So I was at my parents house, and picked up a hot rod magazine and they have an article that I thought was interesting, titled Ethanol: What's the Deal? It says that E85 has an octane rating of about 105, but is 20-40 cents a gallon cheaper than regular. Big difference than paying for race gas. And it's clean. It's highly resistant to knock, but somewhat sensitive to pre-ignition. One bad thing though, is the 25% or so drop in fuel economy. The difference on one engine , with a 10.2:1 compression ratio made 15more lb/ft and 6 more hp with E85 than 100 octane gas. Then the real difference, the guy bolted up a turbo and intercooler (to the same engine with 10.2:1 compression) and ran 13psi and made 833 lb/ft and 850 hp on E85, but didn't even waste his time trying it with pump gas. I don't know much about diesels, but couldn't a similar style engine running with this gas get rid of the pre-ignition problem and be made to run even more boost/higher compression? Really I don't know much about diesel engines but it sounds interesting so after this is up I'm going to search some on it. Any thoughts?
In order to run 100% E85, your fuel systems need to be upgrade to withstand deterioration by more corrosive nature of E85 than regular gasoline. Unfortunately, Subarus are not ready for this yet. I believe stock fuel system can withstand about 10-15% of E85 mixture without problem (since majority 93oct already has 10% ethanol mixtures). Also, in GA (at least in metro Atlanta), E85 is not widely available to run it as daily driver. I hope that this will gain more popoluarity in GA area, so we can benefit form this as well. One more thing, you also need to run bigger injectors since it has lower stoich ratio.
It is MUCH lower lower stoich ratio compared to regular gasoline. 14.7: Gasoline compared to 9:1 for ethanol. Someone has already done this with 1000cc injectors that's at 85%+ duty cycle that made around 450whp. If you are trying to make serious power, perhaps 1000cc injector won't be enough...
Keep in mind that E85 is still 15% gasoline so the stoich ratio isn't totally accurate. Its pretty close though I think. E85 is pretty neat stuff, the thing is that all these enviromental groups want to act like its the greatest thing since sliced bread when in reality its really just a good way to subsidise corn farmers. We can't make enough E85 to supply all of the US with fuel so its not like its going to take over the market.
The best thing about E85 is that its almost like direct alcohol injection. I hear with tuning you can pull numbers akin to that of running race gas. Just keep in mind the downsides just as mentioned before, that you'll use twice as much fuel to go the same distance/make the same power. Its not an efficient fuel but instead is very renewable.
I'm glad E85 won't take over, speaking of fuel I wish there is different grades of VP fuel at pump In the perfect world you would have Motorsports 109 on the left pump, C16 in the middle and VP import on the far right for ballers :naughty:
While its renewable I wonder how cost effective it really is, what does it cost to make a gallon of E85 vs a gallon of gas etc.... Everything I read about the stuff seems to be slanted so far to the left that its crazy.
Yeah and an engine that gets 18mpg on 93 gets something like 12mpg on E85 from what I remember. You are right about it being slanted to the left. E85 will only be a viable option if the price drops back down to pre 9/11 gas price levels, until then it'll just be a second contender until we run out of full fledged gasoline. Car and Driver did a really nice writeup comparing overall energy costs from production to the transportation to gas pumps of gasoline vs E85 and gasoline won hands down. At least we've already got the infrastructure to support it. Hell E85 could be a solution to the lagging agricultural industry in the US as well as aiding the gasoline problem, but like you said it will take lots of subsidies to develop it. We should probably take this debate into another thread and leave this one to performance aspects.
Do it... there are only a few drawbacks to running it. Its hard to find down here in the dirty souf, you loose about 15% MPG, and you will need to upgrade your injectors and fuel pump. 850cc injectors will max out around 450whp, so if you plan on making more you will need to run a topfeed injector on an STI. Tuning on E85 will make about the same power as tuning on VP's MS109. When tuning E85 I usually tune around .75 lambda which is 11.5afr on gas and 5.0afr on ethanol. But since most widebands are calibrated to a gasoline setting the afrs will be shown as 11.5
In the US we're not even close. We can't even begin to THINK about supplying the whole nation with E85. You do lose some fuel efficiency because a gallon of E85 doesn't "hold" as much energy in it as gasoline, which has less than diesel. In South America, Brazil I believe, has been on the E85 thing for decades now and they are just getting to the point where they have the infrastructure in place to handle E85 supply, demand and distribution for the country as a whole with less than 12% of thier overall petroleum imported. Here's a decent article. http://skeptically.org/oil/id12.html Doesn't say much about the efficiency of E85 but you can research too.... so what are you waiting for? Ha ha!
Oh I didn't plan on using it much less trying to find it I just wanted to hear what everyone thought about it.
i think i remember reading ethanol is less efficient and not 'as green' as said because the growing/harvesting etc takes alot of resources. Also, the US will never produce enough ethanol to be the only fuel available. I say they use that for race kaas n stick with the rechargeable mass transit. I think the key is goin to be batteries charged by wind/water/sun but they just need to last longer and recharge faster. Until that time e85 will act as a pacifier. I'm goin to have solar panels for the panels on my car instead of carbon fiber. not really but i'm really interested to see what subaru is able to do with their new diesel engine that's in the works