E85 festiva?

[schreurs1]

im a big promoter of ethanol and run it in all my vehicles. E30 in my festiva and grand prix and E85 in the racecar. which brings me to wonder, has anyone ever tuned there festiva to E85? Or would anyone be willing to try it (ie. B6T guys? E85 makes great power with boost.) with rising gas prices alternative fuels are becoming more and more plausible, especially with the price spread between E85 and regular unleaded being nearly a dollar here in SD. 2.59 for E85 vs 3.54 for regular at my work.

[FestYboy]

it would require refitting our cars with E85 compatible fuel hose and remap the ECU and run larger injectors. quite an expense for loosing MPG....

[Ford Fester]

Losing mpg but gaining power....also Schreurs stated earlier a good point....ethanol is a cleansing agent......I have ran 3 or 4 full tanks of e85 through in the summer. I did not flash my ecm or change any fuel lines and if prices are still high in the summer I will be running e85 all the time. My question is is it possible to have the ecm on a b3 flashed for e85 or any other way to make up for the added alcohol. When I ran e85 I noticed a change
from 35 mpg to around 27. Also mpg is sometimes the wrong price calculation to go by. When fuel prices are at such a drastic difference you should go by cost per mile. Just my 2cents.

[crazyrog17]

I just did a few rough calculations and it's cheaper per mile for me to run 87 octane gas than E85.

[FestYboy]

bingo...

[Aspire]

it would require refitting our cars with E85 compatible fuel hose...

When they started putting Ethanol in the fuel, things went crazy down here for awhile. All the guys with boats (that filled up with pump gas since it's $1 cheaper per gallon) had learned the hard way that fuel systems in boats were not made for ethanol....which was good for me, since I was a boat mechanic & believe that there should be a special punitive tax for idiots that own boats

I just did a few rough calculations and it's cheaper per mile for me to run 87 octane gas than E85.

Last year, when I worked for a very large industrial supply company, we owned the Dodge Rams that had the E85 compatability option. Anyhow, the bean counters went through & did there calculations & made it a company policy to NOT use E85 at all! Their simple calculations showed that the reduced gas mileage of E85 was not offset any by the cheaper cost, but in actuality E85 cost more in the long run.

But there are benefits to E85 if used right, but the benefits really aren't for better mileage.

[Eaglefreek]

Losing mpg but gaining power... cost per mile.

Unless the engine is built for E85 such as higher compression, turbocharger or supercharger, power will be lost not gained. Ethanol has less BTU's than gasoline. A higher compression engine can take advantage of the higher octane rating of ethanol.

[Pu241]

I'm a big promoter of keeping ethanol out of my fuel tank.
I look upon it as crapoline.
It has less BTU's than real gas, absorbs moisture, and isn't as stable (ie you can't store it for any length of time.
On top of that we are being charged as if it is real gas.
I think MPG is a fine measure of the performance of a fuel.
But going with $/mile still tells me real gas is the way to go.

schreurs1 and ford fester, do you think that living in SD, home of the largest ethanol producer, POEM, has anything to do with your support of a poor fuel choice that is being forced on the rest of us?

[Ford Fester]

Its poet and I don't really read into or about the producing of ethanol here but it is readily available and honestly we have been using it for years with no issues.....regular 10%. With e85 we as a small shop make money off of the people who put it in their car and it throws a lean code. They want us to drain the tank and we are left with gallons of free fuel to do what with. Well if you have a spare engine sitting around and fuel line that is next to nothing in cost....I guess we experimented. It seemed to work fine and had no issues. So after the e85 trial and error we built our own hydrogen fuel cell....tried that on a festy and noticed an increase in milage but could not get a hydrogen pump to last very long. We used stainless ready rod and wire ...but hydrogen is so corrosive it didn't matter. We are not out to destroy our cars...we're just trying out different forms of fuel in hopes that we can spark something better than a to b with a standard gas stop in between. If that were the case I wouldn't be on this site sharing my trial and error festy lifestyle. Thanks for all the support and feedback.

[Pu241]

You are correct it is POET.
I have no issue with experimentation, it's what I get paid to do in a different line of work.

You didn't build a hydrogen fuel cell, you may well have build a hydrogen generator, but a fuel cell is way beyond a mom and pop shop to fabricate.
Hydrogen itself isn't corrosive, it will however cause metals to embrittle.
Depending upon how you constructed your generator the oxygen you also generate via electrolysis of the water can be very corrosive.
Further, if the gases were generated and mixed before being consumed by the engine I'm surprised you didn't have more than a few explosions.
We always hear about the HHO people finding more MPG/performance etc., but no one is currently running the setup full time.
With gas slated for the 4$/gal range I guess well here more from the that crowd shortly!
I fully support alternative fuels, but not those that require me to make costly alterations to a perfectly fine running vehicle, because some idiot in Washington thinks its a good thing to contaminate the nations fuel supply with ethanol. Or for me to purchase a new vehicle so I can use the new fuel to its best advantage.
Wonder if you feel the same if they start adding ethanol to diesel fuel.

[Ford Fester]

Your right it was a generator and the only explosions we had was when we bench tested our generator before installing. We got a spoonfull of bubbles a lit a match to them and boom. It was about 3 feet of ready rod cut to around 6 inches with the center rods being 1/2 stock and outers being 3/8. We wrapped the center with wire...which would be our positive and negative terminals and insulated the others with clear fuel hose. Used a mixture of water and a pinch or 2 of baking soda and put it all in a sealed 8" pvc container...about 10" tall with a tube going straight into the intake. Wired it up to run switced with fuses and tested her out. Im not saying were smart at this, just know enough to cause trouble. And as for ethanol in the diesel fuel.....as a caterpillar diesel mechanic....if it helps reduce emissions without egr I am all for it. The new cat truck engines are not what you would call user friendly. Egr, vgt, and dpf are all technology failures. I prefer the older single turbo electronic unit injected motors that had only the common maintenance issues like exhaust manifold gaskets, water pumps or bearing roll-ins

[getnpsi]

If i had e85 up the street from me and was turbocharging I would built my festy's fuel system for e85. What is here is here, might as well take advantage of the power standpoint. Lose 5 mpg but gain 100hp with no knocking ever? With race fuel how much a gallon now? Sounds like a plan for a fast festiva. For strict commuters yes it sucks. For people who cant afford a failure on a car's fuel system if and when it happens that is terrible as well. If there was more of a all or nothing type of option because that's how refineries already handle it, (because of infastructure again) there would be far fewer issues.

[schreurs1]

schreurs1 and ford fester, do you think that living in SD, home of the largest ethanol producer, POEM, has anything to do with your support of a poor fuel choice that is being forced on the rest of us?

the reason i support the use of ethanol is simple, we plant corn in our fields, harvest it, bring it to the ethanol plants, they make it into fuel, we buy it and use it at the gas station i work at, and i fill up my car with it. its 100% renewable and i do my share to decrease foreign dependency on oil. POET has nothing to do with anything, there just another ethanol company in our area. Ethanol isnt being forced on anyone and i assume your talking about the E15. E15 is replacing E10. you can still get your regular unleaded gas without ethanol if you so choose.

I understand this community is about fuel mileage, not horsepower. i didnt expect anyone else to be using ethanol because its not normally associated with increasing fuel economy. my festiva gets about 1.5 mpgs better on E30 than anything else but every car is different, some like it, some dont. thats why i asked if the B6T guys had tried it. they are more about horsepower, and E85 makes big horsepower.

this is just my 2 cents.

[schreurs1]

Wonder if you feel the same if they start adding ethanol to diesel fuel.

They do in a sense. its called Biodiesel around here. they used to make soy biodiesel but had too many problems with it so they went to using corn. we have experimented with it as well. We ran a B100 blend of biodiesel in my bosses 08 F-250 6.4L and it worked really well. it has its cons like anything else as it begins to gel at about 30 degrees, which doesnt quite work up here.

[Ogrekhan]

Hey,

I have a friend who runs filtered fryer oil year round here in Iowa. He does a lot of junking and adds salvaged skunk gas to the mix to prevent gelling. Seems to work great for him . Using a copper coiled line in the tank to heat your bio fuel works well too. Best setup I have seen used a small start up tank with blended diesel to start and run the first few miles.. then once the engine is warm and circulating heat back to the primary tank switch over.