I don't see this question really asked much, so lets take a stab at it. What are the advantages of running E85 in boosted and non-boosted applications? I am thinking very hard and almost dead set on switching but if anyone has tried i would like some input on this subject. i am not completely sold on weather this is a good idea or not on my 93 prelude. i got the aem fic, wide-band, and big fuel system with 1000cc injector dynamics saturated injectors. i will be installing a turbonetics turbocharger after i have a good tune naturally aspired for a month or so with no flaws.

 

there's a lot of info out there the forced induction forum has a lot of info.
Really quick,e85 has an octane rating around 105, burns cooler,cheaper at the pump, slightly more resistant to detenation,
down side, requires about 30% more fuel over gas, diffrent blends pop up at diffrent gas stations( buy an e85 content tester), not many places to fill up. Well at least here in cali there's about 3 gas stations all spread out about 35 miles from each other.

 

Injectors rusting after not running the car for a week or 2... main reason why I scrapped my whole E85 tune idea.

 

is this true for ALL injectors? ^^

 

I'm not sure. Injectors compatible with E85 just means the fuel can flow through and it doesn't swell up I believe.

 

I've had e85 sitting in my tank for a year and when I pulled my motor out my rc's were fine no rust. There's a thread testing the effects of certain metals in e85 google it up

 

I do know that e85 will attract water and this probably is why rust could be issue. I have one e85 pump within 60mi of me, luckly that one pump is very close at a sunoco on the turn pike, I use a fuel caddy and park where the station workers do to buy it that way. It is a pain in the butt, I enjoy tuning so I put the extra work in to make it happen. Thing that most worries me and really only worry I have is my car sits alot!

 

Here, I wrote this on another forum:

e85 is an amazing fuel. Let's break down why:

It has more oxygen in it than gasoline, much more. This allows you to get more oxygen in the combustion chamber than you normally would. Even though this oxygen is bonded to the rest of the ethanol molecule before combustion, it's still burned in the cylinder, just like nitrous. The stoichiometric ratio of e85 is approximately 9.6:1 and gasoline's is approximately 14.7:1, so not only do you have more fuel to burn, but more oxygen, too! This is why most cars will make 15-20% more power on e85 than with even the highest octane race gasoline. (Chemically, the most power you could make would be 27% more than gasoline, but that's hard to reach due to other restrictions).

It reduces intake air temperatures four times more than gasoline when injected into the air fuel mixture at proper air-to-fuel ratios. This is because alcohol requires more energy to evaporate than gasoline does and you're also injecting about 35% more of it into the air fuel mixture than you are with gasoline. To prove this to yourself, imagine (or actually do it, safely!) dipping your fingers in gasoline and placing them in front of a fan. Your fingers would get pretty cold. Then imagine dipping your entire hand in alcohol and placing it in front of the same fan, it would get much, much colder.

e85 has an American octane rating of approximately 105, but the American test for octane rating (MON) uses a preheated air-fuel mixture at 300 degrees! This means that they inject e85 into the air and then heat that mixture to 300*F. This is why the commonly known octane rating of 105 is innacurate for e85. Preheating the air-fuel mixture doesn't accurately model intake temperatures that are so significantly lowered by e85 in real world applications. Because of the heat-lowering effectiveness of e85, it's more accurate octane rating is between 112 and 118. Because of this you can run higher compression, more boost, or both!

It burns faster than gasoline. At a 1:1 air fuel ratio, gasoline burns at 26cm/sec and ethanol burns at 41cm/sec. As you lean the air-to-fuel ratio, Ethanol continues to burn faster than gasoline. This is a major advantage over gasoline because it allows you to use more retarded ignition timing while still extracting maximum power out of the fuel. Retarded ignition timing is good because it allows you start the powerstroke later and harness the mechanical advantage the rod has on the crank as it's tilted rather than directly above crank. This also significantly reduces the shock the piston, rod and crank experience when the explosion happens before or during top dead center.

In our cars it lowers oil and water temperature about 15*F and exhaust gas temperatures by 200*F! A colder engine is a longer lasting one!

Because of government subsidies, it's cheaper! Also, depending on which propaganda you believe, it's probably not as bad for the environment as you thought and it lessens dependancy on foreign oil!

Sources:
http://e85forum.net/forum/viewtopic....2db6e2e80eaaa4 863228f0

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=188508

http://www.osbornauto.com/octane.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous

https://honda-tech.com/forums/forced-induction-16/e85-some-real-world-data-1701028/

 

Wow well said, very nice. I am feeling very good about this. You know I got excited last night when I bought e85 for the first time. Its kinda strange getting excited about buying fuel, but I belive playludesc explained exactly why I felt like this. -

 

E85 should be boughten in drums much like VP racing fuel so the batch is consistent. Different blends are at the pump and it is NOT consistent. Tune on the edge with it and I wish you luck for your next fill up.

 

Yea this is very true also! Cars like mine that were never designed to run on e85 relie strictly on the tune for the tank full that you had in at the time the tuning was completed. I personally will be tuning very conservative because of this inconsistency in the fuels. Very good point brought up!

 

*bought

Also, if you're setup can run on gasoline, it will run on pretty much any mixture of e85.

I mean to say, if it can be tuned on gas, it can be tuned for e85 and any mixture of e85 will still produce more power and be safer than gasoline. I'm no expert, but in the research I've done I've found it's virtually impossible to "tune to the edge" of e85, especially in a setup that was made to run on gas.

Rumor has it that it has been run at compression ratios of 20:1 and greater. Now that's just a rumor, but it seems quite a few people are willing to believe it.

 

That may be true for something that runs on 93 octane that even with aggressive timing that E85 being 104 octane would always be safe. However something that won't run on 93 octane and is tuned with pump E85... tuning on the edge of the fuel is a terrible idea. That's the reason why I absolutely love AVGAS. I'm not sure that any fuel even VP by the barrel is that consistent. It's cheap leaded fuel but still $2-3 more expensive compared to E85

 

By avgas do you mean aviation fuel? What exact fuel are you running and what kind of afr's? Also anyone actually know how well these cheapie E85 testers accuracy is? I mean these 15 dollar jobbies that summit sells? Im sure they are not as accurate as the $300 machines. Just a guess but if when you get gas it has water in it already (from just being stored in a underground tank) seems that this method could be off a fair amount. Just wonder if anyone ever checked one?

 

Just to clarify, neither oxygen or nitrous burns. 94

 

Has anyone experimented with the sta-bil marine fuel treatment in there setup with ever fill up. This may cut down on water absorbed. Just wondering if anyone used it and its effects?

 

Just a idea was wondering thoughts anyone may have on this subject. My car sits all winter, alcohol collects water. If i was to place a heating pad on the bottom of my fuel tank maybe 70ish degs and hold that temp all winter. Maybe this would evaporate water thus maintaining the fuel consistently. 2nd thoughts is it could damage things inside tank like a sending unit (corrosion) or even the tank itself, due to excessive moisture in the air that's in the tank. Maybe opening the fuel cap would counter react and make this work. I really want to run this E85 in my weekend car and everything points me in the direction of doing it except for this water problem I could encounter, and most likely will. It can sometimes take me 2 or 3 months in the summer to run a full tank of petrol thru my car.

 

It will give you about a 5% horsepower increase. So professional drag racers use it. Is is cheaper NO. Is it good for producing more power when you have tons of money yes.

 

I really want to run E85 but I am in a similar situation as balbowskie. The idea of E85 collecting water and possibly causing rust is kind of scary haha.

 

I believe I am goin to try the heating pad idea. I will be needing a good piece of test equipment for analyzing the E85. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Anyone have a good fuel test meter they wanta sell? I think that a simple heating pad like what they sell at the drug store for temporary storage or even to go all out a reptile heating pad could be permently attached to the bottom of the tank and used during times of storage. Remember that I believe doin this it will be very necessary to open the fuel cap.

 

I think I may have over looked that since alcohol evaps before water that this could be a problem. I will be testing still. Any ideas on how I could make this work? Zeolite maybe?

 

OK big advances now like inconsistencies can be accessed with this product I've found called a onboard ethonal content analyzer zeitronix makes. Just tune for pump gas and the wire the 0-5volt wire to your s300 hondata and it'll do the dirt work via a sensor on the return line to the tank.