Vr4 on e85

[4thStroke]

Uh, I daily drove my VR4 as 550awhp... you are going to have to try harder. You are trying to talk sh*t with a few people who have been down this road that you act like you pioneered.

You don't have to be any sort of magician to tune for ethanol. I have nothing against this Ted fellow, but he's not exactly in uncharted territory.

When your street car is trapping 131mph in the 1/4, let us know, we just might care.

 

[Brunoboy]

It also helps when Ted helped develop ecmlink....And Ted does sometimes drive his 9 sec self tuned dsm on the streets....just saying

 

[raptorWagon]

Quoting uncleben4rice:
Wyldcards TedSpec is the e85 tuner. Im always ready to bench-race any of them guys from the WA, They can diss the VR4 all they want, cause I know they all have pictures of 654/2000 on their walls. Its one of the baddest real street driven Vr4s in the country. I have 255,000 miles and counting on my chassis. In the commute, all day, real fast, E85, WHAT!!!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dunno.gif


I stripped and sold my rusty vr4 to the local Pick n Pull lol /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rofl.gif. There is one e85 station in town and that's on base, the next nearest is 100 miles away round trip, so e85 conversion on any of my cars is pretty much out of the question.

 

[curtis]

Well down here people are melting pistons, heads etc on the corn brew. I personally will never go to it.
Problem people are having is
A) hard to find and
B) when you do it maybe e60 or e100 in a e85 station.
Tune goes to crap and so does the engine. That much corn could be made into something way better like corn bread

 

[4thStroke]

As long as you know what you are getting and your car is set up for it, ethanol can be great. Running on race gas full time for cheap is a lot of fun.

But, there are concerns I have for daily drivers. That black goo that forms on the tips of the injectors can make or break you. I had a bad failure using ethanol because of it and there is not a clear answer as to where the black stuff is coming from.

It's important to watch the fuel trims when you fill up if you have reason to be skeptical whether or not you filled up with e60 or e98. Those trims will tell you if adjustments need to be made for WOT.

 

[JNR]

Rather than rely on internet folklore on ethanol, I encourage anybody interested to do their own non-biased research into why this is not the great stuff it's promoted to be. Sure you get extra octane for cheap, but you also have 2/3 the btu energy output (100%) and the incompatility of materials that are used on our cars, although more importantly is if it's not stored properly it will separate from the fuel and can cause serious issues. Same thing with methanol, I mean it can be good (higher octane) and all, but remember it is corrosive and has about 1/2 the btu energy output of gasoline...

Whatever you decide to tinker with, educate yourself and make sure your system is set up for it. And a good point Curtis brought up in that we don't really know the source of our fuel and/or how it was handled, stored, etc. and that's where you have problems...like everything else, things look good on paper, but in the real world results vary.

 

[Tre3zy]

so junius i heard you want a WK sticker lol

 

[curtis]

Well the black goo/blackbeard I hear is from tanks, and tankers not being properly cleaned and the crap passing through the injectors and building up on the intakes / head ports after the injectors. Everyone brags about the crap but as John said BTU output is sh*t and if you have to flow twice as much fuel is it really that cheap. I don't even buy the 10% sh*t if I can help it. Alot of the lawn services around here only go to stations with non 10% corn piss gas. Screws up the carbs and sometimes want run in even a weedeater. Probably because the percentage is to high....gas stations way of screwing you out of your money.


You want cheap race gas buy toluene and research F1 fuel and do some searching on the Grand national websites. The turbo regals have been making home brew since the 80's from xylene, toluene, and marvels mystery oil. I've mixed the stuff and it works.

 

[turbowop]

Who cares what the fuel mileage and BTU is? It makes as much power as real race gas for waaaaay cheaper. I don't think anybody with a high power Mitsu is using E85 in hopes to improve their fuel mileage, they're just trying to make more power. For that, it works, and works well.

 

[uncleben4rice]

Guys I did my research on e85. I don't know where the black goo story comes from. One guy on another site says it comes from letting cars sit for a while with e85 in them. I have plenty of e85 stations where I live, the nearest one is 7mi away. If you go to website evoempire.org there is a post in the e85 army forum and it shows a fuel system check after 50,000mi of street driving on e85. I have also checked my mileage and under normal driving conditions Im seeing a bit over 20mpg on a tank of e85. Not great but good enough for the benefits of running it. Yes there are pros and cons to it. For all the newbs or others that don't know about my car. I have a fully built VR4 with wide-band and everything to monitor engine function.

Consistency of blend. Well all I can say about this is, Ive gone to the gas station plenty of times in my life and received a bad blend of pump gas, so I don't expect any different from the e85. Here in California its highly regulated, that's why we pay at least 50 cent more per gallon for any gas.

Pros- Turn up the boost like race gas, easy to tune with, engine temps are way down in normal driving situations. 50 to 60 cents cheaper per gallon than gas in my hood. 91 pump $3.80 per gal....e85 $3.19 per gal
Cons- Jury still out on e85 blend specifications/consistency. Not available in all areas so you must plan your trips accordingly. Still much to be learned about fuel systems and the long term effects of e85 on our cars. Unlike vehicles of today our cars where not made to run this stuff.

 

[uncleben4rice]

I'm running the Bosch .044 pump. with -8 braided line from the gas tank all the way to the fuel rail, inline filter with stainless filter element, FIC 1600cc injectors, dsmlink V3 with speed density upgrade, zeitronix wide band.

You dont need all of this to run e85. But this is what Im running.

 

[Brianawd]

Quote:
Rather than rely on internet folklore on ethanol, I encourage anybody interested to do their own non-biased research into why this is not the great stuff it's promoted to be. Sure you get extra octane for cheap, but you also have 2/3 the btu energy output (100%) and the incompatility of materials that are used on our cars, although more importantly is if it's not stored properly it will separate from the fuel and can cause serious issues. Same thing with methanol, I mean it can be good (higher octane) and all, but remember it is corrosive and has about 1/2 the btu energy output of gasoline...





How long did it take you seaching the net to find your info? Have you every run e85 in a car? If so how long? Did you tune your car or have someone else do it for you? I ask because its sounds like you read a bunch of posts from people that have never run e85. Then posted it here. I can say after running e85 7years nothing corroted.

 

[Jason G.]

Quoting curtis:
Well the black goo/blackbeard I hear is from tanks,



Likely a caustic rinse is used. I don't know of any other way they clean hazmat tankers once emptied. For the most part, tank washes are fairly thorough. I've seen a few come into the plant here with a little residual caustic near the cam-lok connection. I think it would take a substanial amount to contaminate 4000+ gallons per truck, but possible.

 

[turbowop]

Quoting uncleben4rice:
Guys I did my research on e85. I don't know where the black goo story comes from. One guy on another site says it comes from letting cars sit for a while with e85 in them. I have plenty of e85 stations where I live, the nearest one is 7mi away. If you go to website evoempire.org there is a post in the e85 army forum and it shows a fuel system check after 50,000mi of street driving on e85. I have also checked my mileage and under normal driving conditions Im seeing a bit over 20mpg on a tank of e85. Not great but good enough for the benefits of running it. Yes there are pros and cons to it. For all the newbs or others that don't know about my car. I have a fully built VR4 with wide-band and everything to monitor engine function.

Consistency of blend. Well all I can say about this is, Ive gone to the gas station plenty of times in my life and received a bad blend of pump gas, so I don't expect any different from the e85. Here in California its highly regulated, that's why we pay at least 50 cent more per gallon for any gas.

Pros- Turn up the boost like race gas, easy to tune with, engine temps are way down in normal driving situations. 50 to 60 cents cheaper per gallon than gas in my hood. 91 pump $3.80 per gal....e85 $3.19 per gal
Cons- Jury still out on e85 blend specifications/consistency. Not available in all areas so you must plan your trips accordingly. Still much to be learned about fuel systems and the long term effects of e85 on our cars. Unlike vehicles of today our cars where not made to run this stuff.



Dude! You actually sound like a normal guy in this post. Kudos! I hope yer car is finally able to put down some respectable numbers for the build. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[JNR]

Quoting Brianawd:
Quote:
Rather than rely on internet folklore on ethanol, I encourage anybody interested to do their own non-biased research into why this is not the great stuff it's promoted to be. Sure you get extra octane for cheap, but you also have 2/3 the btu energy output (100%) and the incompatility of materials that are used on our cars, although more importantly is if it's not stored properly it will separate from the fuel and can cause serious issues. Same thing with methanol, I mean it can be good (higher octane) and all, but remember it is corrosive and has about 1/2 the btu energy output of gasoline...





How long did it take you seaching the net to find your info? Have you every run e85 in a car? If so how long? Did you tune your car or have someone else do it for you? I ask because its sounds like you read a bunch of posts from people that have never run e85. Then posted it here. I can say after running e85 7years nothing corroted.



I worked as a Senior Designer at a place that did AST/UST/piping/appurtenances installations and maintenance, with gasoline, diesel and ethanol...you cannot simply have an ethanol (E85 for instance) installation in a regular system designed for gasoline and it was such a PITA we stopped doing them...Storage is the biggest issue, but many materials used in normal (esp. older) gasoline stations are not compatible...my information came from legitimate "white papers" on the subject and it's a well known fact which materials are not compatible with ethanol, with many of those being part of older vehicles like outs. Unless you've changed out your materials to a compatible type, you're on borrowed time.

There's a reason I don't run that crap and don't even like 10%, but have 0 choice in the matter (only 2 stations in the entire state sell ethanol free gasoline /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif )...I get the impression you're a big fan of the stuff and that's great, but don't spread misinformation like it's "OK" to just start running, because people WILL have issues in the long term.

E10 is on the verge of no issues though, fwiw and many studies have been done with E15 with the jury out if it works well on 'everything'...when you start getting way up there, like E85, is when it is a whole nother ballgame and that's what we're talking about.

here's a quick incompatibility chart for metals and rubbers

As for btu content, yeah it's probably not such an issue, although even E10 will be like 3% less mpg, so you can imagine how much worse 85% ethanol is (probably over 25% less)...adds up.

It's great there is a 'cheap' fuel for higher octane, but at what true cost?

 

[slugsgomoo]

All the hype about E10 is such hooey to me. "oh no, gas with 3% less energy somehow magically gives me 20% worse fuel economy!" /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/roll.gif

In theory it's bad for plastic tanks, and I could see where lawn equipment might not like it but for vehicles they've been mandated federally to be able to use up to E10 since the 1980's (and IIRC E15 & E20 compliance have been a pretty long time as well). It's just not that big of a deal.

I do religious mpg tracking in all my vehicles and other than my normal variations in driving habit & area & traffic it's very consistent whether it's E10 or E0.

 

[thecman02]

I only lose a couple mpg with my car on e85. The extra torque from the timing advance really helps get the most out of the fuel. The price difference between premium and e85 for me almost makes it come out at a wash.

 

[JNR]

Quoting slugsgomoo:
All the hype about E10 is such hooey to me. "oh no, gas with 3% less energy somehow magically gives me 20% worse fuel economy!" /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/roll.gif





No, it's ~33% less mpg with E100 (Ethanol has ~2/3 btu), so if you're using E10, it comes out to ~3% less; E85 around 28%...least using simple mathematics, lol. At least comparing same vehicle, same tune, same elevation, same temp, same tire psi, same everything else, which is impossible to do, so that's all theroetical...but, there is ultimately some loss in mpg, even with *only* 10% blend.

Given a choice, I'll do without any ethanol, but I don't have that choice at all here in CA, so I pay more to go the same miles, but even at 20 mpg, we're talking maybe 1/2 mpg...still, over 18k a year, it adds up.

 

[Brianawd]

Quote:
spread misinformation like it's "OK"


No misinformation. I ran e85 for 5years in my car with stock fuel tank,lines and rail. Nothing was corroded and falling apart.

Quote:
E10 is on the verge of no issues though, fwiw and many studies have been done with E15 with the jury out if it works well on 'everything'...when you start getting way up there, like E85, is when it is a whole nother ballgame and that's what we're talking about.




Cars built after 1985 were designed to run upto e20. It was a big push because of the 1970s gas shortage.

Quote:
As for btu content, yeah it's probably not such an issue, although even E10 will be like 3% less mpg, so you can imagine how much worse 85% ethanol is (probably over 25% less)...adds up.




This right here tells me you have never used e85 and should not be giving advice. The loss in mpg is only around 15%not the 28-30% you claim. But you would know that if you have ever used it. Its called lean burn jack ass. You can run much leaner AFR's on e85 then you can on gas for cruise. Lots of people getting around 22-23mpg on e85. So with Supper being around $3.90gal and e85 being $3.20gal. It ends up being a wash on price.

 

[JNR]

^^As soon as somebody starts having to throw out names, their credibility goes to the drain...thanks for playing and good luck on the gamble.