That is pretty impressive.

 

The official website says you will lose 15% fuel economy overall.

The damn point is you can run this $2 per gallon stuff and make big hp rather than running $8 per gallon C16 or C12.

 

100% agree.....:withstu: :rockon:

 

So do the cars not make that much power unless either running E85, C16, or C12? How much do they lose when running the AvGas which I gather costs somewhere in the middle of those?

 

I believe 160lb injectors (like those in your test) are alcohol safe? They have stainless internals or something. I know they also have green o-rings. I wonder if you'd have problems with other injectors?

And how do you coat the inside of a gas tank??
Teflon line isn't that expensive, either, is it?

I hope this catches on... I see there is a station about 40 miles from my house. I may have to check out if they really have it or not.

 

c-16 $8-$9 per gallon, methanol $1.99 per gallon but it takes twice as much, so I am saving 1/2 by using methanol on my new limited street turbo car... I also run methanol on my current drag car.. I love the stuff it runs way cooler... no cooling down between rounds, makes more power, ect...

 

And if you changed to Ethanol (ethyl alcohol) you would burn even less fuel.

 

I have been running it for a year in a weekend driver. The gas tank sat full of E85 all winter long. I haven't seen any indicators that this fuel is causing damage to anything. (I had the gas tank out this sping and every thing looked fine). I haven't even need to change the fuel filter. ( i probably should though ) IMO Teflon lines and coated gas tanks would be required only if you planned on building 100,000 mile car... very long term shit.

I have the standard old 42 lb green injectors and they don't seem to mind at all. Don't forget that almost all the gasoline you purchase today has at least 10% ethanol in it already, so it's not like your car has never seen it before.

 

It should've caught on years ago when car companies started making Flex Fuel vehicles. And as someone else stated, the local NASA branch is the only place that has E85...and CNG...and Propane.

 

Most industrial hose shops can supply you with either rubber telfon hose or braided steel telfon hose. The cost is very close to the regular Earls stuff but last much longer, and best of all, they assemble it for you right at the shop so no more headaches from pushing fittings on braided hose.

Remember that all big injectors were meant for CNG or E85 if made for the factory.

 

Hey, my dad works at the Cape (NASA), I wonder if he could get some of that stuff???

 

Get me some too...hell...I probably could sneak out there with the High School robotics program.

 

Screw at the pump, where do I get the stuff by the 55 gallon drum?

 

Now we're talkin......

 

Well since we cant buy it here in California, I'm thinking about making my own... http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com

 

Speaking from experience, the solar still (search for "Mother Earth News") is the easiest to make, doesn't cost much of anything to run, but is low volume and must be used on sunny days.

I was having to make a lot more at a time, so I built a vacuum still. It allows the alcohol to boil off at a lower temperature, saving fuel costs of distillation.

In the long run,..................
Unless you plan on using a LOT of fuel - just buy it.
There is a lot more to making it than first appears.

 

No kidding. They need a milkman-type program where some guy drops off a drum at your house whenever you need it.

As for straight methanol, I used to run it in a 4-wheeler, and it's very nasty stuff. You're even supposed to change your oil in 4-stroke vehicles every time you run it because even the slightest blowby contaminates it. And it corrodes aluminum and bare steel like crazy. You don't want to leave it sitting in the tank for very long, I always ran the wheeler on gas for about 5 minutes to clean it out. It would be a major PITA in a car... This E85 stuff sounds much much more forgiving.

 

what about buying ethenol and just mixing it with pump gas? Is ethenol available by the drum?

 

From chemical supply houses - YES.

The companies that buy Ethanol in bulk to fill the 1-gallon cans of "denatured alcohol" from lowes or home depot might be able to get ship it in drums, or their suppliers would. Problem is it isn't cheap and shipping is expensive. That is why the pump prices are so attractive. They move 10,000 gallons at a time.

With gas prices high, you can BET that ethanol plants in the "grain belt" are cranking as much as they can. The new energy bill passed by congress mandates 10% ethanol blends in all US gas by 2008. They don't like to ship it as a mix, though - - they like to ship the pure stuff to localities and have local oil distributors mix the 10% blends in the cities they sell it in. It makes no sense to ship gasoline with 10% ethanol all over the country, but it DOES make economic sense to send the pure stuff everywhere to be mixed on location.

When that begins to pick up speed, you might start seeing E85 at select locations. Until then it might be a while. I wonder if there is someone you can start a letter campaign to (write your senator?) to get an E85 pump set up in a city where there isn't one.


One last thing to those wanting to make it yourself - - - Ethyl alcohol must be "DRY" (anhydrous - meaning "no water in it") before it will mix with gasoline. The best you can do with a home made still is about 190 proof (95%) and that is leaving a lot of otherwise useable alcohol on the table. There is a special kind of dessicant that the home made ethanol has to be run through to get the water out. I don't remember what it was called.

EFI systems that have a lot of circulation (return) can actually get by with a fair amount of water (less than 1%) in the system because the return system always mixes what is on the bottom of the tank (alcohol or alcohol/water mix) with whatever fuel is above. "Arizona guys" are better off because the hotter the fuel mix, the easier the water stays in suspension (look out, you winter guys)

This works great as you drive, but if it sets for a long time, you may have to do a lot of "circulating" (manual pump switch?) to get it mixed together again.

I did some experimenting with a double pumper carb set up as a two fuel carb, starting on gas in the front two barrels and running on the back two (92% ethanol, 8% water - best I could do practically with the home still) for driving. It worked well down to -20* F, but the throttle linkage was a pain to set up.

If racing, you could set up a dual fuel carb easy with dual feed fuel bowls, but you would need two separate fuel systems. You could run pump gas through the front two barrels for regular driving, and have the Ethanol on tap for the rear two brrels when you open it up. It works well (tried that on a N/A motor) and also saves your ethyl alcohol "until you NEED it".

I have never seen anyone try it with a turbo set-up but I see no reason why it wouldn't work (you just have to do some math)

You also have to make sure you "romp on it" once in a while so the fuel in the rear bowls doesn't get stale. (not hard to coax many people to do that - )

If you have four corner idle system, you have to have a pump that can supply the rear barrels at all times - if two corner idle system (idle mixture screws on front barrels only) the rear fuel pump only needs to come on as the throttle reaches around 30% or so. The fuel needs to start pumping before the secondaries start to open.

I was doing all this back in the late 80's and early 90's. If you are really sharp with EFI technology, you could have a separate set of injectors for the alcohol - and you could run 87 octane through one set and spray E85 or pure alcohol through another set, only when above a certain throttle postion. Agaian, that takes two separate fuel systems.

 

Karl,

Are you running this on a standard gasoline fuel system ? or was anything done differently to support this fuel ? Sorry if i missed it in an ealier post.. i think i read everything but its pretty early and im pretty tired.