E85 fuel

[jeffro ra28]

On the boats i used to play with that had alloy tanks and ran methanol, every so often we had to clean the tanks out because there was some nice funky white furr growing in places. We also chucked out a few speedflow fittings here and there because it had attacked them a bit.
Electrolysis maybe?

[mr2mark]

So they have been running it for how long? how many fuel tanks have rusted out on them?

Apart from defying common sense, this flys in the face of any workshop comment i have heard. The guys that tuned my car on my alcohol cocktail can't speak highly enough of the stuff and their testing indicates no water adorption issues. The fact that Lotus and even Konigblablabla recommend this for their cars is pretty good testament that the correct setup will have no issues.

It's just alcohol, hardly any nastier than unleaded. Sure if you run Supercheap fuel line you'll have issues (as you do with just normal fuel) but any quality EFI line will cope just fine.

Ive read about the aluminium corrosion as the bigger risk over steel. How much is old wives tales or chinese whispers as opposed to fact is hard to say.

I would just treat e85 as high octane petrol, somewhere between 98 and race fuels ( I seriously doubt whether it will save the environment or anything else either) . If it becomes readily available Im sure heaps of built cars will switch to it like they have been in USA. I would/will.

[beerhead]

Celica RA45 - Have you got adjustable cam gears on your motor? I wonder if the E85 is so resistant to detonation how aggressive can you get with your cam timing, and if that'd unleash a bit of extra power...

[Celica RA45]

my race motor still uses some vvti so i can play with the vvti as much as i like ,but i have had it set up for 100 so e85 wont change it that much and the same with in jectors as i have 1000 cc out board and i had to go up 35% more fuel to gain that magical 1.2 kws
but its avialible and most turbo guys will benifit from it ,
its just a pity it hasnt done more for my motor
and to say other wise my 1st motor had 12 to 1 was running 30 degress then 12.8 to 1 back to 29 and now 13.5 to 1 and 28 is the go
the only fuel i havnt tried is avgas and i dont think it would make much difference so elf made the biggest difference 198kws at the back wheels
vpower racing 192kws and united 100 190 kws and the E 85 191.2

[Toy77]

Hi guys,

I thought the main issue with the ethanol was it attacking the rubber in the fuel system...
I might test some here today and see if i can see any effect - i dont have any e85 - but have plenty of ethanol, and other chemicals for that matter....

I did see an article in one of my fishing magazines about ethanol fuels. Most outboard manufactures will void warantee if it is used. ethanol will absorb water, but like Justin said - if it is bonded i don't see it being too big a deal. They did claim that it caused separation in boat fuels - but i cant remember if this was in relation to 2-stroke fuels or included 4-stroke fuels.

I'm of to find some rubber and soak it in ethanol.... keep me busy at work today...

Cheers
Stew

[Toy77]

I have just looked up the MSDS for Methanol - it sates that it will attack some rubbers. The MSDS for ethanol, or E85 fuel doesn't state this. So im guessing that its not so bad.

I had heard that you needed full stainnless fuel systems for that fuel - but it may have been hype put out by petrol manufacturers.

Cheers
Stew

[SYC02T]

I just had a look at the fuel bowser last time I filled up, you will see more corrosion on the alloy nozzle on the one with the ethonol than the regular fuel.

That has to tell us something. And i only got 10% down the road

[JP]

Hi Guys,

Have been reading a bit about using E85 with aftermarket ECU's and noticed a bit of discussion regarding ethanol composition sensors, some of the guys use the sensors in conjunction with their ECU's to trim the maps depending on the ethanol content of the fuel. Apparently the content is a bit hit and miss... more info on the sensors etc can be found at the following link:
http://www.zeitronix.com/Products/ECA/ECA.htm

[mr2mark]

Thats a good find JP. Ill bookmark that for later. Quite expensive for the flex sensor and the display though. Hopefully some generic brands might pop up in the future that are significantly cheaper.

Otherwise some sort of chemical test kit (like pool or fish tank test kits) that you could test each batch of e85 you get for ethanol percentage content (be that by the barrel of e85 bought from the wholesaler or from the bowser when it gets there) might be nice.

[mattysshop]

silly question but is E10 worth tuning on? as it seems to be the only thing available at the pump that i know of in brisbane..

[ROTFL-ACT]

i know when i used to run on 100% methanol we'd run some normal fuel through afterwards just to clean as much as possible out the lines etc. also had to change oil more frequently as some meth would contaminate it and turn into a toffee colour if eventually.

[trdee]

silly question but is E10 worth tuning on? as it seems to be the only thing available at the pump that i know of in brisbane..

depends on how high the octane number is for E10. i dont remember but if it's less than 98 octane then you might as well use 98 octane petrol instead

[JustenGT8]

E10 is bat's piss

[RAAAH23]

E10 from shell is 94 octane more than 91 RON but still got that ethanol "mixture"

[Dieseltrain]

Yeah but its probably shit 88 octane fuel with 10% ethanol to bump it up to 94 ... SO its really shit,lol .. Better off with pump 98 .