hypothetical E85 high performance build

crazycanuck

what about running E85...it has an antiknock of 105 from what i understand so a dynamic compression ratio of almost nine should work that would allow for a 400hp 360 easy without that fact that i would add oxygen so a slow 500hp 560...at 6500 rpm....could this be done or am i missing something, from what i understand rpm is the primary source of stress on a properly built engine? could the engine survive?

Holeshot

WTF is E85? Ethanol? If so, an alky engine has to get an oil change after every day of running!! I've been tinkering with that idea for daily use but I figure you would need to dry sump it and have some kind of oil/water seperator that works real-time & hope it doesn't rust into a boat anchor when sitting.

Goose

E85 is an 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline blend.. It is meant for the newer cars with fuel injection.. the biggest problem that I see with building an older motor for Performance plus E85.. is since ethanol burns cooler you need quite a bit more of it..(For a roughly equivalent amount of power) and the issue that ethanol has almost zero lubricity so Im sure valve guides and stuff would wear fairly quickly on an older engine. You migh want to look at what they are changing in the newer engines that makes them "duel fuel" capable. But like anything.. It can be done with research and logical planning..(which means ignoring the "accepted wisdom" and stepping out) The part I almost forgot to add is.. To make the same amount of power as straight gas.. you are going to use more E85 so in the end it would probably be cheaper to build for gas..

Holeshot

What about when the gas is gone & Iran is a smoldering crater?? I would be glad if we would stop buying oil & gas from the Arabs & get on with the conversion to alky. We are funding the terrorists with the dough we give them. The price of sand is pretty low, so boycotting OPEC would put them all back on camels looking for water to drink. You need twice as much alky to equal the same BTUs of gasoline. Alky is very corrosive. You need a different type of rubber for alky. Burning alky causes water vapor to condense inside the engine due to the extremely cold temps & the fact that alky attracts moisture. So the oil HAS to be changed after every outing. Or invent a way of seperating the water & getting rid of it. You can use WAY more CR with alky because it runs so cold. Burning alky in race engines is done all the time, some builders that I know like to keep their old valve seals so as to let a bit more lube get to the guides. Americans have proven themselvers VERY capable of making white lightning, so we could have so much "fuel" that the horsepower wars could continue forever!!! Maybe NASCAR should take the lead and mandate alky for racing. We'd get all the problems ironed out then. They could also go back to the 22 gal fuel cell then as well. Would also be good to allow FI so the boys could hammer out the simplest & most efficient way of implementing injection. EDIT: I forgot to add that breathing the burnt fumes causes insanity!!!!

crazycanuck

How do the flex fuel vehicles get around the oil issue? do they rquire an extremely powerfull ph Buffer?(assortment of chemicals to keep PH in check) i know different rubber must be used and i have read that a friction modifier is added to addres the lack of lubrication chemically methonal and ethonal are 2 different animals as far as the human body is concerned ethonal can be drank unless it has been denatured...by adding methonal...only about 4g aof methonal is fatal...ethonal carries much more energy per litre than methonal and does not need to be nearly as inneffiecent....farmers in the 20s and 30s would use thier own ethonal.....i think everyone here has been basically right about what they are talking about...i am more interested in the performance possibility i am not looking for a green fuel or anything like that i was just wondering about the knock resistance and oxygen bearing properties

Goose

The flex fuel vehicles dont have a problem with oil contamination, I wasn't aware that the alky race cars did either.. but I would assume that it is a blow by issue. I wouldnt expect the oil change interval to be any different on the build you are talking about (since to get to the oil it has to get past the rings..and if gas doesnt E85 wont either. as to the performance issue. I would think that if you can flow enough quantity through say a fuel injection setup you could push the compression past normal levels..(as I understand it thats the reason for alky in the Racers.. cooler burn, more fuel, more resistant to detonation.(which leads me to wonder if Nitrous wouldn't be more effective in a ethanol powered car. (you could probably use a bigger shot without blowtorching holes in pistons) It would be an interesting project..You know who might have some info..The guys that MC was talking to about the AMC oil.. they might understand the chemistry enough to get you started.

jeep_man_401

The guy that dynoed my AMC 401 builds alot of motors that run on E-85. He also drills out the carbs to run the right mixture. Claims an increase in power...but also a decrease in MPG. E-85 doen't have the BTU of gas. I'll get his number and post it later. Or call information for "Classic Auto" Sauk Center, MN I believe his name is Chris. :-| If I switch to one carb next year I may have him build me the carb to run E-85 in the pulling truck! :?

Goose

Just a littel anecdotal story here.. I have a 1977 Honda Goldwing with 40,000 miles on it. I went out for a little ride and bought gas..(So I thought). about 5 miles down the road it starts to die lean.. I had been having trouble with the carbs so I wasn't surprised.. I just pulled the choke out till it smoothed out and headed to the house 15 miles away (Remember this is rural Nebraska there aint diddly but me and 30 some year old bike out here in podunk. and cell phone? Hah, you give the note to the Rabbit and hope hops towards the house but I digress) I did finally get the bike home ..turns out the local Co-op (Farmer Brown and compny) decide to get people to try E-85 by not putting the signs up or the different color nozzle on the pump.. needless ti say the choke was all the way out and the throttle wide open and the chrome Pipes are the prettiest blue color. but on the bonus side I did finally have to change the plugs.. darn near melted the electrodes off.. Thanks Farmer Brown! any body see a little furry bunny round here?

Holeshot

Another bike story: A guy bought a new Valkyrie from my dealership & it started dropping a cylinder after about 300 miles. Turns out that he had just filled up with "Super", which has a little alky in it, just enough to lean out an already lean running engine. We drained the tank & put regular in & fixed the "problem".

jeep_man_401

I would hate for E-85 to get a bad rap. Sure you will have problems if you run it in a engine/fuel system that isn't designed for E-85.

E-85 will knock loose dirt and deposits in the lines, tank and carb that will then flow and plug filters etc. It will also lean a engine out as it takes about 15% more fuel than straight gas.

E-85 rates 100+ octane!! If you can take advantage of that with a boost in compression, run the right carb(not an alky) you could build a pretty heathy motor...down side is you'd be stuck on E-85 with a boost of compression.

Flex fuel cars and truck suffer from the lower BTU of E-85...the big 3 haven't figured out how to increase the compression when the computer senses the motor is running on E-85...hence the drop in power and MPG.

One other thing about E-85 is it's harder to start in cold weather. It's less Volatile than gas.

When unleaded came out, everyone that tried it in a motor that wasn't made for it suffer rapid seat wear. But here we are, it powering everything now. Give E-85 a chance...but do it right, before condeming it.

Taken for the web site http://www.e85fuel.com/e85101/faqs/e85.php

What happens if I accidentally fuel my gasoline-only powered vehicle with E85?

Response:

Although your vehicle was not manufactured to run on E85, no problems should occur if you mistakenly fuel once with the alternative fuel. The largest difference between an E85 powered vehicle and a gasoline powered vehicle is that their computer modules are meant to read different amounts of oxygen within the fuel. E85 contains a higher amount of oxygen than gasoline and E85 compatible vehicles are made to read that higher amount. When a higher amount of oxygen is read by a gasoline powered vehicle, your "check engine light" may appear. A number of other parts on the FFV's fuel delivery system are modified to be ethanol-compatible. The fuel tank, fuel lines, fuel injectors, computer system and anti-siphon device have been modified slightly. Alcohol fuels can be more corrosive than gasoline. Therefore; fuel system parts have been upgraded to be ethanol-compatible.

Ultimately it is a drivers choice, but we do need to be firm in recommending that only FFVs use E85 and to state that we are not responsible for damages.

:mrgreen:

Goose

while I believe that "Mistakenly fueling once with E85" wont hurt a more modern Computer controlled Fuel Injected Engine.. I know it didnt do the Gold wing anygood.. and Im sure my 360 woulnt either. although It might be an idea to run say 5 gals of e85 with a full tank of gas to clean things up a bit.. ?? If someone tries it, Let us know..(It wont be me..)

Holeshot

Another bike story: I was working on a GL1200, tuning it up & it just wouldn't settle down & hold a carb sync. It had good compression, the carbs were clean, the vacuum pistons were not scuffed but I polished them with simi-chrome anyway - no dice. I put in a call to Honda dealer tech & the suggestion they made, since I had already tried everything, was to rev the engine up to around 5k & feed it some water!!! Theory being that the engine was so carboned up that the valves were preventing a good vacuum signal from pulling the slides (throttle pistons) open properly. Before I did the water torture to the bike, I pulled a couple intake manifolds off to look at the valves & in the cylinders, sure enough, lots of carbon. So I set up the brake bleader tank with H20 & a hose, put the sync adapters on the intake manifolds & rolled the bike outside as suggested by dealer tech, they said this op would make a lot of stinkey carbon smoke & they were right!!!! So I hooked the hose to one sync adapter & plugged the other three, started it up & proceeded to make a bunch of stinkey smoke!!! Took quite a bit of water per cylinder, maybe a quart, but it blasted enough carbon out of the chambers to make the bike run perfect after the carb sync. If you are going to try this (I did it to a carboned up 2x4 390 & cleaned it out nice) just don't add too much water too fast, I prefer to let the engine siphon it in thru a hose, not pour it in.

Goose

Wow thats a new idea for getting the carbs to work.., I have used a similar method but used a product calle "Sea Foam" it was originally produced for treating fuel and marine engines for storage. It works pretty slick though in through the sync ports or on the carb.. Course I have always believed it was the shock cooling that loosened the carbon, pretty much without regard to the chemical (or water) being used.

crazycanuck

the effeiciency gains can come for m the fact that they can run higher compression...1.0 increase in compression = 11% more effiecent...i dont know if that the right number(it sounds large) but that could make up for the increase....being less volatile is what makes the Antiknok rating higher (many poeple beleive the other way around) 92 is HARDER to burn than 87 or 9, the cold weather starts would just have to be lived with...look at what deisels are like compared to 20 years ago...tricks can be learned to cope

jeep_man_401

"crazycanuck 92 is HARDER to burn than 87 or 9" LOL, I've tried to explain this to many people and they just don't get it. I haven't tried it personaly, but so many people say "I get better MPH on 92" I have to wonder...are they smoking something or do they really? Computer controlled cars anyway. "the cold weather starts would just have to be lived with...look at what deisels are like compared to 20 years ago...tricks can be learned to cope" I think I would just hook up a NOS solenoid to a small propane bottle and inject alittle for cold weather starts. :-|

FuzzFace2

Did this come up because of the Nov. 06 Car Craft? They did testing with 105 race gas and E85 that was also 105 out of the pump. In short they changed the jet plates from gas to alky and also a change of the air bleeds I just don‚Äôt remember if it was the low speeds or high speed one but was just one set. It would have been nice if the also did a computer car that was not set up for E85 just so we could see what would happen if it got hit by ‚Äúfarmer Brown‚Äù! Dave ----