E85 Ethanol
- Thread starter Z6CRX
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eww is all i can say...bad gas mileage...you get 25% or so worse gas mileage with ethanol than with gas, and your power takes a definite nose dive. The only advantage of E85 is moving your gas money to american farmers rather than OPEC.
If thats important to you, go with E85...otherwise...stick with gas.
If thats important to you, go with E85...otherwise...stick with gas.
driverunknown
Senior Member
You forgot to mention that only cars that are built to run the stuff should. I"m pretty sure that ethanol is corrosive.
Citizen_Insane
Senior Member
wow, both you guys are wrong.
I did a little (very little) work with the Forumla SAE team up here on E85. From that I learned that yes, you will have to use more fuel (the a/f ratio of E85 is somehwere arround 9:1, unlike the 14.7:1 of gasoline.) The advantage of E85 is that you can run high compresson or high boost without fear of detonation. This will yeald more power than you would be able to get out of your car by using gasoline.
Ethanol shouldn't corode the engine, I've seen lots of manufacturers using E85 with aluminum blocks. I think the main concern is in places like the fuel tank where the ethanol will just be sitting there. The only thing you'll definatly need to change over are the injectors, the fuel tank (need a bigger one, or get a fuel cell and make sure its anadized aluminum or another metal) and new fuel lines, pump, and possibly rail.
I did a little (very little) work with the Forumla SAE team up here on E85. From that I learned that yes, you will have to use more fuel (the a/f ratio of E85 is somehwere arround 9:1, unlike the 14.7:1 of gasoline.) The advantage of E85 is that you can run high compresson or high boost without fear of detonation. This will yeald more power than you would be able to get out of your car by using gasoline.
Ethanol shouldn't corode the engine, I've seen lots of manufacturers using E85 with aluminum blocks. I think the main concern is in places like the fuel tank where the ethanol will just be sitting there. The only thing you'll definatly need to change over are the injectors, the fuel tank (need a bigger one, or get a fuel cell and make sure its anadized aluminum or another metal) and new fuel lines, pump, and possibly rail.
more than i thought
Citizen_Insane
Senior Member
Um...there you just surpassed my knowledge, sorry. I can't think why you would need a new sensor. You would DEFINATLY need to compeltely reprogram your ECU, but thats pretty easy with CROME or Uberdata.
For our FSAE cars we run the exact same setup (Yamaha R6 600CC engine) for gas and ethanol and don't use any extra sensors. But then again we're running MOTEC and can do pretty much whatever we want. Hell, every sensor on the engine has been replaced with a custom one.
For our FSAE cars we run the exact same setup (Yamaha R6 600CC engine) for gas and ethanol and don't use any extra sensors. But then again we're running MOTEC and can do pretty much whatever we want. Hell, every sensor on the engine has been replaced with a custom one.