E85 Flex Fuel

So I've recently thought about converting my injectors to handle E85. Anyone else do this mod? Is it a good or bad idea? Seems to run cleaner, make your engine last longer, and perform better. What are others' opinions?

You need stainless steel fuel lines, or something else that wont die from the alcohol. And it makes your engine perform worse, as it's 100 octane and alcohol has less energy than gas. It does burn cleaner, but when you take into account what energy goes into making it, it is worse for the environment. I have thought of doing this though, because the stuff is cheap, and all over around here.

i tried a tank and it ran like crap with it in. definatly less smooth running. what do you need to do with the injectors?

Erik Litchy said:

i tried a tank and it ran like crap with it in. definatly less smooth running. what do you need to do with the injectors?

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Nothing with the injectors. I misspoke.

it will run like crap, lots of knocking, unless your compression is high enough to require 100 octane.

Well, you can't just dump it in there and expect it to work, the engine will run badly.

E85 requires more fuel delivery because Alcohol has 1/2 the BTUs of gas. The engine can also run more ignition timing.

So really, you need to tell the computer to deliver more fuel, and to bump the timing to take advantage of the greater Octane rating. More compression would be nice to take advantage of the higher octane, but is not required.

From what I've been reading is that there are two ways of getting more fuel to the cylinder, increase injector size and leave the durration the same, or change durration.

There are E85 kits out there. It sems to me that in their basic form, they fool the computer into delivering more fuel to the cylinder. Not sure about the timing. http://www.change2e85.com/servlet/StoreFront

Corrosion should not be an issue. There were complaints when the nation took up the 10% Gasahol standard that fuel systems would corrode up, that was back in the bad old carb days. Since then, fuel systems have been designed to be immune to the affects of Alcohol in the fuel as it was assumed that at some point every owner would encounter E10 on a regular basis.

E85 could work really well with a stroker built for it.

I've been running E85 exclusively in my Comanche for a couple years now. Ron has it nailed. Just because a fuel is high octane doesn't mean the engine has to require that octane to run well. Get around 30% more fuel to it and bump the timing and E85 makes more power than gas.

There are other factors to consider though. Price, availability and future supply. Apparently there are some E85 stations dropping the product out here. As of right now ethanol is 20 cents cheaper than 85 octane, but when gas was high $3's it was just more than half of that. At only 20 cents less a gallon it will cost more to run than gasoline by the time you get enough into the engine.

Johnnie Walker said:

E85 could work really well with a stroker built for it.

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well mine is a stroker, i seem to not have built the right one.
9.8:1 compression on mine. hates regular gas with a passion.

Ethanol is garbage, period.

JJacobs said:

I've been running E85 exclusively in my Comanche for a couple years now. Ron has it nailed. Just because a fuel is high octane doesn't mean the engine has to require that octane to run well. Get around 30% more fuel to it and bump the timing and E85 makes more power than gas.

There are other factors to consider though. Price, availability and future supply. Apparently there are some E85 stations dropping the product out here. As of right now ethanol is 20 cents cheaper than 85 octane, but when gas was high $3's it was just more than half of that. At only 20 cents less a gallon it will cost more to run than gasoline by the time you get enough into the engine.

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what year comanche? RENIX models will be able to adapt to the e85 more easily than OBDI or II.

Blaine B. said:

Ethanol is garbage, period.

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What an informed post! Why do you say that?

Mr_Random said:

what year comanche? RENIX models will be able to adapt to the e85 more easily than OBDI or II.

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It's not a 4.0. And there's nothing special or different about making a Renix run well on ethanol versus obd1 or 2. All you need to do is put 30%-ish more fuel in, by running larger injectors then tuning with pulsewidth or fuel pressure.

It's not worth doing to a 4.0.

Here is why I say it is garbage. Sorry I did not elaborate earlier.

E85 is just a tad less expensive than regular fuel. In fact there was a time that I personally saw when E85 was actually a greater price than regular fuel!

It is less efficient than gasoline too. Your mileage drops. So are you really saving money at all? And then it makes our food more expensive too since they are using this for fuel instead of soley a food product. So really we are getting screwed in more than one area.

Ethanol itself being put into "standard" gasoline is crap too. If straight gasoline without ethanol existed we'd even see higher miles to the gallon. Sure 90% or so of gas is not ethanol but that 10% makes it less efficient.

Replacing a less expensive product with a more expensive product does not make sense.

Going green....they just tell people what is "good" and never show the negatives. Unfortunately as you know, the majority of people in this nation (and probably the world) are not "smart" enough to look through the lies and see the truth through all of the debris.

Just like those cfl lightbulbs too. Sure I like them too but they are more expensive than a standard lightbulb. Again, replacing something less expensive with a more expensive item. The only reason I use them is that they are brighter. You can get 90 watts of light with only 14 watts.

And then the electric car bushwa. More expensive than a regular car. Needs more servicing over a lifetime because of all the batteries. But do the tree huggers ever mention how destructive the mining is for the products required to make these sorts of batteries?

I know I expanded my argument beyond Ethanol but it all ties together..

All very true. 'Garbage' might be a bit much as it is a great product for certain high compression or boosted engines. It's not worth converting the average car to run on it.

They always talk about decreasing our dependence on foreign oil. Well what about all of this oil we are sitting on? They are saying it would destroy the view to see an oil rig out in the ocean? Hell I think that would look awesome, especially at night....or disturb some polar bear in Alaska.

We need to drill here. And we need to start building some nuclear power plants. But all of the good ideas are always shunned. How much does it cost to build a windmill and how many lightyears does it take for it to pay for itself?

Off topic again but like I said before it all connects....."Going Green" and all....those two words that make me vomit a little inside of my mouth every time I see or hear it.

My renix runs rough at idle with E-10 and I get less MPG than with regular gas. E-85 is very corrosive to certain things such as aluminum and rubber fuel lines that were not made to be alcohol resistant. Corrosion is not an issue on an XJ unless you have an aftermarket fuel tank, etc. I know that in the boat world e-10 has been a terrible nuisance. The main reason is that ethanol is hygroscopic, which means that is attracts and binds with water. When the fuel tank is vented to the outside air and you run the boat on water (obviously) then you up with a lot of water in the fuel.

My opinion on the future of fuels is bio-diesel. Many diesel engines get over 50 MPG and have lots of power and the technology is starting to catch up to make it cheap and easy to produce without being a hinderance on our food supply. Just my .02.

My opinion on the future of fuels is bio-diesel. Many diesel engines get over 50 MPG and have lots of power and the technology is starting to catch up to make it cheap and easy to produce without being a hinderance on our food supply. Just my .02.[/quote]

i wish real diesel tecnology would finnay come our way my friend has a uncle that deals with diesel companies out in europe and he says that we are years behind the europeans on diesel tecnology and e85 how come the couple of years it's been out the only place you can get it is out midwest i see plenty of flex-fuel vehicals but no e85