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can you run e85 in a festiva?

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  • can you run e85 in a festiva?

    i found this on another site and acording to this i think we could run e85, i maybe wrong comments? oppinions?

    here are some facts
    It is not corrosive to the fuel system or the engine. This is a myth and ethanol is often confused with methanol, which actually have corrosive properties. Some models before 1988 on the other hand may have some parts that is not ethanol resistant. If we are talking Volvoīs, then this mainly applies to the non-electronically injection systems such as K-jet etc. Most cars with electronical fuel injection (EFI) should be resistant to ethanol. Some people say it would kill your engine right away and that you should buy there racefuel instead (of course they say )
    It is not as harmful to the nature/environment as gasoline or any other petroleum products for that matter. Ethanol is made out of renewable energy resources such as crops and trees to name a few things. The carbon dioxide that an ethanol powered car emits is not contributing to the greenhouse effect, but is taken up by the plants and is being "re-used". The carbon dioxide then goes around in a closed loop. Gasoline on the other hand is made from oil that comes from old dinosaurs , plants and other stuff 100 000 of years ago, and it doesnīt take part in the closed loop but only adds to the amount of greenhouse gasses. Ethanol is also easily bio-degradeable if it should leak into our environment.

    E85 is 104-105 octane and therefore itīs more knock-resistent and can tolerate more boost or a higher CR.
    E85 is in most cases at least 5% more effícient than gasoline at the same lambda value (up to 25% more efficient on some cars optimized soley for E85). Mill your heads.

    Since E85 has very good cleaning properties as well as leaving behind a rest-product of water, it is cleaning the fuel system and it will keep the injectors nice and clean. The combustion chambers, valves, ports and the exhaust will also be clean(er), almost like the car had water injection.E85 requires 39% more fuel to reach stoich even if that is not what you may come up with when doing calculations based on the table below. This is because the injector flow is slightly different when using E85 among many other things

    Fuel ........................ AFRst ........ FARst ....... Equivalence Ratio ... Lambda
    Gas stoich ................ 14.7 .......... 0.068 ................ 1 ................... 1
    Gas max power rich .... 12.5 .......... 0.08 ................. 1.176 .............. 0.8503
    Gas max power lean .... 13.23 ........ 0.0755 .............. 1.111 ............. 0.900
    E85 stoich .................. 9.765 ....... 0.10235 ............ 1 ................... 1
    E85 max power rich ...... 6.975 ....... 0.1434 .............. 1.40 ............... 0.7143
    E85 max power lean ..... 8.4687 ...... 0.118 ............... 1.153 .............. 0.8673
    E100 stoich ................ 9.0078 ...... 0.111 ............... 1 .................... 1
    E100 max power rich .... 6.429 ........ 0.155 .............. 1.4 .................. 0.714
    E100 max power lean .... 7.8 .... ...... 0.128 .............. 1.15 ................ 0.870

    Ethanol reaches max torque at richer mixtures than gasoline will.
    The term AFRst refers to the Air Fuel Ratio under stoichiometric, or ideal air fuel ratio mixture conditions. FARst refers to the Fuel Air Ratio under stoichiometric conditions, and is simply the reciprocal of AFRst.

    Equivalence Ratio is the ratio of actual Fuel Air Ratio to Stoichiometric Fuel Air Ratio; it provides an intuitive way to express richer mixtures. Lambda is the ratio of actual Air Fuel Ratio to Stoichiometric Air Fuel Ratio; it provides an intuitive way to express leanness conditions (i.e., less fuel, less rich) mixtures of fuel and air.

    As you can see from the table shown above this section, the ideal target AFRīs under boost for both gasoline and E85 are listed. For gasoline itīs 13.23-12.5, and for E85 itīs 8.47-6.975. However, with E85 you will not need to richen the mixture under WOT/boost as far as 6.975 or beyond. It does not need to be proportionally richer when compared to gasoline.

    Why? Again, Because the fuel has a cooling effect on the intake charge and the space in which the combustion occurs. And at such a low AFR as 9.765 (lambda=1 on E85) or lower the fuel cools pretty good, donīt you think so?

    Many people with some experience in mapping an ECU for use with E85 says that as high AFR as 8.5 or lambda=0.80-0.85 works well. No need to go to the extreme end of the useable scale to get safe power. It only uses a lot of fuel without giving any benefits.

    E85 burns faster than gasoline at best mixtures so it is an inherently more effecient fuel. It also produces more exhaust gas for a give weight of fuel air mix giving higher average cylinder pressures inspite of lower EGT's. With streight E85 in a properly tuned car its good for about +5% power / torque increase. I suspect on a turbocharged car the benefit is larger.

    Since you donīt have to richen the mixture as many percent (proportionally) as you have to on gasoline, you can make more power without having to use as much fuel. Methanol is much more corrosive than ethanol. It attacks certain soft metals that are not much used in modern fuel systems. Years ago, the carburators were made of un-anodized aluminum and if methanol fuel was used, you had major problems with electrolytic corrosion between the aluminum and copper components used in the fuel system, since they were in continous contact.

    That sort of corrosion only occurs when you have a current path between the dissimilar metals AND, a conductive path through the fluid in the system.

    In Brazil where they have run high ethanol fuels since 1939, they found that to convert older cars designed for gasoline, long before ethanol blends were common, needed several changes to convert the cars over. This led to changes in valve materials, piston rings choices, nickle plating of the fuel tanks etc.

    Modern cars in the U.S. are designed for use with ethanol up to 10% concentration in the fuel. That has led to several changes in component materials over the last 30 years that the U.S. has used ethanol enhanced fuels. All modern fuel lines and such are designed with the expectation that some ethanol will be in the fuel.

    What about fuel system corrosion?
    Corrosion does not appear to be an issue with modern OBDII cars. They are all certified by the manufactures to be safe to use on 10% ethanol fuel blends, and industry insiders say they are safe for much higher percentages. You don't install components that are "sorta safe" with a chemical, you put in a fuel hose etc. that is ethanol safe for concentrations well above what you expect to use. Not to mention that folks have been talking for years about raising the ethanol level to 20% or more.

    Many years ago there were studies that indicated engines that ran on alcohol ALONE as a fuel, had issues with lubrication and valve seat wear. Keep in mind, those studies were done a long time ago, when engine oils were much less sophisticated than they are now, and some engine manufactures in the 1940's,1950' and 1960's made stupid engineering decisions and did not use hard valve seat inserts like stellite in the cylinder heads. This resulted in valve seat recession problems if you did not have lead additives in the fuel to protect the valve seats.


    To sum it all up
    Why is Ethanol a better fuel ?
    1. It has a much higher evaporative cooling power than gasoline so the intake air charge in the cylinder is significantly cooler that it is with a comparable mixture of gasoline --- that means higher VE.

    2. Its octane as blended in E85 is about 100, its blending octane when added to gasoline is rated at 118, so it is a very cost effective octane booster.

    3. Ethanol burns faster than gasoline but has a slightly longer ignition delay during the slow burn phase of combustion so the engine does not do as much negative work fighting rising cylinder pressures due to large ignition advances. The total ignition advance for E85 is almost identical to the ideal advance for gasoline so it does not cause the PCM problems when you mix them.

    4. At proper mixture you actually are releasing more energy in the cylinder due to the higher quantity of fuel you can burn. ( Ethanol can burn effeciently at much richer mixtures than gasoline can) That means about a 5% increase in energy release all by itself.

    5. Peak combustion pressures are actually lower for ethanol than for gasoline but the cylinder pressures stay higher longer, so you have more (longer) crank angle that is usable by the engine. This lower peak cylinder pressure also helps with detonaton control.

    6. Theorethically, the gain is 5% just by switching fuel. 350 hp X 5% = 15 hp, plus what can be gained from timing.
    __________________

  • #2
    All well in good but I have used ethenol before and milage really drops.
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    • #3
      well from my understanding reading other post and what not if someone where to build a b3 to run souly on e85 it would be more efficiant. basically just raising the compresion (milling the heads) bigger injectors and fuel pump and remapp the ecu.

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      • #4
        NO less mpg. There is less BTU's of energy in 1 gallon of ethanol that 1 gal of gasoline. Mpg is about 80% that of gas.

        You also need alchol compliant fuel tank, lines & others. It likes to eat alunimum. Thats bad.

        As you said the stoich is more rich. Thusly running it on the stock ECU which is programmed to use 14.7 as stoich the o2 censor would go crazy trying to correct it. You would need a programmable or stand alone.

        All gas around here is atleast E10 right now.


        One of many sources.


        I'm not against you, I want to run e85 on one of my festiva's, but cant right now. Also if the EPA finds out you'll have a big hassle on your hands.
        It's a good thing you don't read the stickies, you might of learned something.Poverty produces creativity

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        • #5
          hmmm, if i slapped my emanage onto my green festiva and tuned it properly i could make use of the e85....

          well a partial tank of it.

          my friend up here used it in his civic hatchback racecar last year as race fuel.

          worked like a dream. then again in MN we are the leader in e-85 production and stations i believe... with california 2nd perhaps? so its cheaper and more available here than anywhere else...

          we actually have STRICTLY e-85 stations...
          1992 Festiva... BP-T, Escort G5MR, no crossmember, aspire brakes, Megasquirt, Toyota COP's, coilovers and 6 puck SPEC clutch!

          T3/T4 Turbo Power! G5MR and BP since '04!

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          • #6
            Good Searching :read2: !!!!

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            • #7
              Ugh, E85. It's not nearly as much of a magic bullet as it's proponents would like you to think. I does require replacement of components within your fuel system, as it will rot out existing ones. If you wanted to run E85 in your Festiva, you'd have to find a way to fatten up your fuel mixture by at least 15%, and even at that, you'd still be losing some power. While it does not pollute as much, it does pollute. And finally, if everyone were to switch over to E85, we'd have some serious problems with the food supply. (yes, I know it can be made from scrap wood, but that gets used for other stuff already too)

              Now, the upside. E85 is really great if you run a high compression race car engine. With an engine that's built for racing, you can actually get good power out of it. And, I love the smell of race gas.

              Now what I'm saying might make sense to you, or it may just be my bias seeing as I live in the province that has one of the world's largest oil supplies.

              Jim

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              • #8
                That little sticker on the pump that says this fuel contains 10% ethanol is BOGUS !!
                I guarantee it !!!

                Gasoline back in the late 80's was 25% ethanol back then , what do you think it is now .

                That is why the fuel quality is so bad today.
                ------------------------------------------------
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                • #9
                  Originally posted by packrat427
                  That little sticker on the pump that says this fuel contains 10% ethanol is BOGUS !!
                  I guarantee it !!!

                  Gasoline back in the late 80's was 25% ethanol back then , what do you think it is now .

                  That is why the fuel quality is so bad today.

                  When is the last time you have heard of anyone having fuel related problems. I havent' heard of any for probably 15 years. When fuel injection first became standard (late 80's early 90's) you heard a lot about plugged fuel injectors. It didn't take too long before they figured out they had to put in some additives to keep injectors clean. I haven't heard of anyone having plugged injectors for a long time.

                  I have been burning ethonol blended gas for 20 years and have never had any issues. Not E85 though, just the stuff that Packrat says is not 10%

                  E85 in a vehicle that is not designed for it is not a good idea.

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                  • #10
                    It takes 8/10ths of a gallon of diesel and 6 gallons of potable water to make 1 gallon of ethanol.

                    Ethanol has 80% to 85% of the energy as a gallon of gasoline.

                    E85 vehicles get 80% of the mileage of a gas engine. They get 60% of the mileage of a diesel.




                    To me it seems we'd be better off just using diesel.
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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by gdawgs
                      Originally posted by packrat427
                      That little sticker on the pump that says this fuel contains 10% ethanol is BOGUS !!
                      I guarantee it !!!

                      Gasoline back in the late 80's was 25% ethanol back then , what do you think it is now .

                      That is why the fuel quality is so bad today.

                      When is the last time you have heard of anyone having fuel related problems. I havent' heard of any for probably 15 years. When fuel injection first became standard (late 80's early 90's) you heard a lot about plugged fuel injectors. It didn't take too long before they figured out they had to put in some additives to keep injectors clean. I haven't heard of anyone having plugged injectors for a long time.

                      I have been burning ethonol blended gas for 20 years and have never had any issues. Not E85 though, just the stuff that Packrat says is not 10%

                      E85 in a vehicle that is not designed for it is not a good idea.

                      I never said people was having fuel related problems ,and never said anything about plugged injectors ??

                      I said the fuel quality was POOR , compared to what it used to be .
                      Yes since fuel injection, you do not notice the problems that come with the poorer quality .
                      Return fuel loop , is always keeping the hot fuel out of the rail .
                      Ask anyone on a hot day with a carbed car that runs todays fuel , I know ..I still have one .

                      Most cars on the road today are F.I , so you really do not hear too much .of all that .

                      Like I said in another post , When I worked at a Chevrolet Dealer in the 80's we had major issues with carbed Caprices , Monte's and SS Montes , Kent tool sent us a tool that measured the alcohol content . it was 25% in 1988.

                      Chevy's only remedy at the time , was to add a small blower that was piped up to the carb , that blew air on the carb to cool it down when the car was shut off .
                      The gas would percolate in the carb , after it was shut off due to the low boiling point of the alcohol .
                      ------------------------------------------------
                      The Trigger - Midwest Festiva Inc., Illinois Chapter
                      Smart Passion white with H-D interior
                      HD2500 Duramax Chevy
                      Harley Davidson Ultra classic ..I am in love !!
                      Pro Street S-10 http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2214968
                      Diamond white Deville 27,000 mile cream puff
                      Z28 LS1 power 500 +
                      90 Festy L daily driver wants to be modded, OK
                      It is being modded , a little at a time http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2214953


                      Join me on Facebook !! ;http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?...00000295094896

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