Fuel mileage and overall cost of burning E85

just took a drive today
see sig
20.2mph on e-85 that included few WOT pulls:biggrin:

the key seems o be keeping afr around10-1 or a lil leaner at cruise
so far so good!
-dan

E85

Sorry fellas I'm a little behind the curve on the issue. What mods have guy's done to run E85?

You're right. E85 has a nastier smell to it.

so what are you guys running for times with Buicks on E85 ??? Ya I am an "Alkyholic" and wondered about E85 mileage to. Don't know of any E85 gas stations around here.

For you folks with aftermarket mods the experience will be different (I have seen modded usually end up with higher consumption diff for safety) but here is my experience in my personal vehicle and my fleet of FFV's;
*2001 S10 2.2L FFV with autotrans-- 16.6% more E85 at interstate speeds. 12-15% on 2 lane hwy. The 4 cyl heats up faster than the next vehicles and this helps it. Also this vehicle has a real ethanol sensor (vs today all are algorithm) and I suspect the open loop mapping is more dead on than the conservative rich algorithm types. Guys with stick shifts get far better mpg than I do but I suspect the gap of E85 vs gap is only closed slightly.
*2005 Taurus FFV 214,300 miles -- range in differentials is 15-20% more E85- average approx 19 %. All but approx 20-22,000 miles in this vehicle has been E85.
*2006, 2007, 2008 Impala's -- these guys (all 3.5L FFV) all have a range of 18-22% more fuel for E85- with the average at 20%
*2007 Silverado 5.3L FFV- sorry- driver does not keep good enough records on this one though the same engine has varied from 12% in many 2002-2003 models to 25% in some of the recent (2004-2009) doing short trip or pulling trailers according to my customers.
*Non-modified 2004 Saab 2T Aero. Since this guy calls for premium (AON 90 min.) I use E20 since it is far cheaper, is 91 octane, easy E20 is available, and per my repeated trials there is no mpg diff 70 mph hwy between E0 premium, E20, and E27.5. No issues over the 3 year peiod used.
*Rest of my stuff (2000 5.3L Yukon XL, 1996 5.7L Silverado, and 2001 Saturn SL2 (now retired due to wreck) all have a steady diet of E20 with no noticeable mpg differentials but the fuel records and drive cycles on these make real mpg comparison more difficult))

Here in WI the price spread where I buy is never worse than 18% and rarely better than 32% -- average is approx 22%. As such our small fleet runs on E85 at all times.

Hope this helps.

I am figuring this will be a bad summer for high gas prices again, they are $2.75 for gas and $2.67 for E85 in the WINTER (yes, they keep raising the E85 price), and it is January. They gave us a summer off from stupid high, now it will come back by the look of things.

So I am hoping to get my fat injectors and try again on E85.

But my experience is the lower compression engines (<10:1) just don't have enough mechanical efficiency to make E85 truly cost effective. My LT1 on the other hand, loves E85, I get around 15-17 mpg with E85 and 17-19 on gas. I can't complain at all.

Get it hot, heat the intake air and warm the fuel all help a LOT to get better E85 mpg without really hurting power compared to gas.

I do not know how long it will be before they are available but Delphi has been testing heated fuel injectors. In Brazil where Hydrous E100 (no gas but 5% water) is used I suspect these will take off quickly. Here in the USA where we have anhydrous (dry) ethanol mixed with up to 30% gas for cold start the perceived need is less and govt inhibits fast adaptation. That said however- there may be movement to adapt these to improve cold start/ warm-up period emissions by reducing overfueling and ignitability. Fuel rail electric heaters are another way to skin this cat but need longer on-time pre-start (injector heaters are only approx 1-2 sec).

Your running a FAST with yours right? What are you keeping your AFRs just cruising around?I have mine set-up Maft Pro for 15.5 and could tell right away that I was burning way less fuel just wondering how lean I can go to be safe cruising around?

Interesting. I'll dig around and see what I find on them.

Edit: http://delphi.com/pdf/techpapers/2009-01-0615.pdf

so...

i've got a low compression engine and i'm considering an upgrade to e85. Anyone out there convert an almost totaly stock car? if i were to upgrade total fuel system(pump,lines,injectors,conversion kit, everything) what am i looking at $??

oh ya- and stroking it out a bit

and where should i start shopping? anybody recomend a company?

11mpg average here with speed density.

13.8 average mph.

Of course it does. It runs on rum.

It would have to. It is 35% oxygen by weight. Even if it didn't,It's awesome the way the turbo spools. Oxygen bearing fuels such as ethanol,methanol,nitro methane,and Q-16 always produce more power than non-oxygenated gasoline.
When we introduce the air we breath into the motor it is only 22% oxygen. The rest is inert/space wasting nitrogen and some other gasses. We need 11-12 parts of oxygen to 1 part of fuel for good power. That's a lot of wasted/useless gasses entering the motor and taking up space.If we can introduce a gas that contains a higher amount of oxygen(nitrous oxide) or sneak oxygen into the motor in the fuel we will make more power.

Go Pro-Efi! Just for thought!

E85= Performance….How much? I have read several threads about the performance gains but no numbers. Does anyone have dyno results before and after?