Long term Ethanol use and FE effects.

[zpiloto]

This is more for me to track the use of ethanol and the effect on FE and car and have it in one place. I've been currently running E15 with no appreciable decrease in FE. My plan is to slowly increase the ethanol on each fill by 10% until reaching E85. Once I've reached running 100% E85(or CEL) I'll see about making adjustments and see what the minimum effect on FE I can reduce it to. The break even point cost wise would be a 12% decrease in FE at the current prices. I'll be posting tanks and observations here. Just filled with E20. I'm going to use 44.0 MPG as the base.

[Gary Palmer]

I presume you get your mix by putting in a certain number of gallons of regular gas and then some E85?

Do you know what changes are necessary or possibly appropriate for E85. I would think that the timing might need to be backed off, or something, but I don't know for sure. I do know that anything you do to reduce your net costs will be worthwhile information.

[zpiloto]

I don't have any way of changing the timing. The things I'll be looking for is fuel nozzels might need to be increased for flow. This is what sets off the CEL. ignition is important, I'll be playing with heat ranges and gaps and plug mods once I"m running the maximum amount of ethanol. Due to the cleaning properties of ethanol I'll be keeping an eye on the fuel filter. Other than that I'm just going to see where it leads me.

[ELF]

I would be careful, ethanol is corrosive, your fuel pump and the rest of your fuel system could be at risk, I think you will be safe up to 20% but beyond that may be risky, short term, 1 or 2 tanks probably won't hurt, but running high % of ethanol for extended periods may ruin or shorten the life of your fuel pump.

[red91sit]

I'm assuming this is going into Daewoo? It shouldn't hurt anything on there. The main problems people seem to have with running straight E-85 (other than tuning issues) is degradation of fuel lines, rails, and pumps. I know on Super Coupes (Ford supercharged 3.8l coupes) the fuel rails are the only non compatible part, so people running them on high ethanol fuel just replace them every few years.

As far as timing goes, this is where E-85 really shines, it's roughly 110 octane, so you can run crazy timing on them. This is where I see it being a superior fuel in the future. A 1.0 Liter engine could easily make a reliable 150 horsepower if it was turbocharged on E-85, The best part would be that it's still only a 1.0 liter engine, and therefor uses less fuel than an equally powerful N/A 2.0 liter gasoline engine.

[VetteOwner]

but you will automatically get less MPG out of e85 cuz its less uhh how should i say like less energy than gasoline if you had equal quantities. meaning like you need more e85 to do the same amount of work that gasoline would do.

[JanGeo]

Yeah but it can burn a little more efficiently if the engine is designed for it so that helps make up the lower energy content of the fuel.

[diamondlarry]

I would be careful running E85 in a non-E85 car. Some of the things they do to make a car for E85 is to use stainless steel components in the fuel system that can resist the corrosiveness of the ethanol.

[zpiloto]

Originally Posted by diamondlarry

I would be careful running E85 in a non-E85 car. Some of the things they do to make a car for E85 is to use stainless steel components in the fuel system that can resist the corrosiveness of the ethanol.

I think Red has it right. My understanding is that when they made gas form ethanol stating in 1988 that they can handle the E85. The main thing to watch out for is for water in the gas. Which if you're diriving on a regular bases you should be ok. From Wilki for what it worth.

E85 can cause damage, since prolonged exposure to high concentrations of ethanol may corrode metal and rubber parts in older engines (pre-1988) designed primarily for gasoline. The hydroxyl group on the ethanol molecule is an extremely weak acid, but it can enhance corrosion for some natural materials. For post-1988 fuel-injected engines, all the components are already designed to accommodate E10 (10% ethanol) blends through the elimination of exposed magnesium and aluminum metals and natural rubber and cork gasketed parts. Hence, there is a greater degree of flexibility in just how much more ethanol may be added without causing ethanol-induced damage, varying by automobile manufacturer. Anhydrous ethanol in the absence of direct exposure to alkali metals and bases is non-corrosive; it is only when water is mixed with the ethanol that the mixture becomes corrosive to some metals. Hence, there is no appreciable difference in the corrosive properties between E10 and a 50:50 blend of E10 gasoline and E85 (47.5% ethanol), provided there is no water present, and the engine was designed to accommodate E10. Nonetheless, operation with more than 10% ethanol has never been recommended by car manufacturers in non-FFVs. Operation on up to 20% ethanol is generally considered safe for all post-1988 cars and trucks.

It is something that I'll be watching for and it looks like E50 is good which is probably where the break even point will be. And I realize that it has less energy content then gasoline but it's cheaper so there is room to play with. I think that driven in a hypermiling fashion that the FE effect will not be as drastic as everyone thinks and that is what I want to find out.

[red91sit]

One more thing to consider, you will have to tune it richer, but it actually creates more power than straight gasoline, so you won't need as much. In other words, E-85 Stoichometric mixture is only 66% of Gasolines, but since it makes (guess) 110% the power, your gas mileage shouldn't drop to 66% of before. It should be up in the 70-80% on pure ethanol, e85 hopefully even less than that.

So this got me thinking, back to my original Idea of a small secondary engine. It could now be the primary engine! Simply use MIT's great idea of injecting ethanol into it when the turbo spools up and Voila!