Race Fuel

[p1234 22 2 Cars]

Anyone using race fuel in there rally/race car?

 

We can get it here for around 4 a litre but unsure on mixes etc.

[petert 586]

The new fab racing fuel in Australia is called E85 Racing. It's a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% 98 RON unleaded. The convenience of 98 RON at the pump is still my preference. I figure my driving ability is the limiting factor rather than the fuel. We can also still buy Avgas (108 RON leaded) but it's not readily available. Either drive to the airport or buy 200L.

[Vili 18]

The new fab racing fuel in Australia is called E85 Racing. It's a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% 98 RON unleaded. The convenience of 98 RON at the pump is still my preference. I figure my driving ability is the limiting factor rather than the fuel. We can also still buy Avgas (108 RON leaded) but it's not readily available. Either drive to the airport or buy 200L.

 

We have that E85 here in Finland at the pump. I think it's meant for the flexifuel cars, but it's also very popular among big power turbo guys. I believe it's octane rating is around 106. The best part is that it's very inexpensive because it has some tax benefits being renewable energy.. or something like that.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Vili

[brumster 135 1 Cars]

I know guys who ran it in their rally cars, but it was mainly for care to the engine rather than power (I think power was slightly better, sure) - when Longman used to strip the engines down they said they were pretty much pristine in side.

[petert 586]

There's really no benefit for a N/A car, but turbo cars really come alive and love the detonation security. We also have E85 at the pump, but it's a blend of 91RON and ethanol.

[TooMany2cvs 65]

If you're running high ethanol fuel, be VERY careful about the fuel hose you're using. A lot of the older generic stuff struggles with normal 95 unleaded - 5% Ethanol, E5 - and will have a real problem with the E10 that's available in France and other EU countries, soon to be here.

 

We had to replace some fuel pipe over the summer on our VW camper - the first stretch, stuff I'd got left over from doing some replumbing on my Saab 900T16 a couple of years ago, lasted two days driving before ballooning and splitting. The stuff I bought at a random car spares place lasted four hours before spraying petrol at full injection pump pressure all over the hot engine in 40deg ambients. We were very, VERY lucky. I don't know what the fuel was - it was just generic Serbian pump 95 unleaded - but the pipe definitely didn't like it.

 

In the US, where they get even more aggressive fuel chemistry (oxygenated mixes), the fuel pipe standards are changing all the time to keep up with it. SAE J30R9 is teflon lined to cope, or J30R10 lined inside and out to be safe submerged in the fuel. Over here, I've not found a good source for that yet - but there's a whole stack of suppliers claiming they've got "biofuel safe" hose.

[welshpug 1,657]

wont be much of an issue with a 205 at all, given the large percentage of steel pipe used from front to back underneath the car, plus the plastic lined flexible hose...

[Redtop 14 2 Cars]

I use carless hyperflow 250. You can get it from Morrow fuels in the North here. Always has it in stock and very good service. Sealed drums mean its clean and fresh, as sometimes the super unleaded you get at the pumps might not be fresh, and in some cases not actually super unleaded!

[EdCherry 34 1 Cars]

I've used a few different blends, mainly on highly strung V8's and Turbo's. Not much I can say about it from a chemistry point of view, it certainly helped against det on the Turbo engines. In the end for an event when you use 80L at £4 a litre we went a bit safer on the mapping losing circa 15bhp/20lbfts but saving us a hell of a lot of money/organisation.

[welshpug 1,657]

Always amuses me being on a rally with the Saxo, using about 40 litres at the very most for about 60 stage miles and plenty of road miles, and seeing the others, mainly turbo guy's and wannabe's using drums and drums of the silly expensive stuff

[EdCherry 34 1 Cars]

Well the step up in the world of motorsport is certainly not a linear curve performance vs cost. You enter the world of larger cost for smaller performance gains. Where your world of GAZ, EBC and Megasquirt might be accepted in the lowest of formulas/speed in motorsport, you wont go much faster without boshing out the big bucks on Penske, AP and EFI/Life.

[welshpug 1,657]

quite agreed, the gaz went last year for avo's, kms for DTA

 

still on EBC but they work fine...

[Sandy 191]

We've extensively tested race fuels on our top engines (myself, JRE, Willis) and I concur that E85 is beneficial for boosted engines, it spectacularly drops the tract/charge temp if injected further out, but... but it does screw up some seal, has jammed TPSs and unless you have the right fuel system materials you will need to flush it out after each use. Also we have seen some valve seat pitting that is very worrying, it's easy to lose sight of how good regular petrol is at maintaining the engine and fuel system condition. It did do a great job of taking the edginess out of a very high CR/power X-flow we did, compared to V-power, but despite totally re-mapping to suit, there was no net power benefit overall, it was better in some places, but worse in others, so about even stevens! Same pretty much with Hyperflo etc, never really seen any tangible improvement over V-power on atmo engines; but V-power is hard to get in some areas and Ireland, so many customers like a fuel they can order and know the quality.

[p1234 22 2 Cars]

When I went to get my old engine mapped I was using standard pump fuel, no additives etc. My mapper thought i was having a laugh by using it.

 

Reason im asking is the new engine will be up and running in the next few weeks. Maxol E5 would be the highest octane pump fuel we can get here (98ron) so id be looking to map it on this http://www.ears.ie/product_info.php?cPath=7&products_id=622 or similar but not sure on % mixes etc.

[petert 586]

The Shell Racing fuel looks good if it's affordable and convenient. Shell sell a similar product here at selected pump outlets. It's made by mixing 5% ethanol with 98RON to get 100RON.

[Redtop 14 2 Cars]

I know shell have changed there "turbo" fuel to a new brand named "tx", which is supposed to be the replacement like for like fuel, but since that, I've heard through a good friend of mine that some Toyota turbo'd engines in mainland Europe have had catastrophic engine failure, due to that fuel. That's why I'm sticking with carless on our turbo cars at the moment. I had some of the shell TX in one of our cars and removed it, as there is a fair difference in price of fuel v engine rebuild.

[p1234 22 2 Cars]

Thanks lads, im going to look into a few of these different options.

 

 

[GeorgeXS 32]

Place I used to work had a Hayabusa race engine come to a nasty demise due to a dodgy batch of shell racing fuel a couple of years ago. They only use Sunoco racing fuel now.

[u47sb2 27 2 Cars]

We use Carless Hiperflo turbo in the N12 Impreza. Consistent and happy with the engine temps. A guy nearby had his N11 prepped for E85 two years ago. It ran nice and cool and produced good power but despite having supposedly correct seals etc it's had fuel pump failure, and hasn't been reliable (though that could be due to a million other reasons). He's changed back to running Carless

[wardy18 33 1 Cars]

Out islands have just had Super Unleaded removed from them with only a whisper that they may bring in a certain amount for Motorsportso this leaves me with the requirement to buy in race fuel.....

 

Have considered Sunoco FR or Hyperflow 250 before coming across this thread!!

 

No idea what to go for though, I'm running 12.5:1 cr ration on 45 tbs??

 

Any recommendations to go for or avoid??

 

Thanks