^ You have it the other way around. Winter blended E85, especially in mid-west states where temperatures drop a good amount, is usually between 65-70% ethanol content in order to achieve good starting characteristics. Summer blended E85 is usually between 80-90% ethanol by volume.

The lowest I've seen E85 at the local pump here (Seattle area, rarely gets below 25*F ever) is 83%, according to my alcohol sensor.

The best way to run E85 in a street car, IMO, is to have an alcohol sensor and the proper functions in your EMS. That way, you at least have a tuned trim offset and ignition advance table that can change as the ethanol content varies.

Ethanol has such good cooling properties, you do not need an intercooler in some cases. There is a good SAE paper (2001-01-0056) that Lotus Engineering published about converting the Exige S to run E85. They removed the air-to-air cooler and added a 'fogger' injector pre-supercharger. They were able to run to 35* BTDC timing at 12psi with >110* IAT's without a charge-air cooler on the 11:1 compression Toyota motor.

 

Yea we have a decent climate here but I decided to ask them at my local station with it if they are positive what blend it is and when. They told me they are not planning on changing over to e70 but there is a disclaimer sticker on the pump itself saying minimum ethanol content is 70% so.

It all makes me nervous cause flex fuel vehicles can get away with a variance in ethanol content thanks to the sensors in the tank to make fuel corrections. So it makes me wonder how lax that standards are from blending on this really are. I know monitoring a/f and whatnot is always a must to be safe with any fuel but something about knowing when I get a drum of 112 or whatnot, it seems to be more carefully blended and is very consistant.

I definately will be pumping it into my race gas jugs to check ethanol content before I run it if I go that route. 1.65$ a gallon is just so TEMPTING.

 

If the only deciding factor preventing you from running E85 is the variability in ethanol percentage, the DTA S80-Pro has a good ethanol% correction trim table and ignition advance table. It uses a GM ethanol sensor (PN 1257-0260). I can personally vouch for this setup.

I know MOTEC has similar functionality, and it sounds like AEM does as well.

 

No I dont, I stated when I bought it they said it was E85 when it was actually E70, so when I pumped true E85 in months later I was lean due to the higher Ethanol Content

 

My bad, reading owns me.

 

has to have this required our pumps down here dont have it. well south of waco