Debate on E85... why use it??

[Pablo]

What O2 sensor should I be using?

You should get yourself a Wide Band O2 setup if you want to tune seriously.

A narrow band (what came in these cars stock) O2 sensor is only accurate at 14.7 to 1. Anything richer or leaner than that is affected by exhaust pressure and temperature. They are notoriously inconsistent as well. One sensor's .780 may be another sensor's .900 and so on and so forth. The only point they are accurate is at 14.7 to 1 which iirc is about .480 or .450 or so (been awhile since i messed with them)

 

[wordy1]

all the people that say it won't work probably have never tried it.

It may "work", but not as well as it could if you fully utilize the performance benefits and also tune for economy. I cannot see how there is no change in the milage with a 50/50 mix, if it goes down 25% with pure E85, then it should go down 12.5% with a 50/50 mix. Your statements about the milage are very contradicting.

About all I am concerned about with the E85 is whether or not my pump can handle the increased demand.

 

[wordy1]

You should get yourself a Wide Band O2 setup if you want to tune seriously.

A narrow band (what came in these cars stock) O2 sensor is only accurate at 14.7 to 1. Anything richer or leaner than that is affected by exhaust pressure and temperature. They are notoriously inconsistent as well. One sensor's .780 may be another sensor's .900 and so on and so forth. The only point they are accurate is at 14.7 to 1 which iirc is about .480 or .450 or so (been awhile since i messed with them)

When springtime comes, on go 65# injectors, Razor's ALKY system, Powerlogger, new TT chip, 3 Bar MAP, Wideband O2, Duttweiler necks for the intercooler, an RJC powerplate, BIG MOUTH cold air intake, A/C delete pulley, driveshaft loop, pinion snubber, another airbag, S-10 wheel cylinders w/ prop. valve, var. rate rear springs, MOOG 3/4" drop springs in front, Edelbrock adj. upper control arms, new bilstein shocks all around, Kirban rear seat X-brace, additional frame bracing from 81 Grand Prix, and custom braces to tie together the front and rear of the frame.

3200 stall (not sure yet which one), adj. roller rockers, and if I get the money and the time, perhaps a complete roller cam and a nice head and intake job (ported to match), and a slightly larger BB Turbo. Would have to sell mine first to be able to afford it.

Would like to replace all the wiring and add a new turbo guage, EGT guage (may not need it as I am told powerlogger can sense this), Tranny Temp guage (forgot about the tranny cooler), and get the oil pressure guage working. Have ordered a 140 MPH factory style Monte SS speedo.

For dress-up Turbo 6 turbo shield, and all the factory turbo emblems, new turbo 6 hood insulation, and custom embrodered floor mats and trunk kit with th e tubo six logo. New wheel inserts with the turbo 6 emblem. Am installing an external Kenne Bell Fuel guage as well. Also would like to build a laptop stand of some sort. And if I can find a factoy GN engine harness, I'd like to re-do most of the wiring.

Will be running a mix of 50/50 E85 and Meth on top of that.. No need for race gas at $6 gal ever again. And no more toluene, thank god!

Expecting consistent low 11's and although I may be dreaming asking for 30 mpg at $2.39 a gal for E85, I think it may be possible with everything I have listed.

Wanting to repaint the car Corvette Artic White with all the original stripes. And going to add a couple other emblems.
Will be removing all the trim, and painting the jambs etc.

Anything else I should be adding?

Car will NOT be for sale when all of this is done, and may be one of the coolest and quickest Monte SS's out there, and no one will have a clue whats under the hood . Will still look all factory, wheels and all..

Not going to touch the interior, its all factory and in great shape, bench seat and all.

But don't worry I am not limited to slow ass Monte Carlos, I am on the lookout for a 86 WH1 to my liking, its gotta be a bench seat with a Astroroof.. I wanna install GN wheels and GNX guages.

 

[Pablo]

It may "work", but not as well as it could if you fully utilize the performance benefits and also tune for economy. I cannot see how there is no change in the milage with a 50/50 mix, if it goes down 25% with pure E85, then it should go down 12.5% with a 50/50 mix. Your statements about the milage are very contradicting.

About all I am concerned about with the E85 is whether or not my pump can handle the increased demand.

What he is reporting is easily possible. If he was running rich on gasoline then he was just wasting gasoline out of the exhaust pipe that would otherwise be moving the car forward. With e85 and no change to the fueling the mixture became better for producing power under cruise conditions. The timing could be better optimized for e85 than it is for gas in his chip... etc etc.

BTW sounds like it will be a fun car when it is all set up. I've never seen a Monte with a GN drivetrain.

 

[wordy1]

well then there must have been something "wrong" prior to adding the E85.

 

[Alky V6]

You'll find that the ignition timing required is going to be very close to what is being used for gasoline. That's one nice thing about our Buicks. Efficient combustion chambers.

 

[novaderrik]

It may "work", but not as well as it could if you fully utilize the performance benefits and also tune for economy. I cannot see how there is no change in the milage with a 50/50 mix, if it goes down 25% with pure E85, then it should go down 12.5% with a 50/50 mix. Your statements about the milage are very contradicting.

About all I am concerned about with the E85 is whether or not my pump can handle the increased demand.

i'm just reporting what i've experienced with my particular car and my particular driving habits. i always thought it ran a bit rich on gas before trying the E85, since it wasn't getting the mileage it should have and the inside of the exhaust pipe got pretty black pretty fast. i don't know what chip i've got- it might be stock, but it might not be. the car sat from 1991-2004 with a blown head gasket before i got it, so who knows what was done to it back then? i do know that is has a NAPA reman ecm in it, it has a K&N cone filter on the intake, the cat was gutted, and the long block was replaced not long before it was parked back in '91. other than that- and the stupid gauges someone put in the dash- the car is stock.
sometimes, what happens in the real world is different than what "should" happen in the real world. that's why i always just try stuff for myself to see what happens.

 

[wordy1]

Sounds to me like you have a rich condition and thats all thats happened here, is that the E85 cured it, which is why its running so much better.

Those of us with properly tuned cars may not experience the same benefits as you, and no one reading this should expect to.

I have real empirical data showing the differences, went from .830-.840 O2's to .790-.800 with 10-15% E85. No KNOCK at 18 PSI, had knock before with just 93 octane. Do you have any sort of data logger to verify your findings before and after? I am NOT doubting you, just curious to know what the car was running like before, and more importantly how it is running on the E85.

I guess you are fortunate that it is working so well for you, but I know for certain that if you attempted this with a properly tuned car with stock injectors, pump, and chip, that there would be some issues with straight E85, and the car would be running VERY lean causing more harm than good despite the octane rating. Which is why its REALLY important for you to be monitoring O2's and and Knock..

I can buy the 50/50 mix getting close to the same, but saying that you are getting the same milage now only means that you were getting terrible milage before. And the fact that your car is running fine on straight E-85 makes me wonder how rich you were really running? You ever pull a plug to see?

 

[blestx4]

side effects

E-85 is impacting our economy despite its relative low use. Locally there are lots of large farming operations. Many are switching to corn production for e-85 use. As a result less cotton, less soybeans, less wheat etc. Read somewhere that the the worlds wheat reserves and other food reserves have been at the lowest levels in years. Land for dairys have been converted to land for homes and other uses.
One result of corn being in high demand is increased prices for other crops which are not being grown as much. In sum have you noticed everything going up at the grocery stores? Yes I know fuel prices have driven this up, but farmers switching to fuel production has caused another jump. A local e-85 plant being built is going to make ethanol with all the waste left off of forestry work here. I read that e-85 from sugar cane made in south america has 8 times the energy of corn ethanol.
I work in the the Rail industry. I rode a priority freight train that had a 185 semi containers on it. In a 60 mile pull it burned 50 gallons of fuel. Yeah that sounds awful. But Imagine if those same 185 trailers had 185 tractor trucks with them and went on the highway with each truck avg 8 miles per gallon for the same 50 miles..That would roughly be 6.2 gallons per truck for same haul. 185 trucks times 6.0 for ease of multiplying. Roughly 1110 gallons burned for same move not to metion impact on highways, congestion, safety etc. How about how much fuel Green Hillary Clinton burned because she had a private jet follow her campaign trail JUST INCASE she needed it. We have ways in existence already to maximize what we already have. I mean how many people in the us keep a vehicle in top tune. It may only mean 1 gal per vehicle per day. But multiply that to all the cars on the road in the us and thats a lot. Conservation involves everyone. I dont have any answers just thoughts and questions I guess.............

 

[Alky V6]

LawDog sent me this link. Some real good info here.

Converting to E85 (ethanol fuel) - Turbobricks Forums

 

[RKNTRBO]

Whats not good

Well I have been reading up on this and it does sound promising for are car's but for getting us away from foreign oil, not going to work.

One of my roommates heard me talking about E85, so he brought me home a study done by the University of San Francisco, and just 2 points in the 3 page report were alarming.

1. It takes 7 barrel's of OIL to produce 8 barrel's of E85:
2. The amount of corn used to make one thankful of gas, can feed a person for a year.

So I agree with previous posts, this is not a long term solution but could be a nice option for are cars.

Mark

 

[Hot Air]

Would it be possible to get a copy of the study that you are referring to?
Conrad

 

[BlackoutDrunk]

I'm not too swift so bear with me guys, but from what I've read people have been adding small amounts of E85 just as an octaine booster? They've been doing this without changing anything except maybe adjusting fuel? That alone makes it beneficial to a lot of people with turbo buicks.

 

[Hot Air]

Are they mixing it with the gasoline or are they injecting it with an alcohol injection system? I guess either would work. The second one would not place a burden on the existing fuel system. I cannot imagine that you would gety a lot of boost in the octane of the fuel that way since the incoming would be mostly gasoline but you would get some cooling effect. It wouldn't be as effective as methanol injection.
Conrad

 

[wordy1]

Would it be possible to get a copy of the study that you are referring to?
Conrad

I would be interested too. E85 is only 15% gasoline, not 85%, 85% gasoline would be close to a 7/8 ratio. Maybe that is where that came from. Most gasoline here in the midwest has 10% ethanol already.

 

[BlackoutDrunk]

I know around chicago standard amount of ethanol in the gas is 10%. So all these years I should of been worried about my fuel filters or does anyone know if only higher amounts kill the fuel filters? As of now I only want to make sure I'm safe to use some E85 as an octane booster maybe 10-20% in 93 octane gas. How many people have been using it in this manner and are there any negative side effects to report? Maybe this is a subject for another thread or maybe someone knows another thread in which this is being looked at?

 

[RobS]

1. It takes 7 barrel's of OIL to produce 8 barrel's of E85:

I would like to see a copy of this report as well. The best I could calculate is 1 barrel of oil is enough for 3 barrels of e85. They must be converting the energy required to produce e85 into barrels of oil and adding it to the oil in the e85.

 

[Hot Air]

That question leads one to ask...How many barrels of oil does it take to make a barrel of gasoline? I suspect that it's not close to "one for one" since the crude oil has to be refined to make gasoline.

Then we need to ask the question...How many barrels of oil does it take to get the barrel of oil from the Middle East to US? Then you have to ask what feedstock (corn, prairie grass, sage brush, etc) is used to make the E85. Then you need to ask.........oh well, enough of that.

My point is that the raw material for ethanol can be a USA product and it is 105 octane and does have a cooling effect on the engine (less detonation so more boost) and doesn't currently cost $5-6 (racing gasoline). Besides, the price of a barrel of crude oil just topped $100 and some say it is headed toward $200! I just don't see how E85 can that be worse than gasoline?

Will E85 replace gasoline as the fuel of choice in USA? Not likely. But it does at least offer us a choice and for the turbocharged community, it looks great from where I stand.

Conrad

ps...I have a copy of the report somewhere on my PC and will try to find it.

 

[RobS]

Conrad, I happen to agree with you. I think e85 is an excellent replacement for the 100 octane unleaded I am currently using. The only downside I can see is the possible problem with aluminum. The Hot Rod magazine article on e85 said ethanol will corrode naked aluminum. My concern would be with the intake manifold. Is cast aluminum considered naked? When I seen the post about 7 barrels of oil needed for 8 barrels of e85, it didn't sound right to me. I don't have any facts to support my 'opinion'. So I was intrested in the report to educate myself. I would love to fill up with e85 with the only fuel system changes being bigger injectors and a new chip.
Rob

 

[bobc455]

I know this is kinda off-topic, but when you consider the US' trade deficit, it is no small thing to become self-sufficient for energy. We are sending billions and trillions over to the middle-east, and it really takes a huge toll on the US economy.

Of course the US could not sustain enough corn output to become self-reliant, but it is one important step. (Actually from what I understand hemp is an extremely efficient source for ethanol, and has huge benefits for the soil when used for crop rotation, but the US government is sure to ignore that because of the "war on drugs" nonsense. What a pity.) If we could eliminate (or greatly reduce) the trade deficit, it would go a long way toward eliminating the national debt, which would also have huge benefits.

Hope this does not ignite a political discussion- just giving my $0.02 on E-85.

-Bob Cunningham