What is everyone's opinion on using E85 with 10.6-10.8 compression?

I hear that it is too low to see much in the way of power increases.

I searched around and didn't find much on it out side of a b16 that wasn't baselined before the test.

??

 

I heard this from a buddy who talked to a "reputable tuner" and the tuner also said that he would not benefit much from this. But i have seen 93 vs e85 dyno charts of stock k's making a good amount of power over 93. So far from what i know and seen e85 allows you to run more aggressive timing without getting knock or damaging your engine. So i wouldn't see why it wouldn't benefit from the change.

 

I wish we had more E85 here in the Western NY area. If we did my motor would be tuned on E85.

 

Thanks for the response/help. I was a little concerned about the energy density of the E85 on stock compression (seeing as i wont have knock issues) and you answered my question perfectly.

 

For the same fuel mass, E85 has less energy than gasoline, but a stoichiometric mixture of E85 has more energy than a stoichiometric mixture of gasoline. However, the difference is only 1-2%.

It's pretty much like the typical 93 vs. 87 octane question. If you have an engine that can take advantage of 93 octane fuel, you'll benefit from using it. Otherwise, you'll just waste money.

 

This is no scientific comparison by any means. A friend of mine has a 2000 civic si, I have a gsr swapped EK hatch. Both had intake and exhaust, the SI had s300. Before the SI changed to E85 I pulled about 1-1/2 cars from a stop/5mph roll to 80. After the conversion the cars were dead even to the SI slightly pulling in first and second. The only tuning that was done was to compensate for the 450cc injectors.

There is definitely a power advantage to changing to E85 for sure. Plus its cheaper. Gas mileage is slightly worse. Hard to say exactly how much as the si is just a weekend car and gets beat on every time its driven.

 

I ran E85 in my b16a for about a year with on problems the only reason i stopped using E85 is the only pump was a 30miles round trip from me and half of the time it was out of order.