E85 Powered VR4?

[UPP]

Originally Posted by a2j

as far as people saying that e85 no good, etc , listening them is waste of time.
I will use whatever I think is the best for my needs. I don't care if its made out of corn, garbage, or some other stuff. its cheap, its out there, and if you have chance to use it, why not? how exactly its gonna hurt me?

Isn't it going to hurt my Cheereo's???

It doesn't hurt my wallet,
It doesn't hurt my power,
It doesn't hurt the enviroment.....

Well at least it's better than the gas alternative....

UPP

[Hammer]

I found some more interesting info on E85.



To sum it all up
Why is Ethanol a better fuel ?
1. It has a much higher evaporative cooling power than gasoline so the intake air charge in the cylinder is significantly cooler that it is with a comparable mixture of gasoline --- that means higher VE. I.E. great for turbo cars

2. Its octane as blended in E85 is about 105, its blending octane when added to gasoline is rated at 118, so it is a very cost effective octane booster.

3. Ethanol burns faster than gasoline but has a slightly longer ignition delay during the slow burn phase of combustion so the engine does not do as much negative work fighting rising cylinder pressures due to large ignition advances. The total ignition advance for E85 is almost identical to the ideal advance for gasoline so it does not cause the PCM problems when you mix them. Less prone to detonation even when you push it too far!

4. At proper mixture you actually are releasing more energy in the cylinder due to the higher quantity of fuel you can burn. ( Ethanol can burn effeciently at much richer mixtures than gasoline can) That means about a 5% increase in energy release all by itself.

5. Peak combustion pressures are actually lower for ethanol than for gasoline but the cylinder pressures stay higher longer, so you have more (longer) crank angle that is usable by the engine. This lower peak cylinder pressure also helps with detonaton control. I.E. With a stroker motor expect a greater return than with gasoline. And probably less head lift problems with high horsepower engines. And allows for more boost than with gasoline. And because the power builds slower than explosive gasoline does it produces less shock loads
on your bearings and pistons and ring lands. Makes this fuel much safer to tune with.

6. Theorethically, the gain is 5% just by switching fuel. 350 hp X 5% = 15 hp, plus what can be gained from timing. Plus what can be gained from higher boost. Plus what can be gained by a higher Compression ratio

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by a2j

ok, so if 450cc on E85 = 360cc on 93. than I'll get 550cc.

I think that will be plenty for 15 psi for now.

550's should also increase your timing a bit.
And that is perfect for E85 as you want to add some timing.
And then you should be able to max out those 9b's even at 18 psi
as long as you can flow enough fuel with your supra pump.

As far as a spark in the tank causing an explosion in E85 I highly doubt it.
E85 is about as explosive as desiel, it has much different charecteristics than gas. Which leads me to another point.

The thing is many people are making more than 1,000 HP on E85 and no one is complaining about blowing up
engines at this level. They all in fact say how EASY it is to get this stuff tuned. How forgiving this fuel is.
No one is pushing it too hard yet. Some say when they do push too hard the power just falls off a bit no detonation at all. We at 3SI are way behind the curve on E85.

Many of you harp about the importance of a good tune or boom goes the engine. That is very true on gas and much much more forgiving on E85.
You can run way lean or overboost without causing nearly the engine damage
that you would on gas. Still a good tune is the way to get the most out of E85. It just is a whole lot easier on the backyard mechanics wallet if he goofs up.

Here is a quote from another forum on a turbo mustang using E85
keep in mind ideal E85 a/f is around 9 not 14.

"I was having fuel delivery issues and on a couple 1/4 mile passes i saw as lean as 14.9 a/f at 21psi of boost and no detonation. I could feel the car laying over but didn't realize it was that lean till watching the datalogs. No harm done. If that was gasoline i would be picking up headgasket chunks for days.

In fact most guys are claiming 12.0 a/f makes best power, unlike having to be in the 11's on gas to be safe. E85 might only have the equivilent of 105 octane but there's much more to it than that. Not to mention it smell more like a distillery than dynosaurs burning"

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by Import Power

reading thru that it looks like they weren't all too impressed with E85
It would also worry me that you really never know exactly what you are going to get. It's not very controlled mixture wise. I personally would trust Race gas.

People are pulling as much as 20 more degrees of timing beyond best power
at 1,000 hp dyno pulls without detonation occuring. There is a wide margin for error at very high horsepower levels with this fuel. Tuning with it therefore
is much safer on your engine than tuning with gas. And this wide margin for error is what makes the controlled ~E85 mixture not a big problem.

It seems this does not become critical until you are running a compression ratio higher than 14:1

Some people are just now experimenting with a blend of (15% c16) (85% 100 proof ethanol) for an E85 blend.

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by dlabonte

Sorry I don't have time to read though this entire thread and apologize if this was already covered.

E85 is a dead end street. Its the talk on Capital Hill, why? Farm Subsidies. There is not enough farm land in this country to make enough E85 to supply the demand of fuel we use, let alone a need for 1/3 more.

The 3S is not a flex fuel vehicle, so you are killing your fuel system overtime running ethanol.

Run pump gas and -20 window-washer fluid all day long and make the power you would get with C116 race gas for way less. Can be done safely with water-methanol injection and our new IFS-10 injection failsafe.

Best regards,

Dan

This guy is full of it all bad info. You guys have to view this breakdown of a chevy Tahoe non flex fuel vehicle that ran over 100,000 miles on E85.
Pay attention to the intank fuel pump and fuel lines section you will be amazed. This is all good stuff what a great fuel!!

YouTube - E85 Ethanol Does not harm Non-FlexFueled Engines

[UPP]

Hey guess what!!! I just found down -side to E85!!!

Since I'm in a bit of a colder climate (CO) and it was already mentioned that cold starts are much harder with E85 since it dosn't atomize and burn as well when cold.... Well if you continuously crank the hell out of your engine....you can wash down your cylinder walls! But that's not even the real problem. I just happened to check my oil the other day since I'm starting to bring this thing out more for summer, and it smelled ALOT like E85! Naturally I changed it, but I'm afraid that the winter cranking (then driving) damage has already been done. Spun a bearing today at the track. I was tweaking with it on the dyon earlier this week, making decent power, but had random unexplainable knock. Pulled a little timing, and thought nothing of it, it was still there so I figured it was the "phantom". Durring the second pass the oil press fell back to 50psi, and then ~15psi at idle after that.....and inevatibly...clank clank clank...

It's not really the E85's fault, it's mine. But E85 had a harder time starting the car, which initially caused the fuel in the oil, and ethanol is a little more corosive on the oil than regual gas would be.... But oh well....

I'm just going to throw in a $100 SL high compression motor for now, and see how long it lasts!

UPP

[dlabonte]

Phantom Knock, dropping oil pressure, then clank clank clank....
I am going to call busted ring land, #1 cylinder, repeat first down.

and to stay on topic here is a link for you guys

E85 Prices

Current national average price spread is 17.8%.
Well would you look at that, the price spread is greatest in my own state 37%
What a bargain I think I will buy some.

Just for reference, the US imports very little crude from the middle east as a percentage of our national consumption.

[dlabonte]

Originally Posted by Hammer

This guy is full of it all bad info. You guys have to view this breakdown of a chevy Tahoe non flex fuel vehicle that ran over 100,000 miles on E85.
Pay attention to the intank fuel pump and fuel lines section you will be amazed. This is all good stuff what a great fuel!!

They say it ran on E-85 when it was available, not 100% E-85. Run water-meth on that thing and the valves would look almost new.
The test vehicle can from an owner of an ethanol plan. What nobody is going to scream biased propaganda on this one?

[UPP]

I'm going to call false start.....on dlabonte......

Acutally....like I said in my previous post....low oil pressure, bad oil....(btw clank clank clank is only above 3k rpms )

I'm going to go with spun bearing. And the "phantom" knock, that really shouldn't have been there as conservative as my timing was..... Going to ALSO go with premature spun bearing, causing inaudiable knocking, that my KS was actually picking up.

In the last month I did notice a slighly lower oil pressure, just under 25psi as opposed to right at 25. Because it's been hotter I thought nothing of it. In hind sight, I'm looking at that as bearing wear due to the E85 in the oil, deteriorating it. This caused a "phantom" knock, which was actually my rod bearing bearly acting up. Then since I beat the piss outa it on the dyno, and even more so at the track, it matured into full grown rod knock.

And last time I checked, the top ringland didn't hold back alot of oil pressure, just cylinder pressure...

But I wouldn't expect you to know that comming from the guy that, "Ran a customers car safely at 19:1 afr"

Oh, and one last thing....I was staying on topic! Maybe you should revisit my previous post. I'm warning of a potential downside to running E85....thought you being the meth head would actually appreciat that!

UPP

[dlabonte]

Yep false start on me, did not read clank was above 3000RPM only.

My appologies, think you miss read my post. Posted price link for general E85 info so I was on topic, no reference to you or anyone else on this thread. Maybe some here will find it useful.

Yep you can run a boosted engine at 18:1 AFR, it is all about octane or detonation control. There are a number of SAE papers and research being done on "Lean Burn Engine" technology that go as high as 30:1 A/F on gas motors. The Honda hybrid was a great application for this.