all the dynapack dynos i seen on the frs/brz they all read lower than the dynojet

[Mars2]

Corrosion with E85 is a myth I have two car's one from 1994 with 150000miles on E85 and one from 2005 with 100000 miles and no problem.
Also Methanol (WMI) is much more corrosive than Ethanol.

below taken from: http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=803341


What about fuel system corrosion?
Corrosion does not appear to be an issue with modern OBDII cars. They are all certified by the manufactures to be safe to use on 10% ethanol fuel blends, and industry insiders say they are safe for much higher percentages. You don't install components that are "sorta safe" with a chemical, you put in a fuel hose etc. that is ethanol safe for concentrations well above what you expect to use. Not to mention that folks have been talking for years about raising the ethanol level to 20% or more.

Occasional use would be no problem at all based on my experience. I have never cut open the fuel filter (still have the OEM filter in place) I'll open it when I replace it. I want to put enough time on it to have conclusive evidence if there are problems.
(edit circa 2007 I cut open a fuel line and it looked like new, not changes or damage on stock rubber fuel lines in 2002 WRX)

The engine is not an issue with either, WI using a water alcohol mix or straight alcohol injection. In those systems alcohol and water are not used in significant quantity or for long duration. The Buick GN folks and lots of folks in the DSM crowd have done it for literally decades with no problems for the engine.

Many years ago there were studies that indicated engines that ran on alcohol ALONE as a fuel, had issues with lubrication and valve seat wear. Keep in mind, those studies were done a long time ago, when engine oils were much less sophisticated than they are now, and some engine manufactures in the 1940's,1950' and 1960's made stupid engineering decisions and did not use hard valve seat inserts like stellite in the cylinder heads. This resulted in valve seat recession problems if you did not have lead additives in the fuel to protect the valve seats.

What about oil contamination?
Modern lubricants, especially the synthetic oils are much much different than the oils used during those studies, and modern engines run at higher temperatures today which will quickly boil any traces of alcohol out of the oil.
In cold weather I run an 180 deg thermostat to assist quick warmup I have left it in during this past summer and so far the engine has no heating issues with the 180 thermostat on the E85 fuel.
(edit experience shows modern synthetic oils work very well with E85)

Is Ethanol less corrosive than Methanol?
Methanol is much more corrosive than ethanol. It attacks certain soft metals that are not much used in modern fuel systems. Years ago, the carburetors were made of un-anodized aluminum and if methanol fuel was used, you had major problems with electrolytic corrosion between the aluminum and copper components used in the fuel system, since they were in continous contact.

That sort of corrosion only occurs when you have a current path between the dissimilar metals AND, a conductive path through the fluid in the system.

In Brazil where they have run high ethanol fuels since 1939, they found that to convert older cars designed for gasoline, long before ethanol blends were common, needed several changes to convert the cars over. This led to changes in valve materials, piston rings choices, nickel plating of the fuel tanks etc.

Modern cars in the U.S. are designed for use with ethanol up to 10% concentration in the fuel. That has led to several changes in component materials over the last 30 years that the U.S. has used ethanol enhanced fuels. All modern fuel lines and such are designed with the expectation that some ethanol will be in the fuel.


My experiment is an intentional effort to push the envelope and see what happens. Over the last 2 years I have run high ethanol fuels ( normal pump fuel here in Colorado contains up to 10% ethanol anyway) for months at a time.

At mixtures below 33% by volume of alcohol ( about 39% E-85 by volume) I had absolutely no problems of any kind. At higher mixtures > 33% alcohol, I got a nuisance CEL for too lean which could be eliminated by added gasoline to the mix or as I have recently increased the injector size. (Increasing fuel pressure would also increase the effective size of the injectors).

The only issue with near 100% E-85, is the car starts a little harder in cold weather. When it gets very cold I drop the mixture to about 80% or so to solve that by adding about 2 gallons of gasoline to the tank of E-85.

I have done no oil analysis at this point, walbro 255l/h fuel pump and 550 injectors show no signs of problems to date.

Larry
(last updated 6/10/08)

[serialk11r]

Just so people don't forget, there's one unknown on this car as far as E85 goes, and that's the high pressure pump. The materials might be compatible with alcohol but the increased flow and different physical properties might increase wear or something.

[soros151]

watching this thread

[jadewbj]

Originally Posted by 2forme

Tune, AFE Intake, SRT HB Exhaust.

Whose tune? Pump gas right?

[jadewbj]

If you use E85 without a conversion kit or non-Flex Fuel capable vehicle for an extended period, you can damage your engine or the emission components.

Straight from www.flexfuelus.com.

I see this warning on all e85 sites. Looking up what the kit changes now.

[TyperRspec789]

Originally Posted by 2forme

We could do a rolling race hahahaha.

Although I'm not on corn right now. Move back to 93 for the cold weather. Didn't want to risk condensation buildup.

On a side note, doesn't Dynapack read high compared to Dynojet?

lol, We should meet up midway and hop on a dynojet (I've only had experiences with Mustang and Dynapack)-both run e85 in the same environment with the same people calibrating the dyno.

I too stopped running e85 and went back to stage 1. I was having incredibly rough starts in the cold weather (53F). Runs great on 93 octane in the cold lol!

[xwd]

Originally Posted by jadewbj

If you use E85 without a conversion kit or non-Flex Fuel capable vehicle for an extended period, you can damage your engine or the emission components.

Straight from www.flexfuelus.com.

I see this warning on all e85 sites. Looking up what the kit changes now.

Most of that has to do with the fact the cars aren't tuned to run on E85. Flex Fuel means the car can adjust for the E85. People running E85 on these vehicles have specific tunes for E85.

I do agree however, the HPFP used for DI is an unknown with this car and E85. I'll wait for some folks to put 5-10K miles on their cars before I step up for an E85 tune.

Hard starting when cold is definitely a byproduct of E85.

[Propaganda]

Originally Posted by 2forme

LOL, I'm on stock tires. My 60's would be like 2.4 haha.

I got a 2.29 60ft all stock at about 2000ft above sea level, maybe more. (trying to figure out exact elevation)..... 2.1X 60ft is doable. But I'm not sure how the traction is with your mods. Still have mine on order.