finally this area is so outdated compared to cally and other states

 

omg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIkB6...eature=related
8 sec suprea

 

What's it take to 'convert'?

 

on www.change2e85.com has a conversion

 

Believe what you want. Your knowledge come from reading propoganda, mine comes from talking to engineers. In my old car (though e10 compatible) there is a substantial reduction in power when going to e10 (even readjusting the mixture to match). Chevron agreed with me btw, non-oxygenated 93 octane gas gives better mpg and better power than 93 octane gasohol.

If you're running e85 at 12:1, there's no point in having gone to e85, because you sure aren't going to be running 14:1 compression with a 12:1 a/f on e85.

 

My knowledge comes from 9 years of EFI tuning experience and having tuned hundreds of cars ranging from all motor to 40+ PSI of boost, high compression, low compression, 4 cyl, 8 cyl, leaded gas, unleaded, ethanol, methanol, gasoline, from 200 too 700+ whp.

Us in the auto performance industry make fun of people like you every day. Paper Engineers. You can state your theories based on high school chemistry text books all you want. In the EFI world we deal with reality, not term papers.

If you're going to argue at least come up with real information. Ethanol does nothing but help. It is an anti-detonation agent. I've dealt with many cars on E85 and so far it's working as good or better than C16 for us, running reliably in the 30 + PSI range, 650+ whp, and 10:1 CR.

Of course being a member from 08 I shouldn't expect you to understand the complexities of the real world I guess.

 

HighPsi Tsi Guy builds and tunes 11 and 10 second cars ..Were talking building motors, transmissions, reprogramming ECUs, TCUs, installing and tuning AEM, Megasquirt, DSMlink, Diablosport CMR, SAFC I/II...

YOUR background for explaining E85 in a high performance application is what ?

 

I never said e85 is a bad substitute for C16, I just said the cost difference isn't as large as implied.

You're running 30+ psi, 10:1 compression on a 12:1 a/f mixture with e85?

 

In a friend's car yes. 4G63 10:1 ross pistons on crower rods. Ran out of injector on the dyno and only got the boost up to 31 PSI, where at 104% duty cycle it was running 12.0:1 ish, and made 666whp & 480 torque. This was on the winter blend too, so probably more E70 than E85. Going back soon with more injector and turning the boost up to 35-36ish. Obviously running 12:1 wasn't by choice, we were shooting for 11.5:1 for reliability's sake. But lots of people are pushing it into the 13:1 area and finding huge power gains out there. The ethanol seems to like it. I don't trust it that lean though.

Like i said the theory is all correct but in the car world you quickly learn that theory is more of a guideline to possibilty than it is a good prediction of what will happen. Yes it has a different stoich but it seems to work well when tuned like gas. There's actually more complexity to that that I will explain in a minute. The corrosion is there, but it's not as serious as the warnings lead you to believe - just like anything else, to protect idiots from darwinism, extra care is taken to caution people by over-warning. Ideally you do need Viton seals and need to eliminate rubber from the gas path, and also prevent gas from sitting in the lines for a long time. Also, need to avoid aluminum. What does the damage more than anything else is when the ethanol sits in the line or aluminum. When it's flowing it's not really causing much issue. Most modern rubber stuff is synthetic that is much more resistant to the corrosion than natural rubber. Yea it probably won't last forever running the wrong lines - but nothing does. Any car that isn't taken care of falls apart after 10 years anyways.

On the topic of the AFR: YES the stoich is much richer, and this is why it requires 20-30% more fuel. But remember gas and alcohol have different scalings. Stoich is measured in the lamda unit which is then converted to a ratio. the same lamda reading is ALWAYS stoich on ALL fuels. Thus, 12:1 on a gasoline scale is not the same as 12:1 on a ethanol scale. If you were to convert the lamda value to the proper ratio for ethanol it would come out to the proper value. However most people are using the gasoline translation that puts the ratio to the same numbers we are used to seeing, and it just happens to run well when tuned like gas on the gasoline scale. Yes you're dumping more fuel, and yes it's a richer mixture - but when you're getting the effect of $10/gal gas for $1.70/gal - does it really matter that you're using 20-30% more? Hell no, you still come out WAY ahead. And you can trust your O2 sensor better when you aren't running lead through it as an added bonus.

 

HighPSi guy,

I'm trying to figure out your argument of different stoichiometric scales among different fuels?

My understanding is stoich is the ratio to the balance of the equation. For example, since stoich for standard gas is 14.7:1, a ratio, or division that you need 14.7x more mass of oxygen, than mass of gasoline. This is why when you have a higher ratio (too much air) its considered lean, too much fuel (lower number) its rich. Lamda is how far from a fuels stoichiometric point a mixture is.

When you say the ratio for E85 is richer, thats false (I think you meant its lower), as stoich for E85 is 8.5:1 . Yes, if a gasoline engine ran at 8.5:1, it would be considered rich. Stoich is only effective on obtaining the most power with a balanced equation.

The fact of the matter, what really provides fuel mileage, is the energy stored in the fuel or BTU's. In a 100% efficient system, this is the amount of energy that can be harnessed. A gallon of gasoline has approx 125,000 BTU's where a gallon of Ethanol has 76,000 or only 60% as much ( Citation )

Since ethanol has a higher octane rating, it is better for hi-perf engines. This being said, since it has lower energy, this is why you need more of it.

The problems with ethanol toted by a lot of opposition is that its not really 'green'. Some benefits however;

1.) Keeps us less depended on foreign countries/Keeps money within the states.
2.) For every bushel (56lbs) of corn used, you get about 2.74 gallons of ethanol. On top of this, you also get 26 lbs of distiller grains which are great for livestock feed.
3.) It is a renewable resource and can be made from more things than just corn. The amulases used to break down the starches can geared towards other products including wheat, grass, etc. Corn just happens to be readily available and easy to handle.

marlin, I think you've been fed some false/biased information. Most new rubbers (i'd say anything early 90's on up) are OK with ethanol. The huge problem however with it however, has already been mentioned. It readily absorbs water, which is a huge problem for boaters especially when they sit dormant over the winters.