I'll have some info soon. My tuner has used it with great results. I'll post it up when I get the dyno results.
Well, also I will run a tune with 93 octane pump gas and one on E85 and will post up the difference in power. I'm expecting at least a 200rwhp difference. But, like you said, if my combo was built specifically for E85, the difference would be much greater.
Suppose you built your turbocharged or supercharged engine to run on gasoline, and have a stand-alone system with which you can input any tune you like. Would it be "stupid" to bump up the boost and timing and run your engine on E85 and pick up as much as 100 rwhp without anything other than a change in tune? I built my turbo 331 with 8.5:1 compression for gasoline, but I aim to do the above whenever I have the urge to, even though my engine is not designed for it. I want to be able to stop at any gas station in the country and fill 'er up. That's why I designed the engine to run on gas. Does that make me stupid? I think if you intend to run solely on E85 you'd be stupid not to take advantage of the increased motor octane and evaporation point of ethanol. But to say that someone is stupid for using E85 is presumptive. BTW, at the same lambda on the same engine E85 will outperform gasoline by a few hp on small-block V8 sized engines. It's the same reason that a well tuned carb out performs fuel injection: cooler, denser air has more oxygen which ultimately gives the capability to produce more power. If nothing else, the ability to add more timing alone will allow a more efficient burn. I hope E85 is the wave of the future What I would like to know is how the fuel economy of a high-compression optimized E85 engine will compare to the same engine optimized to run on gasoline. I know that the gasoline has more BTUs per volume, but I am curious how much the optimized E85 engine will narrow the gap over the "flex-fuel" vehicles. Chris Chris
As I have attempted to painstakingly point out, unless you specifically tune for E85 you will not experience any benefit whatsoever. Using a system in which you are able to change tunes for the type of fuel used makes you un-stupid. You are putting words in my mouth. I completely disagree on both accounts. I started a thread somewhere called, oddly enough, "E85 Bible" in which I attempted to describe why the general public would not experience any benefits with E85. You can find my refutation for the above claim in that thread. I, for one, certainly do not. As it stands, the only reason E85 is even on the market is due to enormous subsidies for producers. This has artificially increased the price of corn which, in turn, has increased the price of other crops due to the large transition to corn. The price of nearly every food product to include beef has jumped due to the "miracle" of E85 which, by the way, is less efficient on nearly every vehicle on the road today. Makes great sense.
agreed you might think E85 is the new race man's cheap race fuel but think of it this way... E85 burns a lot faster than normal gas there for, instead of running 60 lb injectors you would have to have huge injectors like 120lb plus have a pump that could handle it.. so now you are burning gas faster and filling up twice as much... to me seems as though the 1/2 price you save you still end up paying.. and you can not simple just do the swap and start running E85 i looked into this a lot and i know about this.. i was going to run E85 on my twin turbo setup on my old mustang and decided that race fuel is 100x easier and has the same effect..
and also requires 2x the size injectors... 60lb no you will need 120lb to feed the motor lol it's not worth it i looked into this a billion times want a cheap mans race fuel but in the end i said screw it and went with real race fuel... E89 burns faster and requires a massive upgraded fuel system much larger than 8an to feed the furnace
come on guys...... this e85 is pointless. a 10:1 CR motor with a YSi at 17llbs of boost on E85 is safe as it gets. our club has an SC 392 bird running E85. at 750rwhp 13psi he can pulley it for far more. SAFE and cool. the octane lets him run a powerful advance AND lots of boost on a 'daily driver'. (who really drives a car like that daily?) the guy wants to know what CR to buy. assume 93 octane. and forgings. the power E85 makes isnt based on the BTU content of equal weight.(you are stuffing more in). its the octane. so what is the point of arguing 93 VS. 105 really? jeez.
so what if it requires a 500gph pump 1/2" lines, a driver, and 120lb injectors. switch to a alky carb, hat and big pump..
Where are you getting your facts from? E85 does not take twice as much fuel, and therefore does not require twice the injector. It needs about 30% more fuel on a well tuned engine set up to run gasoline. What's even cooler, is that with a high compression engine that is design specifically to run on E85, you can get nearly the same fuel mileage from E85 that you can from gasoline. This is just a result of better thermal efficiency. Your gasoline engine does not take advantage of all of the BTUs output by gasoline. In fact, it's a pretty sad ~25% thermal efficiency. Increasing an engine's compression from 9.0:1 (as in the 5.0 mustangs) up too 14:1 will significantly increase efficiency from the paltry efficiency it gets in a gasoline engine. You can't run such a high compression engine on gasoline, but you can on E85. Why run E85? Easy, compare the cost of race gas with the cost of E85. If it takes 30% more E85 to make the same amount of power as compared to race-gas, you'll still be making out like a bandit by saving the extra money. Chris
Ok, then you and I must be arguing semantics... You're saying that running E85 on a car tuned for E85 (such as flex-fuel vehicles which automatically retune themselves) is not stupid. Nope, just referring to this statement: I don't think that's it's fair to say someone is stupid for using something if they have logical reasons for doing so. But since we've established that they are not stupid for using E85 afterall, I don't think we have anything to argue about here. This disagreement is rather complex. First we have a fundamental disagreement about carbs vs. EFI - this debate will probably never end, and to be perfectly honest I like EFI much more than carbs in just about any scenario. I wouldn't even bother with a carb in any performance application that didn't have rules restricting me to using carbs. However, I do believe that more peak power can be made over a narrow rpm band with a carb. A lot of pros agree, and a lot disagree. Who cares? Since you don't see eye to eye with me on this comment, it isn't relevant to our discussion. 2nd we have a disagreement about E85 with the same lambda and timing being capable of producing more power than gasoline. The cooling benefits of E85 before air gets into the cylinder would be so miniscule when used with port injection systems that it isn't significant. 3rd, none of it really matters and I'm not going to be taken into a tangential argument. The bottom line is that with E85, the increase in motor octane, and the fact that inside the cylinder E85 will keep pre-combustion temps down allows a far more aggressive tune, which will result in more power from a given engine despite no change in compression. One of the articles I linked above provides a good example. Subsidies are required to offset the the technological expansion necessary to overcome the monopolized oil industry which otherwise would be able to crush ethanol use as an automotive fuel. One other country takes advantage of ethanol in such a way that it is energy self-sufficient without government subsidies (they had subsidies at one point, but no longer need them). But look, I don't care about the politics! Neither does any other hot-rodder worth his salt. This stuff is certainly cheap in comparison to race gasoline, and allows similar performance benefits. Now, I can feasibly drive around with a 8.5:1 compression 20+psi turbo mustang on the street with a safe tune. Something I couldn't do on pump gas. If I was paying $8/gal for race gas, that wouldn't be feasible to me. Chris
For the most part that seems to be an accurate assessment. I don't really care about "fair." If their logic is flawed then they deserve correction. If they ignore helpful advice, they're stupid. (Obviously some people give bad advice so we all have to be cautious about which advice we follow and which we choose to ignore.) I would agree that it has the potential to make equal power, but as you said, that's neither here nor there. I'm confused with this one. It almost seems like we're arguing the same thing again. I contend that attempting to utilize the same lambda and timing will not net you more power and will in fact result in less power. When utilized in this manner, the cooling aspect is inconsequential. I underlined the important part of your argument for which my entire disregard for E85 is based. Without changing something (i.e. tune), you're wasting your time and money. Yes! Exactly! Cheap in comparison to race gase! You can drive around with those compression levels on a daily basis, something you can't do with pump gas! Semantics brother! I will say, though, that I am deeply concerned with and aware of politics and feel that it is entirely relevant to our lives. But I suppose I'm not worth my salt, eh? :Track:
You realize that E85 makes more power primarily due to the increased quantity of fuel being pumped but not everyone does. There is a misconception that the increased octane creates more power which is simply could not be farther from the truth. 87 octane, 93 octane and 105 octane gasoline all create virtually the same amount of power. The power is only witnessed when you alter your engine dynamics in order to take advantage of the increased octane. So that's the point of arguing. Plus it's fun!
