E85.

[Damo]

On Friday, I had a quick flick through a new Wheels mag (I think) they had a small write up on the spots around the country where E85 was being sold, and to my total surprise, there are 2 Caltex servo's locally selling E85!!

So I drove the old girl (yes, I do have rego back on it again and I'm wanting to do a few hundred shakedown k's to be happy with the manifold) down to the closest Caltex from where the car is kept at my olds. There wasn't any E85 there, but no great loss as I would be unable just to fill the tank with the stuff anyway as it wouldn't run. So I asked the guy behind the counter, (fully expecting him to blankly look back at me like the dog watching its owners banging away in the bedroom) he replied back saying that it was avalable at Kambah and Nichols (which just happens to be 5 mins away from my place) YAY!
So after the mucking around on Friday night, I went past the Nichols servo (still fully expecting the counter guy to have no idea what I was on about) and he said it would be on sale Thursday week (7th oct). He asked if I had one of those new flex fuel commodores, and I replied "ahh no, it's sort of a track car." He didn't quite get it, but thats fine.

DAAAAMMMMMMMMNNNNNN............. Got to gets me some E85 BABY! Then re-tune!


Stay tuned.


Damo

[15exa]

kool.......... do us a favour and work out a fuel calculato also with the E85 compared to 95-98 ron. and performance gains.

also any idea if it will be available in QLD

[japcrap]

a couple of years ago Shell used to sell a fuel called V-Power Max. I'm pretty sure they were either 100 or 105 point octane. would E85 be similar to that?

[15exa]

a couple of years ago Shell used to sell a fuel called V-Power Max. I'm pretty sure they were either 100 or 105 point octane. would E85 be similar to that?

not even close

[Damo]

a couple of years ago Shell used to sell a fuel called V-Power Max. I'm pretty sure they were either 100 or 105 point octane. would E85 be similar to that?

This is where we get screwed with fuel!! That 'V-power Max' was was just Optimax 98 with 10% ethanol to bring it upto 100 octane. The V-power max sold for an extra 10c per litre over the optimax. They were getting away with charging an extra 10c per litre for adding 100ml of something which wouldn't cost 2cents.
And the bigger rort is charging the public only 3c/ltr less for blending 89octane unleaded (which is lower than the minimum allowed in Australia) with 10% ethanol which brings it back upto 91, and having people feel happy with themselves after buying a substandard fuel, laced with an even cheaper 'octane booster' for a 'saving' of 3c/ltr, at a cost of needing 3% more fuel to go the same distance! WTF!

Anyway, I rant.

The golden age has come, E85 is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% 91 octane unleaded giving
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wait for it.
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.around 110 octane at the pump for $1/ltr! YEAH BABY!

Now, WTF am I going to do the 10 odd litres of Toluene I have left??



I will go and buy some E85 tonight, or at least have a first hand look to make sure I don't wake up too early from this dream!


The trick with E85 is that you must have a way of trimming up your fuel. E85 only produces 78% of the power per litre compared to 'normal' fuel, so the engine will need 28-30% more of it to make the same power as unleaded. But, with it's huge octane, you are able to run loads more timing (5-8deg at max torque) and up the boost by a good handful of psi (even futher out of its efficiency range ) netting upto 30% more go over the best achieved on pump fuels.



Damo

[Damo]

http://www.ethanolanswers.com.au/ethanol/locator


damo

[TurboZ.Dude]

Now, WTF am I going to do the 10 odd litres of Toluene I have left??

Pour it all in the fuel tank and see if the engine explodes!

I have a question though. Does it actually improve performance? There's so much bullshit going around about toluene, in both directions... haven't found a reliable information source yet.

Gotta love that E85 stuff though... always interesting to see E85 conversions!

[Damo]

Now, WTF am I going to do the 10 odd litres of Toluene I have left??

Pour it all in the fuel tank and see if the engine explodes!

I have a question though. Does it actually improve performance? There's so much bullshit going around about toluene, in both directions... haven't found a reliable information source yet.

Gotta love that E85 stuff though... always interesting to see E85 conversions!

Toluene is the same as any other octane booster, if you don't change anything to do with the tune (and the current tune is not beyond the octane of the fuel) there will be no increase in performance. Toluene, or any hipo pump fuel will do nothing to increase performance unless the boost is increased to take advantage of the greater detonation resistance of the fuel, or ignition timing is advanced to increase average cylinder pressure beyond the scope of the original fuel.
The only way an additive can give greater power with no adjustment to tune would be if the additive had greater energy per litre of 'fuel' than normal fuel. This would be like oxygenating the fuel.
If you could add a oxygenating agent to normal fuel, it would increase the energy contained per litre of that fuel. Something like potassium permanganate in a fuel soluble form would be fantastic, as when it combusts, it releases oxygen, and this oxygen could potentially burn more fuel ......... more power.

So both points are valid, but the no extra go comes from not doing anything with the tune.


Damo

[tassuperkart]

I would personally regard E85 more as a safeguard against grenading an engine with a hot tune rather than a source of hot fuel to enable higher CR's and advanced ignition that ordinary pump petrol could not support.

Build in a decent error factor into the setup would be worth quite a bit more than the limited gains to be had by exploiting a high ron number with funky CR's and ignition tunes.

Im sure the vast majority of young blokes here on this forum who have mindlessly wound the boost up and grenaded would still have running engines id running such a fuel with the stock tune and appropriate injectors.

Just my 2 bobs.

L8r
E

[TurboZ.Dude]

Toluene is the same as any other octane booster, if you don't change anything to do with the tune (and the current tune is not beyond the octane of the fuel) there will be no increase in performance. Toluene, or any hipo pump fuel will do nothing to increase performance unless the boost is increased to take advantage of the greater detonation resistance of the fuel, or ignition timing is advanced to increase average cylinder pressure beyond the scope of the original fuel.
The only way an additive can give greater power with no adjustment to tune would be if the additive had greater energy per litre of 'fuel' than normal fuel. This would be like oxygenating the fuel.
If you could add a oxygenating agent to normal fuel, it would increase the energy contained per litre of that fuel. Something like potassium permanganate in a fuel soluble form would be fantastic, as when it combusts, it releases oxygen, and this oxygen could potentially burn more fuel ......... more power.

So both points are valid, but the no extra go comes from not doing anything with the tune.


Damo

Thanks m8, this clarifies it all for me!

[Damo]

I would personally regard E85 more as a safeguard against grenading an engine with a hot tune rather than a source of hot fuel to enable higher CR's and advanced ignition that ordinary pump petrol could not support.

Build in a decent error factor into the setup would be worth quite a bit more than the limited gains to be had by exploiting a high ron number with funky CR's and ignition tunes.

Im sure the vast majority of young blokes here on this forum who have mindlessly wound the boost up and grenaded would still have running engines id running such a fuel with the stock tune and appropriate injectors.

Just my 2 bobs.

L8r
E

I must be getting old, it took me several goes at reading that ^^^^ to grasp what you were getting at.

No doubt, what you're suggesting is correct. This is why anyone running ANY mod to the engine over stock is vigorously encouraged (by everyone) to buy the highest octane fuel they can get their hands on. The benefit of high octane pump fuel is that many youngins get a bit of a ego stroke by running 98 octane in their close to stock cars purely cause they can say to their mates that "I use vortex 98!!!" When the truth of the matter is that the E15ET is designed to cope perfectly well on 88ron fuel in stock condition. So their pod filter, 2inch exhaust, small I/C and 10psi should live quite happily on regular 91 which is a good 15-20c/ltr cheaper.

This big problem with the average modder using E85 for insurance, would be having to upgrade the pump, injectors, decent plugs and an adjustable ecu just to make the thing run exactly as it had before on normal pump fuel. For someone running a track car, it would be money well spent, but for the average 'ETEEZER', its just something else for them to add to their mod list in their members ride.

I would only consider the move to E85 just another 'step' in the modification tree, (and a fairly hefty one at that), I would actually think it comparable to the switch to programmable ECU from stock.

Also, nearing the limit of 'affordable' mods, it would have to be the single biggest net gainer of power over winding the boost up from the stock 7psi. I would think it would be hard to achieve a single mod (theoretically) which would yield a greater than 20% gain in go as this fuel with necessary tuning would make.



Damo

[Damo]

The only way an additive can give greater power with no adjustment to tune would be if the additive had greater energy per litre of 'fuel' than normal fuel. This would be like oxygenating the fuel.
If you could add a oxygenating agent to normal fuel, it would increase the energy contained per litre of that fuel.

After a bit of thought, that statement I made is wrong. Adding 'energy' to the fuel is nothing like oxygenating it. Oxygenating fuel just changes the stoichiometric ratio of the fuel, eg for a 100% burn of the air fuel mix, more fuel is needed for that 100% burn, and more fuel = bigger bang. Adding energy to the fuel would require something like kerosene or the like, so that the same 1ltr of fuel burned would release more energy.


Damo

[TurboZ.Dude]

After a bit of thought, that statement I made is wrong. Adding 'energy' to the fuel is nothing like oxygenating it. Oxygenating fuel just changes the stoichiometric ratio of the fuel, eg for a 100% burn of the air fuel mix, more fuel is needed for that 100% burn, and more fuel = bigger bang. Adding energy to the fuel would require something like kerosene or the like, so that the same 1ltr of fuel burned would release more energy.


Damo

You are absolutely right about oxygenation in your latter comment, now that I come to think of it. We did have a lot of classes in school about these combustion reactions etc... I most definitely regret that I paid little attention during those classes. I only did 'standard level' IB (International Baccalaureate) chemistry, but the 'higher level' was not available at the time either... and at the time, I had no interest in chemistry.

[tassuperkart]

I must be getting old, it took me several goes at reading that ^^^^ to grasp what you were getting at. Damo

Yer it was difficult to put my thoughts into short text without yet another long-winded dissertation........ Im good at them.

The addition of suitable injectors, say around 30 to 35% higher flow and there is no reason a stock engine will not run well with a stock ECU and no adjustments.

A nice thing with metho is that it will produce power over a far wider range around its stoich than straight petrol.
This means far greater errors in fuelling, either rich OR lean will still yield power and safety. Win-win.

All but the 30 odd% DROP in fuel economy.

As soon as I can get it down here Ill be setting the Adaptronic\VG30det up for it and have 2 different fuel tunes at the flick of a switch.
Yay!

L8r
E

[tassuperkart]

Ive been doing a little more digging with regards to using ethanol fuels.

Now, a lot of the hysteria associated with the reported "corrosion" related failures is not a result of the ethanol eating away at alumin ium parts.
This is a very real issue with METHANOL (wood alcohol) fuels but vastly different (and overstated) using ETHANOL) fuels.

Now, altho ethanol and methanol sounds pretty similar and are produced (kinda) in a similar way, theyre corrosive properties in automotive applications are vastly different.

It seems the vast majority of corrosion issues after prolonged rest periods stems from is due to electrolysis and NOT the chemical style corrosion resulting from metho.
In fac the LACK of corrosion resulting from chemical reaction between metho and aluminium is why ethanol is desirable.
Most EFI power systems hold the injectors hot to 12v full time on one side and ground the injector on the ECU side (negative side switching) and this is at the center of the issue.

The remedy is fairly simple and is a matter of adding in a power relay on the hot side of the injector power supply in the EFI loom to cut power to the injectors at rest.
Evidently this simple mod is what is required to do the job and reduce corrosion.
You still have the issues of some incompatibility with rubber tubes and possibly plastic parts but these are incidental if your keen to exploit the safety aspect this relatively "soft" fuel will give when tuning your engines.

Have fun.

L8r
E