theturboforums.com along with Steve Cole Enterprises Inc (username: Karl Hungus) has completed some preliminary testing with the environmentally friendly, cheaper than 91 Octane, E85 fuel blend.
First off what is E85? E85, is a motor fuel blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline to be used in flex-fuel vehicles. Ethanol is alcohol used in transportation fuels. It is a high-octane, liquid fuel, produced by the fermentation of plant sugars. In
the United States, ethanol is typically produced from corn and other grain products, although in the future it may be economically produced from other biomass resources.

Benefits:
It has a motor octane rating of 104-108, it is also quite cold to the touch. It is currently about 1.99 per gallon, while 91 Octane is approximately 3.30 a gallon. E85 is cleaner burning, emitting a lot less greenhouse gasses. It is also a renewable resource. To top it off it is made 100% within the confines of the USA.

Cons:
It takes more of this fuel to create the same energy as regular gasoline. Therefore your car will use more fuel and you will see a decrease of approximately 10-15% in fuel economy. To make big horsepower you will need more fuel pump and more injector. Many people state that the fuel is corrosive and it could have adverse effects on aluminum fuel rails, injector o-rings and fuel lines. But so far in 9 months of testing we have seen no such side effects.

Test Car
1995 Mustang GT street car, 331 cubic inch, custom twin turbo system with twin T70 p-trims w/ .58 AR, T56 transmission, solid roller: 242/236, .600 lift.
Fuel System: 3, 255lph Walbro in line fuel pumps, 160# injectors.
No alky, no nitrous, no ice on the intake, etc.

The first thing we did was add 40% fuel to the fuel map under WOT. We also added about 20% fuel in part throttle areas. We were tuning using a regular gasoline wideband air fuel ratio of 14:1 at part throttle. On the dyno the car made the best and cleanest power at 12:1.

At 6 psi of boost and 35 degrees total timing the car made 575rwhp from 6000rpm until 7500rpm. The power never fell off. We tried less timing but the car didn't respond well and the power curve was sloppier. At 13psi and about 29 degrees of timing we made 872rwhp. At 20psi and ~24 degrees of timing we made 989rwhp.
At 30 psi and 20 degrees of timing we ended up with 1066rwhp. The fuel injectors were at 75% duty cycle at this power level. Whereas with gasoline they were at about 55%. The fuel pressure was also slightly falling off at the top. The lack of a large power increase from 20-30psi is due to the tiny exhaust housings on this street car.

In total we made 16 dyno pulls and we never heard any detonation, but we did hit fuel cut a few times during testing. The next day the spark plugs were pulled and there may have been slight detonation in 2 of the cylinders because the porcelain was speckled. However the car still runs fine. This is definitely a very impressive fuel.
I also want to point out how impressed I am with this solid roller setup. Sure it is slightly noisier than my tiny hydro cam. But you can't argue with that sick power curve. At all boost levels the car makes peak power at 6000rpm and holds it solid until 7500rpm, I am sure it would pull up to 8000rpm no problem. Steve has also tried a larger hydraulic cam to get the same results but it just didn't work. The cam was a comp extreme energy hyd roller: 248 @ .050 on int and exh, 114 lsa. The car also had larger 74mm turbos at the time but the power would peak at 6500rpm and drop like a rock, even with expensive valve springs. With the new small solid roller cam the car even lugs along at 1500rpm no problem and idles fine at 900rpm.

To learn more about E85 and to check for stations in your area please go here:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/e85toolkit/e85_fuel.html

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE DYNO RUNS IN .JPG FORMAT:
https://www.theturboforums.com/techarticles/stevenew95/coleruns.jpg

Video:
https://www.theturboforums.com/techarticles/stevenew95/stevedyno.wmv

 

Thats awesome, time to order some bigger injectors..

 

Was there an increase over pump gas in power output?



E85 is discounted by the FEDs as of right now to make it more popular hence the lower price.

 

Finally! I am ecstatic to finally see someone else running this fuel in a non FFV vehicle! While I don't not have anywhere near as an impressive setup as above, I too have been running this fuel for the past year. (approx. 6000 miles).

I have a TT 5.0 mustang ~12lbs of boost. Click here

Some of the things in your post above are a little different then what I have been doing.

Somewhere buried in the official E85 website there is/was a data sheet on this fuel. On this data sheet, E85 has a specified Stoich A/F of 10:1 (which makes sense since straight ethanol is 9:1). My tune is based around this information. I.E. Cruise A/F is set to be around 10.5:1. Higher boost area is programmed to be around 8.5:1.

The reason I tuned my car this way is because from my understanding, most fuels typically make max power at .85 lambda.

I am very surprised to see that you are not having any problems with running your car that... well, lean. Now, the fact that you found max power at 12:1 though is interesting. The bad part is that it does not really jive with what I would expect. For example, like you stated in your post that you should consume more fuel/hp with E85. (It's the amount of energy found in the fuel) However, your max power A/F ratio doesn't reflect that. 12:1 is what gasoline typically makes best power at, which means E85 shouldn't.

I haven't had the guts to crank my timing up anymore than 26 total @ 13 psi. I don't have the resources to do dyno tuning, so I am really just tuning based on theory. But, I will say that my car has never even hinted at detonation. BTW, I am using used felpro head gaskets. Also, my intake temps are typically ~125-130 degrees under boost.

Again, it's great to see another person see what a great fuel this is. What do you think of my tuning ideas?

 

Cool.

This site soon to be sponsored by GreenPeace.




Trent- You should put this on the main site ...

 

I honestly think it has the potential for being the answer to our dependency on the middle east. It's a domestic product, it's adaptable to all vehicles on the road right now, and it's really boost friendly!!

 

I will, I just thought I would post it here for discussion first.

Thanks,

 

The car has never been dyno tested with regular gas with these turbos and this cam.

jaeger, I don't know what to tell you, it is what it is I guess. I read the same things you did. We tried adding more fuel and taking more fuel out and it lost power all over the curve so we left it as is.

Trent

 

I am using gasoline afr. Your numbers are probably right on.

 

yep, it even notes that in the original thread up there.

anyway, I will post some vids tonight too.

 

I should have read first.

 

Nice results........how does this fuel differ from methanol? Does it have a strong distinct smell?

 

I can't describe the smell. It's definitely unique.

 

I don't understand what your saying here. Air/Fuel ratio, is Air/Fuel ratio regardless of what the actual fuel is. Correct?

Or are you trying to say that the A/F ratios, stated in the main post, are the a/f ratios that were used for gasoline and you added the 20% and 40% to those a/f ratios?

 

It's got a kind of sweet smell, IMO.

 

Methanol is like corrosive death, Ethanol is the kinder, gentler cousin. It'll still dry out rubber parts, but it isn't nearly the all consuming corrosive monster than meth is. IE, you can have no problems with E85 sitting in your gas tank for an extended period of time, but you can't do that with meth.

 

It seems much less sensitive to water also.

 

You seem to be forgetting that the wideband doesn't measure A:F directly, it measures exhaust gas oxygen level. They used a comanded A:F of 12:1 but had to increase the map by ~40% to get the sensor to read that level. The software is all calibrated to meter gasoline by volume where the information you're using is based off of mass.

At least that's how I read it.

Very good info guys, did you do any testing at all to see if/how it effected ACT like Methanol does?

 

Only filling station in the Houston area is NASA - obviously not for public use.

Very Interesting read...great post!

 

Trent, Using that link you gave I see there are a few options to buy this stuff in Tucson, but nothing within 100 miles of PHX. Do you know of anything closer?

So is it safe to assume that a car with a modest setup and enough injector left, someone that had a clue could pretty easily re-tune a stand alone to run this stuff?