I've been doing allot of research on this conversion for my 4g si. Theres a bit of info on it but its mainly written in the late '70s early 80s when all you had to do was replace rubber parts and pull the choke a little. I know rubber fuel lines have to be changee to neoprine (sp?). Also most of the plastic parts aren't going to hold up like the float on the sender and probably the whole fuel pump assembly. I'm guessing 90% of the fuel system will be modified in some way, but what about any other gaskets? Are the fuel injectors going to need rebuilding? Will the stock cat be ok? Since ethanol is a very good solvent, should I replace valve seals on my 150k engine? Do any other seals need to be replaced? How will ethanol effect the sensors? Has anyone ever even done anything like this or played with the idea? any info for converting a modern car to e85 would e greatly appreciated.

 

I'm not sure but if I'm not mistaken fuel system has to supply twice as much fuel. Or maybe that was alcohol. Your gonna drive this thing daily.

 

yep.. you will need 2.3X as much alcohol to make hte same ammount of power as you have on gas. bigger injectors, fuel pump, lines, etc.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JDogg &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">yep.. you will need 2.3X as much alcohol to make hte same ammount of power as you have on gas. bigger injectors, fuel pump, lines, etc.

</TD></TR></TABLE>

Well sign me up for 8 2600cc injectors, 4 walbro 255's, and some 16 -an fuel lines!

 

ethanol burns like a psycho. it burns super fast. why would you want to run it in a daily driver? V<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Styler93GSX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm not sure but if I'm not mistaken fuel system has to supply twice as much fuel. Or maybe that was alcohol. Your gonna drive this thing daily. </TD></TR></TABLE> that stuff isn't as cheap as gas either

 

you cant seriously be trying to do this..?

 

Plutonium coated pellets would be cheaper than 60 gallons of ethanol. Not to be an *** but gas went down man. It's only like $2.00 here.

 

Talk about people being misinformed! Ethanol IS alcohol. 106 octane and it burns slower. The engine will need up to 30% more fuel. Its $1 a gallon to make, reduces emissions by 60-80%, the engine runs super clean (no carbon buildup), you can run higher compression from the 106 octane. Whats not to like? In most cases all you need is fuel managment, pump, and replacemnt for rubber lines. Please, if you don't know the facts don't waste my time.

 

no... not upto 30% more... exactly 2.3 times as much

it costs a few cents less per gallon, but when you figure for every one gallon of gas you need 2.3 gallons of alcohol.. its not cheap anymore

 

Where did you get that figure from??? All I ever see is that you get roughly 2/3 the milage than you would with gas. I've been seeing the same figure for months. Have yet to find someone whos actually done it on a modern car.

Heres a few examples:
http://www.miljofordon.se/latt...D=279
Bensin is gas and e85 is 85% ethanol. Complicated example but e85 vehicles can be found in europe for the general public.

http://www.fb.org/views/focus/fo2003/fo0505.html

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JDogg &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">no... not upto 30% more... exactly 2.3 times as much</TD></TR></TABLE>

I think that you are thinking about Methanol jdogg.

Stoichiometric for gasoline is 14.7:1
Stoichiometric for ethanol (ethyl alcohol) is 9:1
Stoichiometric for methanol (methyl alcohol) is 6.4:1

So for every gallon of gasoline you would burn a coresponding 1.63 gallons of ethanol or 2.3 gallons of methanol as alternative fuels.

Of course there is the matter of energy density too.
gasoline: 43.5 megajoules per kilogram
ethanol: 26.8 megajoules per kilogram or 62% the energy of gasoline.
methanol: 19.7 megajoules per kilogram or 45% the energy of gasoline.

The kicker here is that gasoline has about 91-93 octane depending on where you live
ethanol is about 115 if pure
methanol is about 107 if pure
E85 is about 105

Ultimately here's the breakdown:
If you take your stock engine and throw ethanol, methanol or E85 in the tank you will get worse mileage by a LOT and perhaps destroy the fuel system and the engine as it would run very lean. But if you built the fuel system and a high compression engine (in the order of 14:1 with crap loads of tuning) you can effectively use alcohol in a daily driver and get similar (though probably less) mileage between the 2 fuels. The problem is that if you build the engine in a fashion to harness alcohol it would be near worthless for any other fuel. So cross-country road trips are out.

I have personally researched this for use as a high performance daily driver using 55 gallon drums of industrial denatured ethanol (which is not taxed as a fuel like E85) but after all the expense to get a car to run it well and stand up to the corrosive qualities of alcohol fuels you have thrown a lot of money away when you could have a regular 11.5-12:1 CR gasoline engine tuned and highly built that can take you cross-country and have fun with anywhere.

If gasoline goes to $5+ per gallon then it might be worth looking into otherwise it is hard to justify the effort and expense.

Pirate

 

ethanol... haha, i read it 5 times and read methanol every time..


ethanol will take ~ 1.6 times as much fuel to reach the same lambda... stock injectors are 330cc then directly swapping to 550cc injectors should result in the same afr's and it will run fine. Make sure to use some lubrication additive to the fuel so you dont burn up the pumps and injectors.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PirateMcFred &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> The problem is that if you build the engine in a fashion to harness alcohol it would be near worthless for any other fuel.</TD></TR></TABLE>

You have good answers to everything Can't I have multiple programs in the fuel managment to allow for different mixtures? The Flexifuel Focus uses some sort of sensor to allow it to do the same thing but with out having to change programs manually.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">after all the expense to get a car to run it well and stand up to the corrosive qualities of alcohol fuels you have thrown a lot of money away</TD></TR></TABLE>

I was under the impression that all of the metals in the engine would be ok. Its only the plastics and rubbers that would need replacing. I also plan on doing all the work myself saving me allot of the cost.

As for the tuning, would I go about it the same way as for gas or are there other considerations that someone that has tuned ethanol would only know? Would an afc2 be enough or do I need much more adjustability like hondata or chrome provides. BTW, this is a daily driver.

 

the engine will be fine.. you dont really need to do a whole lot to run on ethanol.

just put in some 550cc injectors and you should be good to go. you may have to advance the timing some to get good power out of it.

 

my brain hurts

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by racerx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Can't I have multiple programs in the fuel managment to allow for different mixtures? </TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes you can have different ROMs to swap out and it'd be fine. What I meant about the useful for only one gas was that with ethanol it is more efficient to run 14:1 compression than your current 9.8:1. If you wanted to get decent mileage/power from alcohol the compression necessary to do so would make it hard to go back to gasoline without detonation.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by racerx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I was under the impression that all of the metals in the engine would be ok.</TD></TR></TABLE>

High concentrations of alcohol naturally attract moisture from the air. The moisture over time will rot out the gas tank after a while.

Pirate

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by aRaBiAn RiCe &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">my brain hurts</TD></TR></TABLE>
no sheet huh

but seriously they sell E85 around here which is 85% ethanol and I have ran it in my 93 explorer a couple times and my 91 Nissan King Cab with no problems.

With E85 you lose anywhere from 0% up to 15% of your gas milage do to the need for more fuel.

E85 was around a dollar a gallon for a while up here (promotional) but now is as expensive as Gas.

Someday it will be cheaper.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PirateMcFred &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
What I meant about the useful for only one gas was that with ethanol it is more efficient to run 14:1 compression than your current 9.8:1.


High concentrations of alcohol naturally attract moisture from the air. The moisture over time will rot out the gas tank after a while.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I'm planning on a rebuild soon with usdm h22 pistons. I just want to get my facts straight before I commit to this conversion and do all the work at once. As for the tank, we're not talking about it rotting out in just a couple of years are we? Do you know of any tank coatings that can be used to slow or stop it from happening? Maybe something used in aviation or industrial applications? What kind of lifespan would you say the parts exposed to ethanol would have? I've spent too much time and money to get the car to drive the way I want for me to ever get rid of it, so I don't want to make it a disposable car like these hybrids are.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by EuroR92Lude &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
E85 was around a dollar a gallon for a while up here (promotional) but now is as expensive as Gas.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Thats nuts! In europe its up to over a dollar cheaper. Theres three places close to me that sell e85 but its for government vehicles only. Damn the man! I`ll be making my own moonshine

I came accross a list one time that stated how much ethanol tollerance each mfg built into their cars. Honda and Acuras are rated for no more than 10%. I thought you could only run e85 on a select few fleet only vehicles. The flexifuel cars in europe are only about 200 dollars more than the petrol only cars. I wonder what the real differences are. Is it just the fuel type sensor and the ecu? If its so easy, why does it take engineering students to build an e85 car. Something doesn't add up.

 

I have also looked into converting to alcohol, and just happen to possibly distill a bit of alcohol on my own......

Trust me bud, if you're making it on your own, you won't be getting it near $1/gallon. Try 4x that roughly.

But it eats more fuel so the pump and injectors will be replaced, the rubber lines must go......it all depends on what you're trying to do.

Also, the best you'll get out of homedistilling is 95% because once the 95% is hit, it behaves like pure ethanol when being distilled....even though it's not. IIRC, you only need about a 90% ethanol mixture to run your car, though.

Also, as said above, alcohol is very hygroscopic, and will suck up any condensation and eating metals, so storage is important!

Now I'd like to see how feasible propane would be.....I know we converted our old race carts at my first job to propane instead of gas, and they ran awesome....

 

Is that 4 dollar a gallon figure from using corn? I was going to go to the different stores and get their rotten produce. You can usually get all of the organics you need for free if you're resourcefull enough.

From what I understand of the process using the Charels 803 stil, you can get about 160 proof ethanol the first go around. This can only be done using a 300 dollar valve that keeps the temp within 1 deg of the optimal temp. The last 30% of water is removed by putting it through a reuseable molecular seive. Having a true reflux stil also helps get the high ethanol precentage somehow. I've looked at ebay stils that claim to be of reflux design and they only give you about 95%. Heres the site I got most of my practical info from: http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/index.html

I don't know much about propane except its expensive to get for your grill and the jdm 2g lude had and option for it. Guess its time to do more reading. I'll still likly tryto go with ethanol but I'll try it on my ls-1gcrx project first.

 

Yeah, the figure I listed is for using off-the-grocery-shelf materials, since they are "new" and consistent.... mainly cornmeal and sugar. There are plenty of people out there using the bio-alky from rotten fermentables, but I didn't know that's what you were looking to get into! If you get into it, keep us updated on how it goes!