Any body try to go 100% E85?

[99CivicSiBrian]

AS it says
To those of you who wonder why I'm thinking E85 - I'm having fun on gas but the price keeps going up. At $3.60 (for 93 octane) it will cost me $.10/mile just for fuel to drive. So as a result, I am thinking of going E85. I realize it takes more E85 to get the job done, but if the difference in price makes up for it then I'm all for it.
The subject car is my OBD1 coupe running a D15b and an IHI RHB5 turbo at like 8+psi. I have 510's in place but not sure if that will be enough for the E85. I will upgrade the fuel pump first.
Aside from tuning, does anyone see any problems with my plan?
Word.
B

 

[si-hatch86]

i heard somewhere that you need your fuel system to be upgraded entirely. not sure if its true or not. but i hear you need the lines and tank to be plastic lined being that e85 is more corrosive than gas. also bigger injectors needed.

 

[99CivicSiBrian]

i heard somewhere that you need your fuel system to be upgraded entirely. not sure if its true or not. but i hear you need the lines and tank to be plastic lined being that e85 is more corrosive than gas. also bigger injectors needed.

I have 510's but I would probably go up to 600+'s so I can still run 10psi.
B

 

[Billy.]

what kind of gas mileage are you getting now? a d15 turbo with a good tune should be getting 40+

 

[Beelzebubba]

i heard somewhere that you need your fuel system to be upgraded entirely. not sure if its true or not. but i hear you need the lines and tank to be plastic lined being that e85 is more corrosive than gas. also bigger injectors needed.

Yep.

Ethanol is pretty corrosive.

You can Kreem or KBS tank seal your gas tank. Most newer fuel lines and fuel pumps should be ethanol resistant before you install them. An annoyance really. Not impossible at all.

 

[93turbo16]

The stock honda system should work fine with the E85. There are numerous people running soley E85 in their systems.

Just take it to a tuner with experience wiht E85 with the upgraded parts. I think the 510s will be close to getting the job done for you on such a small boost.

 

[99CivicSiBrian]

what kind of gas mileage are you getting now? a d15 turbo with a good tune should be getting 40+

Right. Well, actually I only approach 40 I haven't exceeded it because it is so hard to not boost for a whole tank of gas. I've gotten over 38 though.

The E85 around me is around the $2.50 mark, meaning it is roughly 2/3 the cost of gas at $3.50. If it takes 25% more E85 to do the same job, then the cost per mile of E85 would still be slightly lower than the cost of gas. Word?
B

 

[killer_siller]

i know this is old, but:

www.cornbredtuning.com

tune e-85. both the guys that run it own b18 e85 cars.

 

[99CivicSiBrian]

I am trying to contact them now. Nice
B

 

[killer_siller]

did you get ahold of them?

 

[AliasNeo]

ok do some more research. the s**t that is going around that the fuel system needs to be upgraded is crap. only things that may need is a fuel pump and injectors(dependent on what mods). if nothing else is done to it you can get away with using stock fuel pump depending how old it is. the injectors will be fine assuming ur not using the 190 cc ones and go for the 240 or 290 ones.

the fuel system is designed against corrosion since the 80's but there has been innovations over the years to increase durability.

the other problem concerning E85 is that not only does it require more to get the same power, it is also considered "dry-gas" or that it has no lubricating properties. that is why there is 15% gasoline to compensate.

another thing that may need to be changed is the heat range on the spark plugs and gap. since it burns cooler, may need to step to a plug to compensate.

i did run it for a month when i was High compression, which was 2 years ago.
here is my input:
ethanol does run cooler than gasoline but not by much. it has a higher net octane rating than gasoline of 100% ethanol at 104 octane.
i ran 94 octane.
when tuned on 93 octane gasoline, AFRs were consistant of 12.5=13.4 at WOT. crusing of 13.8-14.2
while running e85 without tuning yet. afrs jumped up at WOT to 17-19 it did fluctuate. cruising was a little higher as well.
while tuning it i brought it down to the same afrs i had had with premium gasoline, but it didnt run right. had random misfires and such, so i played with the timing. it was better but still not right...
brought it down to low 10 afrs which lowest reading on WB was 10.1 it could see and pushed the timing even further.
it ran alot better after that.
did not get it dynoed after the use of e85.

heres my thoughts of it
starting the car was alot harder than regular gas but once it maintained idle and warmed up it was better. after the warm up and shutting the car off, the start up was easy.
smelled cool lol..
cleans up the carbon build up and ran cooler. noticed this in the datalogging.

 

[mike@synapse]

stock lines and tanks are no problem, anyone saying different is just assuming and has no evidence of anything different cuz they are wrong.

510 cc injectors are good for about 230-25whp
660 cc are solid to about 300whp.

 

[J Rod]

Alias Neo...

You notice a difference in gas mileage once you got close to the finished tune?

 

[AliasNeo]

Alias Neo...

You notice a difference in gas mileage once you got close to the finished tune?

on gas i got 34-36 mpg
with e85 it dropped to ~27-28 so like 15% loss.
it ran smoother thats why i liked it but i only did it for a month

 

[kyle10182]

good article on E-85 here: http://www.sander-tuned.com/tech

 

[slowcivic E G]

I would go get my car re-tuned for E85 if there was somewhere close to me who sells 100% ethanol. I mean if I could get a 100-105 octane gas for less than 93, I would definitely do it.

 

[AliasNeo]

I would go get my car re-tuned for E85 if there was somewhere close to me who sells 100% ethanol. I mean if I could get a 100-105 octane gas for less than 93, I would definitely do it.

u cant run 100% ethanol ul f**k ur motor up real soon. cause ethanol has no lubricating properties. thats why e85 has 15% gasoline in it to compensate for this issue...

so youl have to add other chemicals in the 100% ethanol to have some lubricating property

 

[slowcivic E G]

u cant run 100% ethanol ul f**k ur motor up real soon. cause ethanol has no lubricating properties. thats why e85 has 15% gasoline in it to compensate for this issue...

so youl have to add other chemicals in the 100% ethanol to have some lubricating property

yea i forgot, i would run the 85/15 ratio. everyhwere around me is 10% ethanol in gas, id rather run normal gas.

 

[cgpEJ6]

E85 is way harder on your engine, it's really not all it's cracked up to be.

 

[ryanM]

you dont need any specific tuning to run e85, get an safc and add 30% fuel across the board, you'll be good.