The question is, why would you want to. It's only cost effective when used as race fuel - it offers no other advantage except making a handfull of people rich and allowing the auto makers to circumvent the CAFE standards and produce gas guzzling SUVs.

I learned recently that many people in Mexico can not afford corn tortillas any more because of this ethanol scam. Think of how many food products are made from corn - all of these are doubling in price. It's horrible.

Well first off, E85 would be a lot nicer for people to use that only run between 7 to 14 psi, and don't really want to worry about TIMING, which seems to be a big issue among a lot of KA-t'ers,

Second of all I do agree with you that you don't save a penny using E85 over normal pump gas, but it is still a nice option to have..

Third of all who cares what the freaking price of a tortilla is in Mexico.

This is a car forum and we are in America (although I fully understand that there is people in other countries visiting the forum which is a GREAT thing BUT) we have much bigger problems to worry about here in America then the fact of how much someone has to pay for their food in other countries.

On that note if you want to get your self some inexpensive race fuel I say go straight for E85. It is not hard at all now days to have two differ maps ready to go, in case you can't put something other then E85 in your car.

Hey bro...I've defended you when it's come to bringing up various options that have gone against conventional thinking, don't be a hipocrit.

Honestly, I could give a crap about every other country on the entire planet. I'm an American...period dot. Am I prejudice...you bet your a$$ I am, I hate stupid. I think all stupid people should jump into a huge woodchipper and I'll throw the switch myself...hell you can send me the electric bill.

Give me a friggin break, DO NOT talk about BS like that in MY forum when we're talking about the cheapest race fuel to be offered in this country at the moment...thats just simple fact.

Truth is Treason in the Kingdom of Lies - Ron Paul

Man, did you read what I wrote? I said E85 is a good low cost race fuel. The other stuff speaks to the environmental / practical benefit of using E85 as an alternative fuel source. 99.9% of people who would consider using it would use it for these reasons, not for racing.

But even if you are a rotten SOB and don't care about causing mass starvation, an E85 only tune is still a dumb idea for a street driven car because there is a 100% chance you will strand yourself somewhere where it can't be found. Anyone who says different, I say "famous last words" and please post your story so I can have a good laugh. And if you get back to your car with a gas can and find all your sh1t stolen I'm going to laugh even harder.

Then I'm going to mail out your Darwin award.

E85 is a win win.

Quote »

map switching is easy, the moates.net 2timer module makes it a

So there you have it.

First of all, there are other things to eat besides corn, so let the mexicans do what they want. Second of all, saying one day you will get stranded from lack of E85 is like saying one day you will get stranded if you don't have a cell phone. People got along fine for thousands of years without them, they still can today. A little planning goes a long way.

Besides, I would think that the way foreign relations are, you have a bigger chance of getting stranded if you own a gasoline ONLY vehicle. What happens when OPEC cuts us off cos we pissed them off? The E85 guys laugh. I give that a better chance then "getting stranded because you couldn't find E85". Most people don't drive their cars cross country every week, they stay around home, where they know they can get E85.

Anyone els with me here?

Anyway, it says that MIT designed a motor specifically for ethanol capabilites. Using direct ethanol injection, which was kept in a separate tank from the fuel, they overcame the "knock limit" or something, which is basically what has been preventing gasoline engines from developing in leaps and bounds. Using their direct injection method, they somehow acheived the equivalent of around 130 octane. They strapped on a turbo, boosted the **** out of it, and acheived power levels of a much much bigger motor. So they cut the size of the motor in half, and continued using the previous equation. What they got was a motor that was 20-30% more efficient than a modern day (so, brand new technology) gasoline engine with the same power output. Best of all, it would only add about $1000 to the price of a new vehicle, opposed to the $3000-$5000 of a hybrid. It also reduces the weight of the vehicle because the motor is essentially half the size.

It also had a bunch of other stuff about ethanol in different articles too. I'll see if I can snap some pics of it (I copied it at work and took it home with me muaahaha).

Ethanol is simply alcohol with a little gasoline in it.

If you were to take your KA and add one ethanol injector to each runner, you'd be able to 12:1 compression pistons AND boost. Or just a ton of boost.

Knock and detonation are THE only thing keeping any motor from making huge numbers, aside from internal fatigue that is. So raise the octane and you effectively enable the increase in boost and or compression.

WD

Another article spoke about the whole "is ethanol really better than petroleum" debate. The conclusion was, that they are about the same if you don't take into effect the byproducts of the production process. Aparantly when ethanol is produced from corn cernals, it creates a byproduct of incredibly high protein cattle feed type stuff, so if you sell that, ehtanol does in fact come out ahead of the game (considering for that ammount of cattle feed, they didn't produce the same ammount of normal cattle feed). Really interesting article. I didn't read the whole thing so I could have something to read on the plane ride home on Friday.

Crank the static compression and run direct injected Ethanol and you'll have a very efficient, yet very sporty, commuter car.

As for it not starting below 60°F, that's not true either. It's been averaging in the mid to upper teens here recently and even been down in the single digits. The car is admittedly rough to start, but by no means impossible. I've never had to turn it over more than twice.

I'm very happy with E85 and have no intention of going back to petroleum.

Quote, originally posted by themadscientist »

Ask for directions to soapland, bring about Y50000 and don't take your mom.

Kroger is really the only company that sells E85 in TX, but they still aren't close enough to home!!

A guy on this forum or another made a quick write up on using E85 if there are no stations near by.

He simply bought 55 gallon drums(I think 3) from a plastics recycling place for like 5 bucks each! Then every 3 months or so, rent a small trailer from UHAUL and tow it back home(about a 2 hour drive). Then he bought an inexpensive hand pump to use. Sounds like a little trouble, but I think it's well worth the hassle rather than using race gas...

I also think I can add some more timing back in. I tuned it the day I switched over and the way I tune ignition timing is to add advance until I sense knock or I quit making power. I started knocking, so I pulled out 2° and let it go. When I got out on the road it still knocked ever so slightly, so I just pulled the boost back. Well today I turned it back up and even with higher ambient temps it didn't knock. I think the ethanol has cleaned up my dirty combustion chambers and I'm not getting the hot spots I used to.

Quote, originally posted by GTR PrYdE »

Sounds great. Do you know if your E85 stations are using "winter blend"? It's supposedly E70 for easier starting. Kroger is really the only company that sells E85 in TX, but they still aren't close enough to home!! A guy on this forum or another made a quick write up on using E85 if there are no stations near by. He simply bought 55 gallon drums(I think 3) from a plastics recycling place for like 5 bucks each! Then every 3 months or so, rent a small trailer from UHAUL and tow it back home(about a 2 hour drive). Then he bought an inexpensive hand pump to use. Sounds like a little trouble, but I think it's well worth the hassle rather than using race gas...

Yes, they're using the winter blend, so we'll see if I need to change things in the spring, but I doubt it.

I've got plans to build a still that will consistently produce 198 proof alcohol. I also have a compound available through my work that will allow me to get it to full 200 proof. That will let me mix it with gasoline at that point if I so desire.

Either way you're making good power. What injector size are you running?

Second:
When tuning with a gas calibrated wideband what afr would you tune for. I heard 9:1 at idle and 7:1 under boost but i have also hear 12:1 idle and 9:1 under boost. I want to figure out the equvilant to 14.7:1 gas for E85 and what 11:1 in gas would be for E85. This way i can write a tune to be on the safe side. A little bit on the rich side under boost.

Third:
Around what hp level or boost level would i have to start to retard timing with e-85. I read it is good up to about 7-10psi.

Thanks

When you're talking about tuning the timing, do you mean total timing and then retard with the MAF or MAP? Can the SDS retard .5 degree's per psi or is always a full degree?

Did you use the handy little fuel mixture knob thing? We had to because when we started to tune his car, he was running 100lb injectors and had no idea how much fuel to add for a base map. The enrichment knob totally helped with startup.

I know this is a tad off topic, but not many people use the SDS for some reason. What size injectors are you running?

WD

Under boost 7:1 is about right, but once again, you should be tuning on the dyno, and tune for whatever makes the best power. If you start tuning a car based on what it's SUPPOSED to be at, you'll be disappointed. The beauty of the E-85 is it's octane will let you run leaner AFR's w/o det. If the car makes better power and doesn't det. at what is supposed to lean, who cares?

Quote, originally posted by nelson8708 »

Third: Around what hp level or boost level would i have to start to retard timing with e-85. I read it is good up to about 7-10psi.

I start with 1° retard per 1lb of boost. If I don't get any det. then I start to add timing back in until it does, then I pull out 2°. IMHO, timing is the hardest part of an engine to tune and is also the most important. You'll just have to play with it and see what makes power. Remember though that more advance isn't always better. If you add timing and it doesn't make power, then go back to the previous timing advance. Anything more just starts to wear the internals.

Quote, originally posted by WDRacing »

How do you like the SDS? I helped a friend tune his on a 3 Rotor over in JDM Land. But it was tuned with a EGT and narrow band. No knock sensor, no real AFRs. It was pretty user friendly though, I have the LM1 which is compatible with the SDS so you can see the AFR's for every rpm etc.

I LOVE it. I'm tuning a haltech for a local shop right now and I hate it. It's awesome if you have a gazillion different things that you want to control, but IMHO, it's overkill for most street cars.

Quote, originally posted by WDRacing »

When you're talking about tuning the timing, do you mean total timing and then retard with the MAF or MAP? Can the SDS retard .5 degree's per psi or is always a full degree?

The SDS has 3 settings that effect timing. Base timing as set per each RPM point, MAP timing that either adds or subtracts timing from the RPM point's timing, and then knock timing which subtracts timing under knock (obviously). For tuning purposes the knock timing is irrelivent as it's a safety measure, so that just leaves RPM and MAP. I have about 10° from 500-1000 RPM. Then it increase to about 32° at 2750-3000 RPM (I don't remember which off the top of my head) From there the MAP either adds timing in the vac ranges to help fuel economy, or retards timing in the boost ranges to prevent det.

Timing can only be adjusted in 1° increments.

Quote, originally posted by WDRacing »

Did you use the handy little fuel mixture knob thing? We had to because when we started to tune his car, he was running 100lb injectors and had no idea how much fuel to add for a base map. The enrichment knob totally helped with startup.

That knob is awesome. It helps with startup and tuning. It makes it very easy to make fuel changes and see the effect on the dyno and then tune accordingly. Yet another reason the SDS is so easy to tune.

Quote, originally posted by WDRacing »

What size injectors are you running? WD

NISMO 555cc CA18DET specific injectors.

ok for idle i just tune it to so it can hold a steady idle but what about cruising speed like interstate driving? Since straight ethanol is 9:1 should stoich for E85 be around 10:1?

If you run a lean afr but dont detonate dont you need to worry about the egt's? Possibly melt a piston or something of that matter or does ethanol burn cooler?

Laymen terms, Lambda stays constant even when the AFR changes.

Here are the 3 most common ones, bare in mind this is tuning for power.

AFR at the motor / Lambda
Gas = 12.8 / Lambda = 0.87
E85 = 7.9 / Lambda = 0.80
Meth = 5.7 / Lambda = 0.88

Also remember that peak EGT occurs at stoichiometry. Click HERE to read more.

Both have very similar qualities, but E85 seems safer(no meth failure possibility).

Which makes more power?

They seem to cost about the same to set up.
$400 for meth + tuning, $200-350 for bigger injectors + tuning.