Long term Ethanol use and FE effects.
 

This is more for me to track the use of ethanol and the effect on FE and car and have it in one place. I've been currently running E15 with no appreciable decrease in FE. My plan is to slowly increase the ethanol on each fill by 10% until reaching E85. Once I've reached running 100% E85(or CEL) I'll see about making adjustments and see what the minimum effect on FE I can reduce it to. The break even point cost wise would be a 12% decrease in FE at the current prices. I'll be posting tanks and observations here. Just filled with E20. I'm going to use 44.0 MPG as the base.

I presume you get your mix by putting in a certain number of gallons of regular gas and then some E85?

Do you know what changes are necessary or possibly appropriate for E85. I would think that the timing might need to be backed off, or something, but I don't know for sure. I do know that anything you do to reduce your net costs will be worthwhile information.

I don't have any way of changing the timing. The things I'll be looking for is fuel nozzels might need to be increased for flow. This is what sets off the CEL. ignition is important, I'll be playing with heat ranges and gaps and plug mods once I"m running the maximum amount of ethanol. Due to the cleaning properties of ethanol I'll be keeping an eye on the fuel filter. Other than that I'm just going to see where it leads me.

I would be careful, ethanol is corrosive, your fuel pump and the rest of your fuel system could be at risk, I think you will be safe up to 20% but beyond that may be risky, short term, 1 or 2 tanks probably won't hurt, but running high % of ethanol for extended periods may ruin or shorten the life of your fuel pump.

I'm assuming this is going into Daewoo? It shouldn't hurt anything on there. The main problems people seem to have with running straight E-85 (other than tuning issues) is degradation of fuel lines, rails, and pumps. I know on Super Coupes (Ford supercharged 3.8l coupes) the fuel rails are the only non compatible part, so people running them on high ethanol fuel just replace them every few years.

As far as timing goes, this is where E-85 really shines, it's roughly 110 octane, so you can run crazy timing on them. This is where I see it being a superior fuel in the future. A 1.0 Liter engine could easily make a reliable 150 horsepower if it was turbocharged on E-85, The best part would be that it's still only a 1.0 liter engine, and therefor uses less fuel than an equally powerful N/A 2.0 liter gasoline engine.

but you will automatically get less MPG out of e85 cuz its less uhh how should i say like less energy than gasoline if you had equal quantities. meaning like you need more e85 to do the same amount of work that gasoline would do.

Yeah but it can burn a little more efficiently if the engine is designed for it so that helps make up the lower energy content of the fuel.

I would be careful running E85 in a non-E85 car. Some of the things they do to make a car for E85 is to use stainless steel components in the fuel system that can resist the corrosiveness of the ethanol.

I think Red has it right. My understanding is that when they made gas form ethanol stating in 1988 that they can handle the E85. The main thing to watch out for is for water in the gas. Which if you're diriving on a regular bases you should be ok. From Wilki for what it worth.

It is something that I'll be watching for and it looks like E50 is good which is probably where the break even point will be. And I realize that it has less energy content then gasoline but it's cheaper so there is room to play with. I think that driven in a hypermiling fashion that the FE effect will not be as drastic as everyone thinks and that is what I want to find out.

One more thing to consider, you will have to tune it richer, but it actually creates more power than straight gasoline, so you won't need as much. In other words, E-85 Stoichometric mixture is only 66% of Gasolines, but since it makes (guess) 110% the power, your gas mileage shouldn't drop to 66% of before. It should be up in the 70-80% on pure ethanol, e85 hopefully even less than that.

So this got me thinking, back to my original Idea of a small secondary engine. It could now be the primary engine! Simply use MIT's great idea of injecting ethanol into it when the turbo spools up and Voila! https://www.northerntool.com/images/p...s/60243_lg.gif

Here's an interesresting thread. I found last night. Warning it's over 26 pages of threads but you can get a good idea from the first page.

Make sure your filling up at the same gas station (or same station brand holidays, bp's ect) because each gas station(brand) has a different fuel mixture.

I have a flexible fuel vehicle (2002 Ford Taurus). Back of the envelope calculations are showing me that running e85 is more expensive then straight gasoline. I get ~25 mpg on gas and ~18 mpg on e85. The only station near me that has e85 has the price locked at 30 cents less then 87 octane regular. So I suspect that it will always be more expensive for me to run e85. At least until the local station gets some competition.

Consecutive Tanks
 

The question is, how many tanks of E85 do you run consecutively? If you run straight unleaded most of the time and run a tank of E85 now and then, the ECU isn't going to compensate. You'll probably have to run at least 3 tanks to get a good baseline...

BTW, welcome to GS :thumbup:

RH77

You're probably right for the Taurus. You need to keep in mind that you are set up to run dual fuel so that it is not set optimumly for either one. I think ethonal gets a bad rap. I've had good success with E15 and on the current tank of E20 I'm sitting at 42 for the tank and that includes several city rush hour commutes and night commutes which brought it down from 44. In the end it might not be cost effective but what I like about this site is that folks test stuff out and not just go with what is considered to be fact. One thing is certain when it come to FE that nothing is certain. Time will tell. Welcome to the site.:)

I've just started tracking mpg on my ffv ranger the past month. e85 $2.99 a gallon, price never changed. reg gas was 2.80 and now 3.15. there is one station in my state that has e85 105 octane . My mileage was over 20+ with gas now its 17 or so. the molecules in e85 are spread apart more with more oxygen that burns faster than normal gas. www.e85fuel.com states 15%gas blend for summer and up to 30% for winter, the gas helps with the cold starts. so your car could run 100% ethanol but it might be hard to start.
my ffv ranger has bigger injectors to compensate for the e85 and of course the programing to automatically adjust when it senses the e85. the good thing about e85 , it got rid of my pinging and i can feel the power when I accelerate and makes 45-55% less carbon emissions.

I have also noticed a significant increase in power with E85 in my Ranger -- Driving the same route every day in a hilly, urban part of town I shift into third gear, set the cruise control at 35 MPH. The Ranger puts right up the hills with no problem. When I burn gasoline, it graduly gets slower and slower until the cruise drops out, then I have to shift to second to finish making it over the hill.

E-85 in this area was 50 - 60 cents cheaper than gasoline when gasoline hit its peak: 2.79 vs. 3.38. It is coming back down now, but is now 2.55 vs 3.09.

if it pings with regualr gas then you need a higher octane...

Nah, but maybe it makes less VOC or NMHC emissions.

I think that figure is for gasoline life cycle fossil energy consumption . The GHG is reduced anywhere from 13%-24% depending on whether it's new or old technology used to make it. More here scroll down towards the bottom.

Finished out the tank of E20. 454@ 43.2 MPG. Pretty happy with the tank.This tank was without the boattail and rear undertray. Drivability was normal the timing sensor advance the timing 2 degress from the prvious tank. Filled with E30 on this tank.

Finished up a tank of E30@42.7. FE is hanging in there. Will be running E50 this tank to expedite before cooler weather sets in. Everything is running normal, timing advance 1 more degree at cruise. The SG has under reported the MPG on last tank .1 and this tank .2 gallons. Wondering if that has any thing to do with the E85 blend? Couple more tanks and I'll check/change the fuel filter.

Looking good so far! I just filled my Sable with a E-30 concoction, I was looking at the pump and noticed it said.....( minimum 85% ethanol) So... could be even more ? In the summer? could be E-90. My car didn't like E-15 0r E-20, so we will see if it likes E-30.

Keep us posted. I have a hunch that it won't like the E30 either since it theoretically get's worst with higher mixtures. What kind of hit did you take with E15 and E20?

Just drove a little over 200 miles on E-30 Same driving as I normally do, 32.23 mpg. that is pretty good, Maybe 1 to 2 mpg less than E-10.
When I used E15 and E-20 my mpg dipped into the 20's so E30 is better. I think maybe my ECU can't compensate and the car is running a little lean. It did feel kinda sluggish.

I find that the more ethanol I consume, the worse my FE becomes :( .

I noticed the same thing at E30. Another interseting observation I've got 4000 miles on the oil and it almost looks like it did when I put it in there. I'll change it in another 1000 miles and that will be the first change in the Daewoo-woo so I have no base but usually the oil is a lot darker at this point in the other cars I've owned. All but 2 tanks on the 4000 miles is with E15 or better. Also the plugs look pretty clean but then again I have nothing to compair it too since this car is new to me.

Just filled. This tank of E50 was 41.17. Filled with E85 this time. Not bad considering the tank included emissions testing(don't get me started on jiffy lube) and several more night commutes than normal. On the next tank I'll change the filter and go with new plugs one range cooler then I'm running now. Still no CEL ignition timing did not change this tank. Status as of now.

E15 44.0
E20 43.2
E30 42.7
E50 41.2

Just sort of a slow decline in mpg. not too bad really. Have you tried straight gas with no ethanol? E-85 this tank? you are a brave man!:cool:

Yea I got a couple of E0 tanks. 43mpg and 45mpg respectively. Clench has been running E85 for a while no problems. It not like I'm blazing a new trail here. I'm hoping I can get it down to less then 10% loss in FE when it's all said and done.

I’m a racer with a ¾ ton 2001 Chevy 2500HD Ext. cab long bed for towing and hauling so fuel economy for me is almost out of the question. Although efficiency is the key to making power and reduced drag and rolling resistance is the key to going as fast as possible with a given amount of horsepower. Therefore, the things you guys do to save fuel intrigue me. It provides some useful info; I just recently got a Scan Gauge and am very pleased with it. I will be doing some fuel mileage test with some fuel and oil catalyst that I use and if it holds true to form, I should see about a 6% fuel savings. I follow a Tech writer and engine builder that has been in the auto industry for some forty years and is working on an extensive article on what he calls a true bio-motor. The article is not posted yet but here is the link if you wish to question him on this or any engine tech.https://www.gofastnews.com/board/engi...rving-car.html