Is It Safe To Use E85?

[feb 47]

Has anyone used E85 in a 205?

I have read that it can be corrosive to fuel lines, specially in older cars.

Of course the car would need to be mapped for this, bigger injectors and fuel pump needed.

The reason I am asking is to decide what oxygen sensor to fit. If it's a "no" I wouldn't bother with fitting a wideband as I probably wouldn't change anything in the mapping. A narrowband allowing me to run closed loop would be enough in that case.

 

 

Cheers

[hcmini1989 16]

Has anyone used E85 in a 205?

I have read that it can be corrosive to fuel lines, specially in older cars.

Of course the car would need to be mapped for this, bigger injectors and fuel pump needed.

The reason I am asking is to decide what oxygen sensor to fit. If it's a "no" I wouldn't bother with fitting a wideband as I probably wouldn't change anything in the mapping. A narrowband allowing me to run closed loop would be enough in that case.

 

 

Cheers

Are you going to be using it a road car?.And is e85 avalible at the pumps?.There is only one place local to me that sells it and its not e85 something like e65 or something along those lines .I was looking into it a while back and have found mixed reveiws on it .Some people say you get bore wash and it damages your lump etc etc.Others reckon they`ve done 100.000 miles on it and stripped the motor and its been like new .But i decided against using it for my fast road car.

 

If it was a track/race only car espicaily if charged then id say go for it .But not for a road car.And as for the fuel lines i dont think it does corrode well i didnt find anything like that when i was looking for it.And even if it does there`s only 2 lines to change.

[harryskid 193]

Whats e85 when its at home?

[large 33]

link for Harry.

[harryskid 193]

link for Harry.

 

O i see, i think i'll stick to the normal high oct stuff in my motor!

[feb 47]

Are you going to be using it a road car?.And is e85 avalible at the pumps?.There is only one place local to me that sells it and its not e85 something like e65 or something along those lines .I was looking into it a while back and have found mixed reveiws on it .Some people say you get bore wash and it damages your lump etc etc.Others reckon they`ve done 100.000 miles on it and stripped the motor and its been like new .But i decided against using it for my fast road car.

 

If it was a track/race only car espicaily if charged then id say go for it .But not for a road car.And as for the fuel lines i dont think it does corrode well i didnt find anything like that when i was looking for it.And even if it does there`s only 2 lines to change.

 

Yes and yes.

It is not widely available but there is a station not far from me.

It wouldn't be used daily though but for fun or on the track and since the ECU supports triple maps I was thinking of having one for E85.

I might wait and see how a friend gets on with his CZT, ditto the benefits might be greater in a turbocharged engine.

Edited April 9, 2011 by feb

[swordfish210 20]

I really wouldn't bother. I did my dissertation at Uni on E85 fuel and found it to be absolute crap, increased engine wear and fuel consumption for no performance benifit

[feb 47]

I really wouldn't bother. I did my dissertation at Uni on E85 fuel and found it to be absolute crap, increased engine wear and fuel consumption for no performance benifit

 

Interestng.

It is supposed to have a higher octane rating than SUL, as for engine wear why?

[wracing 19]

potentially turning the oil acidic, bore washing as mentioned, increased turbocharger wear. fuel lines and tank should be stainless fuel system.

[hcmini1989 16]

Just to point out mate ,I think it was a place called norris designs or rosssport had an evo it was pushing something out near 550bhp.On unleaded and they then mapped it to run on e85 and it was near 100bhp diffrence.So great for a race car or track only but not so good for a road going jobby,You should be ok with the lower rated stuff though im pretty sure you can just put that in without any mods

[swordfish210 20]

Interestng.

It is supposed to have a higher octane rating than SUL, as for engine wear why?

 

It does have a higher octane rating but is has a shockingly low calorific value so you have to inject masses of the stuff to get anywhere near the same performance as petrol. The stoic ratio of E85 is around 6:1 compared to petrols 14.7:1 so you can see why bore wear becomes a problem as it just washes the oil away. You also need a compression ratio of around 15:1 to make the stuff work properly which is why i could only find it making a noticable increase in performance (of the 7 case studies i went in depth to and the 11 i brushed over) in turbo cars and bike engines.

 

I also couldn't find a company that had converted a car to run on it and didn't have to double the amount of engine rebuilds, it really is that bad in a race engine. The US Army experimented with ethanol fuel in the 70's with their vehicles (gasoline and compression ignition engines) but they gave up as they kept breaking down and they couldn't carry enough fuel to make the regulation range, not very good when you're trying to invade a country..."Sorry sir, we couldn't overun Bagdad as half of our vehicles broke down on the way in and the rest ran out of fuel"

 

I could go on and on (i certantly did in my dissertation ) but it's obvious how i feel about the stuff and i would really reccomend that you don't use it.

[swordfish210 20]

Just to point out mate ,I think it was a place called norris designs or rosssport had an evo it was pushing something out near 550bhp.On unleaded and they then mapped it to run on e85 and it was near 100bhp diffrence.So great for a race car or track only but not so good for a road going jobby,You should be ok with the lower rated stuff though im pretty sure you can just put that in without any mods

 

Here is the staff at Norris Designs on a lunchbreak:

 

 

I wouldn't trust anything that comes out of their mouths. I could never find anyone with more than a 70bhp increase on a petrol to ethanol swap (64 was the most on a very highly tuned Impreza). Besides i've seen the Norris Evo at Combe and i'm not sure it ever got through a whole day without needing major surgery Not the best prep work methinks.

Edited April 10, 2011 by swordfish210

[Lan 24 1 Cars]

Here is the staff at Norris Designs on a lunchbreak:

 

 

I wouldn't trust anything that comes out of their mouths. I could never find anyone with more than a 70bhp increase on a petrol to ethanol swap (64 was the most on a very highly tuned Impreza). Besides i've seen the Norris Evo at Combe and i'm not sure it ever got through a whole day without needing major surgery Not the best prep work methinks.

 

lol at that pic

 

tbf though even the name norris designs reaks of pikey

[B1ack_Mi16 67]

I put some 300cc injectors into my 405 Mi16 (DFW) and ran on E85 for 6 months on everything standard apart from the injectors...

But when the winter came I got problems starting in any temperature below 5 deg celcius.

 

It ran fine, used some more but costs less though, so I actually saved some money on it.

 

Did not have any problems with fuel hoses etc. only very old rubber hoses will be a problem I guess.

 

But it's not much gain in it if you don't up the compression to take advantage of the extra octane rating.

[feb 47]

E85 is available in countries e.g. Brazil, Sweden etc.

 

FYI, a friend had his Colt remapped for E85 (modifications were Impreza Sti injectors, Evo fuel pump, some porting on the turbo exhaust housing and exhaust manifold).

Before the remap it had 244 bhp and after the remap 251bhp and 407Nm. Not bad from a 1468cc engine with 1.1 bar of boost.

 

On petrol it was running 230bhp and 350Nm.

 

Ditto, the gains on a turbocharged engine will be greater than on a N/A one (unless you run much higher compression as you say).

 

I am still sceptical, if the drawbacks were bore wash etc. they wouldn't use in the countries above would they?

 

There are some Fords and Volvos that are dualfuel.

[petert 588]

Wow, you guys are really down on E85. It has become the new buzz fuel in racing and track cars over here. Our V8 Supercar series use it and they're pulling 620hp out of a N/A OHV 5L V8 running 10.5:1 and 7500rpm limits. It's all about volumetric effeciency.

 

The concern I have is consisentency of the blend. E85 for racing is sold in 200L drums and mixed with 98 octane. Whereas pump fuel, at few outlets there are, is mixed with 91 octane. I guess cold starts aren't much of an issue for us.