E85 smells like cheap vodka

[Def]

...and I like it a lot. :D

Finally drove down to the Kroger about 5-6 miles down the road to hit up some E85 goodness. Ran it down to below the E mark, then filled up with about 13 gal of E85. $38 for a full tank at $2.88/gal, been a LONG time since I've filled up a car for that "little"(the world is sick I know)...

Loaded up my "best guess" map, and she fired up and everything was PERFECT. AFRs were spot on(within 0.1 of the target), and the car actually behaves much better down low than it does on regular 93 since the 740's are behaving closer to 590s. The magic DefTune number for E10 to E85 was about 26% more fuel. My final mixture probably had a gallon or two of 93 in it, so I imagine if I fill up with E85 again it'll need about 1-2% more pulsewidth to keep the AFRs good.


I didn't do much except a few pulls with my jacked up wastegate setup(need to reinforce the bracket more than I have or something... 16-17 psi with no vac hose on the actuator... haha) - but it feels fast with about 2 deg more timing than I was running on 93 with room for more it seems. One thing I did notice is that even with my somewhat lazy boost response thanks to the wastegate issue, is that boost builds faster. Hard to give an RPM number to it, but I'd say at least a few hundred RPM.


I think I'm sold it on for beating around town. Just sucks it's not common around any tracks around here, and I don't know about bringing along 30 gal+ of fuel for E85 use on the track!

[Your Mom]

awesome Def thanks for the numbers, i've heard good an bad about mixtures of e85.

i was looking into it when a local station picked it up but i have heard the local station has different mixtures. and that a local tuner has to mess with the map on each fill up. so that kinda turned me off. The station is not "certifed"

Not sure what management your running but with the aem i can put a switch in and use the nitrous map as my E85 map. makes it easy when you can't find a fill up station.

[Def]

I have a Bikirom USB "Megaboard" - supposedly it can hold 4 maps. I never bothered with it before, but I'll put some effort into loading two maps on there and toggling back and forth between them.

The station did advise a "minimum of 70% ethanol", so I wonder if they actually go to an E70 winter blend or just put that on there as a CYA type sticker.

[ckcadavona]

I wonder if a test kit would be a possiblity. At least you'd know what your running before you put it in. I know you'll get less mileage but let us know how the gas mileage compares to 93.

[Def]

I don't think it would be economically feasible. I'm sure the AFRs would tell the story if the ethanol percentage changed drastically.

I imagine gas mileage will go down about 25% compared to 93, since that's how much more pulsewidth I'm using for the same load.

[OHH]

Gas mileage will actually be about a wash. I tried E-85 (actually it was winter so E-70), what amounted to about E-50 and straight 91 about a year ago. The results of which has better mileage was about the same (a one or two mile gain with the 91).

If i remember right Def you were in
TX right? I am not sure where they get the E-85 down there. If its made in the northern states I would think you do have E-70 if its made there I wouldnt think they change the mixture much if at all.



Personally E-85 smells like popcorn--well after you have burned it of course.

[undesiredshoe]

Personally E-85 smells like popcorn--well after you have burned it of course.

Hehe yes I agree. Ive been using the stuff for 5 months now and everything's fine.

[Def]

The E85 actually had 85% ethanol in it after seeing what pulsewidth increase it required(exactly theoretical amount going from E10 to E85).

Gas mileage dropped about 20%, so I was getting about 20-22 mpg in the car getting on it every once in a while. It'd drop to high teens with lots of high boost running.

The 740cc injectors were hitting about 97-98% IDC right at redline and 18 psi from my GT2876R. It was safely rich with the lambda in the same range as 11.6-11.8 on gasoline, but that's right at the very limit of the setup.

There are only a few stations within 10 miles that have it, so I've gone back to 93. It's actually cheaper to drive around on since E85 seemed to stay high after gas prices dropped. It was $3.40 last time I filled up with it, and gas was still going up.

[Tower240sx]

E100 smells like cheap Tequila.

I spend a fair bit of time at Indy Racing League events due to my fiance's involvement therewith.

They run E100 it's very tempting to try and tune for it...A couple companies actually have at home kits that use feedstock quality grain to produce the ethanol...claimed production was ~35 gals/week.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/science_news/4262690.html

[float_6969]

E85 is readily available here and I've been running it for a few years now. I have a high compression (~10-10.5:1) CA18DET + a T28 and the car is sick. Well over 300RWHP via the butt dyno. I need to actually get it back on the dyno just for kicks and giggles. When I was running 91 octane, I couldn't run more than 7psi on that turbo due to having to retard the timing so severely. Now I don't have any timing retard below 7psi.

Fuel economy sucks though. I run much leaner AFR's on the highway, but still had fuel economy drop about 15%.