BTU content E10/E85/Gas/Diesel

[SVOboy]

Next time you should try adjusting your timing to cope with the much much higher octane of the E85, that could have been some of the problem with the running of the car.

[SVOboy]

Hopefully that's not the case, I guess on an NA motor is wouldn't be such a problem but a friend of mine dropped 12/16 valves on his engine last time he let that happen,

[SVOboy]

I still say advance the timing, , but that's just meeeeee.

[SVOboy]

Care to explain a little more in depth?

[GasSavers_maxc]

The heat of combustion will make the over all mixer expand at a higher rate. Like in the WW2 planes. They leaned out on take-off, advance the timing(your right) and Water injected. They went from about 2000 HP to 2500 HP on take off. It saved them fuel.

[Ted Hart]

Originally Posted by omgwtfbyobbq

From Google,

1 gal of gasoline=124,884btu
1 gal of No.2 diesel=138,874btu
1 gal E100=~77,000btu
1 gal of E85=84,460btu
1 gal of E10=~120,096btu

YMMV

Hi, OMG...!
Looking at the numbers : at 124.9K BTUs per gallon, Google does not agree with industry standards, they are "out of date"! The new standard is 117K BTUs per gallon! Something has changed! The gasoline? Hmmm....
At any rate, the energy content of the alcohol-based gasolines decreases as the % alcohol increases! And we're supposed to want this stuff? Picture this : Less energy = less MPG = more gallons used = saving a little on oil useage? There is something wrong with this (energy balance) picture! Will someone please explain this?

[Ted Hart]

Originally Posted by maxc

The heat of combustion will make the over all mixer expand at a higher rate. Like in the WW2 planes. They leaned out on take-off, advance the timing(your right) and Water injected. They went from about 2000 HP to 2500 HP on take off. It saved them fuel.

Hi, maxc!
I spent a year in SouthEast Asia ... and watched as the F-105s would begin their take-off roll (loaded with heavy bomb loads!). As soon as the brakes were released ...at engine run-up ... the water injection was switched on, and the color and noise of the exhaust changed dramatically! More thrust, a "bluer" color (instead of orange), and a noticeable smoothing / quieting of the exhause noise (still very loud, just less ragged) were obtained. I saw this hundreds of times, day and night (the planes flew 24/7). The plane's water bladder was quite large (looked like 60 or 70 gallons), and took a full load at each refilling...with DI (demineralized) water. Fascinating!

[GasSavers_maxc]

Originally Posted by Ted Hart

Hi, maxc!
I spent a year in SouthEast Asia ... and watched as the F-105s would begin their take-off roll (loaded with heavy bomb loads!). As soon as the brakes were released ...at engine run-up ... the water injection was switched on, and the color and noise of the exhaust changed dramatically! More thrust, a "bluer" color (instead of orange), and a noticeable smoothing / quieting of the exhause noise (still very loud, just less ragged) were obtained. I saw this hundreds of times, day and night (the planes flew 24/7). The plane's water bladder was quite large (looked like 60 or 70 gallons), and took a full load at each refilling...with DI (demineralized) water. Fascinating!

Cool, loved to see that!....... Just lost long reply......... Later more of what i'm working on.

[omgwtfbyobbq]

Originally Posted by Ted Hart

Hi, OMG...!
Looking at the numbers : at 124.9K BTUs per gallon, Google does not agree with industry standards, they are "out of date"! The new standard is 117K BTUs per gallon! Something has changed! The gasoline? Hmmm....
At any rate, the energy content of the alcohol-based gasolines decreases as the % alcohol increases! And we're supposed to want this stuff? Picture this : Less energy = less MPG = more gallons used = saving a little on oil useage? There is something wrong with this (energy balance) picture! Will someone please explain this?

Ah, yes. This must be back from the MTBE days, got it from onlineconversions dot com. Now that we're using ethanol for emissions, each gallon of gasoline is actually E(some really small percentage), the energy content also probably depends on summer and winter blends, and even which refinery/crude was used.
The whole idea with ethanol is that by "investing" certain fosil fuels in corn, and gaining some energy from the sun, then refining and distributing it, we get more energy in than out, or something. Unfortunately, we don't since from all accounts fossil fuels -> corn -> ethanol breaks even in terms of energy in ~= energy out. However, we do alter the percentage input for each kwh of liquif fuel such that we may be using more of the cheaper fossil fuels, although I'm not sure how expensive natural gas is per kwh, so we might even be wasting energy in the big picture. Remind me and I'll try to look into this, a crude approximation should be doable.

[red91sit]

Originally Posted by theclencher

Tempos are not flex-fuel, and officially I shouldn't run E85 in there at all. I haven't run it long term so who knows if/what would happen. In the short term nothing blew up or blew out. One thing I did notice is some erratic fuel gauge readings; at first it seemed they only occurred when I had strong concentrations of E85 in the tank, but recently I had an erratic reading when the tank was straight regular. Well it is a 14 year old car so it might just be happening due to age, or perhaps there was an incompatibility between ethanol and the materials in the sending unit. Time will tell.

Did you get shocked when exiting your car aswell? I ran pure E-85 through my car a few times this summer when it was a lot cheaper. I noticed with the mix I'd get a shock everyonce in a while, which was weird to happen in summer. I then switched to pure E-85 with no gas mixed in, and huge shocks! everytime I got out of the car I'd get a nasty static shock! I've read that Ethanol can loose it's electrons when it's being ran through pipes or hoses? something along those lines.

On a side note, I was changing fuel filters and spilled E-85 all over myself, didn't think much of it until all my skin soaked in it started to burn like it was sunburnt and being rubbed!!! I guess the Ethanol is highly hydroscopic! so if you get it on ya, wash it off and use some lotion!

Also, my car would hit a governor using Ethanol, something no one else has ever reported doing!