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
I converted mine. Only bolt-ons I had were a THDP, 2.5" ATR exhaust, a pump hot-wire kit, and an accufab regulator. Stock injectors and stock turbo. I could run 8.4 @ 83mph in the 1/8 all day long on 100 octane race gas (2.0 60' on regular all-weather radials).
I bought the injector + chip combo and a Walbro 340 from TurboTweak for about $500 all in, installed it in about two hours (including replacing all the rubber lines back at the tank with new stuff), and then ran 8.3 @ 84 mph on E85. That's about as apples-to-apples as it can get, and it turned out to be just as fast in the 1/8, but the fuel costs less than half as much (E85 is $3.45/gallon today, VP 100 is ~$7/gal here). I did not upgrade the fuel lines, and I'm having no trouble with fuel pressure creep from the Walbro overpowering the return line.
I run it most of the time now. My car pings on the pump premium they sell now. It didn't do that a few years ago. I switched to the E85 mostly to get rid of the pinging and prevent a blowup. I'll swap chips and run a tank of gasoline through it every now and then to try and rehydrate the rubber bits. Don't know if that actually helps or not, but it's worth a shot.
I'm seeing 13-15mpg in town, depending on how heavy my foot is. On pump gas I'd get 17-18mpg, again, mostly in-town driving.
As has been said before, E85 makes no sense compared to normal gasoline. The gas mileage hit isn't made up by the cost reduction. But compared to race fuel, it's a clear winner.