E85 Conversion and Tuning Thread

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crzycav86
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As katwo40 mentioned, aside from the fuel line compatibility issues, there are also tuning issues. It would probably be essential to use tuning software that at least lets you adjust the fuel and timing maps, but you will probably need to adjust the cold start enrichment as well.

One other thing I was wondering was about the stock narrowband oxygen sensor. The stock one reads stoich as 14.7:1, but ethanol is somewhere around 9:1, so is there a narrowband sensor that can read E85? If you do in fact need a separate "e85 oxygen sensor", when switching between fill-ups from e85 to regular gas, you will not only have to switch between tunes, but you will also have to switch between oxygen sensors.

if the stock sensor will respond correctly to e85, then you can disregard this post.


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WDRacing
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I've been running alcohol or methonal injection since 99, it can't be that much more difficult to tune. I think the SAFC is easy to tune and I have a datalogging wideband and knock meter. I was also thinking about installing a second inline fuel pump and simply running 60psi base fuel pressure. This will increase my duty cycle and allow me to run my 42lb injectors at 15 psi still. For anything over 15 psi I have alcohol injection!!!

WD

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crzycav86
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are you talking about e85 injection? i'm talking about running a 240sx solely on e85.

running on e85 would be difficult to tune because it isn't injected just at WOT or under boost. you have to make it run right under all rpm's and loads, which the safc can't really do. i love safc and i have it on my kat. it's really easy to use, but it is very limited in what it can do.

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WDRacing
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No, I'm talking about running soley on E85. No pump gas at all, my fuel pumps are alcohol safe, so I'm good there. lets say you wanted to run E85 on your stock 240, you'd have to add 20% more fuel to get the exact mapping you would with pump gas. So one can do this by increasing the injector size 20% or by running larger injectors and trimming the fuel. E85 responds under load just like pump gas does. Reguardless, I think it will be pretty damn fun to play with.

By making reference to the meth/alky injection, I was talking about how one has to know the different lamda numbers for any given fuel to be at stoich. I was running a variable spray kit on my Skyline and I'd actually remove pump gas on boost and increase methonal. Tuning that way gets tricky, because you use the lamda readings not the AFR.

WD

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crzycav86
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I see what you mean.

KATwo40
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I might try to play around with this when it becomes available here in Knoxville.

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WDRacing
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I'm thinking about building my own still...free or damn near free fuel will save 1000's every year. Thats more money for go fast parts!!!

S13FX
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I think everyone thats interested in this should ****in meet up somewhere and we should ponder on building something like this heh. Im sure I can scrounge up a block for donation, and maybe even a car.

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Chezedik
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KATwo40 wrote:
Just for the record, that's not too uncommon. Roots blowers don't have the cylinder pressures you find with centrifugal chargers and turbos. The compression happens internally, so the high CR isn't such an issue. Lots of Hondas have been running 10:1 CR and roots blowers (Jackson Racing) for many years.
I think you have that backwards, Roots blowers develop boost when air backs up in the intake, turbos and centrifugals develop it internally when it throws air from the center to the outside.

EDIT: The reason the Hondas can do that is because the Jackson kits use 5 psi-7psi, and Honda heads are all clover leafed for better detonation resistance. This is why Hondas can run such high compression on such low octane fuel.
Modified by Chezedik at 9:26 PM 12/11/2006

KATwo40
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All that I've read says that roots blowers compress the air in the roots (hence the name). Think of it as spitting little compressed cubes of air into the head.

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crzycav86
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Nah... roots blowers are simply air pumps. it flows a constant cfm proportion to its rev speed. pressure just happens to build up when the engine can't handle it all at once.

that's part of why they're so inefficient. it takes a lot more work to move all of the flowing air into the engine individually(roots method) rather than compress it first and move it as a bundle(centrifugal method).

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I stand corrected, after researching again...I was mistaking roots for the Lysholm screw type, which does internally compress.

Ooops!

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WDRacing
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BAck on topic...E85...

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PapaSmurf2k3
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so, if the entire industry were to switch over to E85, what kind of compression ratios would we be looking at? 12:1? I would think that would make up for its higher consumption a little bit, because it is now utilizing its full octane potential. Also, E85 stands for 85% ethanol right? do they make an E95 or anything els?

S13FX
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yeah sure it's called Everclear LOL

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Chezedik
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NO, increasing compression only increases thermal efficiency. So if you have lower power you will always have lower power when compared evenly. I guess you could, however compare a 14:1 motor to a 9.5:1 motor and see better efficiency. I doubt they would be similar though. Nonetheless, if a better source than corn can be found (and made feasible) then it could work. You know that you can make the stuff out of anything organic? Even plastic (while not what we consider conventionally organic, it is made from Hydrocarbons from prehistoric creatures, that's why I went there).

The Canadians are supposed to be developing a process that will make a special kind of mold do the work on brush grass and trash. This will help bring down the cost.

After all, let's not forget that while we all sit here and talk about the stuff, the Gov't is putting lots of your tax dollars where their mouths are. For instance, a gallon of pure ethanol costs about $7.00 to produce (which is one reason they mix it, the other is it's very low Vapor Pressure), so the reason it is so 'cheap' is because we are subsidizing the hell out of it. Most of this is because it is being made from Corn, the rest is because the process is time consuming, and somewhat dangerous.

So why aren't we the ones looking for the better process, instead of the Canadians? Because the people spearheading this debate are good ol' boys - the American Corn Farmer.

Would you rather be a slave to an Arab or a Redneck?

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Ask me again if I want to give my money to an American or a ****ing rag head Chez...cmon.

The reason Ethonal is so far behind is because oil makes people rich. I'm not talking about the rich you and I think of. I'm talking rich enough to effect an entire nations leadership.

Billions upon billions covered in billions is the only reason the oil industry is still the main source of fuel. As much as anyone wants to argue why we're in the middle east, the fact is because of the oil..period dot. You know why we don't assist all the other nations in crisis, like Africa...hello, no oil.

I'm all for E85 and getting the good ole rednecks back in charge of our country. E85 FTW baby....better get on board now fella's.

WD

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Chezedik
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I am happy to see the money come home as well, but I don't think the 'powers that be' are the reason that Ethanol is so behind.

To prove my point, how many of you were talking about Ethanol before gas hit $3.00 per gallon. It is simple economics, Ethanol isn't a good deal until Gasoline becomes a worse deal.

EDIT: Also, I think you know as well as I, WD, that the oil companies are going to be the ones selling us this stuff. So long story short, we will still be supporting the same US-sellout Fat Cats we have been. The difference will be that the decision not to sell out our country will not be 'economically sound'.

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Actually, I'm only looking at it now because I didn't know about it before. I've been into secondary fueling for a long time man. If methonal wasn't so expensive I'd be running on that. I'm all about the high octane fuels man. Cleaner, makes more power...I don't see how this could ever be a bad thing. If the Gov were to force the Motor Vehicle industry into using the best direct injection method available, we'd be saving millions of dollars on any fuel right there. By injecting fuel directly into the combustion chamber, you can run a stoich of 19-20:1 AFR. Mix that with a high octane fuel and we're talking smaller engines with more compression and more power and running cleaner. But why save the Earth...lets just let our Grand Kids deal with it.

E85 FTW...

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Swedish Mike
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To answer the E85 thing, it´s 85% ethanol and 15% gas. We talked about a 95 or 100% ethanol a while ago but a engine tech at Volvo told me that cylinders, injectors and valves need the gas for lubrication.Not on a race car maybe but on a daily driver or taxi car.

They tested this a lot before they launched the first ethanol cars here.

There´s only two bad things with E85 in my opinion, thirsty cars and hard to start at winter.They solved the last thing with heated fuel lines in the Volvo´s.

What´s the normal E85 price in USA? Hard to find gas stations?

S13FX
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Once again here Im not talking here about the economy and what's more expansive and what's cheaper. But I will add something quick, I would rather give my money to the biggest red neck here in the USA then some mother ****in Haj Nuf said. You want know why you can email me and I will explain.

In any case my biggest reason why I want to use E85 is because of performance. We all know that if we can use something in our turbo setup that's burns a lot cooler and at a much higher octane we are drastically improving our performance and yet reducing the chance of killing our engines. There will be An E85 240, and it will kick *** I don't care what anyone's point of view is anymore, once you bring Haj into this it got personal.

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Chezedik
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Heated fuel lines would fix the vapor pressure problem, but do you have to plug it in, or does it run off of battery voltage? What kind of repair costs are you looking at? Is this car a dedicated E85 car, or Flex Fuel?

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Swedish Mike
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Chezedik wrote:Heated fuel lines would fix the vapor pressure problem, but do you have to plug it in, or does it run off of battery voltage? What kind of repair costs are you looking at? Is this car a dedicated E85 car, or Flex Fuel?
The fuel lines are only heated the last meter (3 feet?) and heat up in seconds when you put in the key. Runs on battery voltage and got a sensor, never turns on during summer or hot engine.

Repair costs? The car is a pure E85 car. Many stations here, no problem to find fuel.

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I have a different fix for starting. What I would use is the same thing Saab and Toyota do on their motors that are/were hard to start. I'll plumb a cold start injector, which will cause an over rich condition on startup making it way easier to light off. That combined with some added spark output should be more then enough. You can also have you're timing set to retard on startup with an MSD box, this also assists with hard start motors.

As far as runnign E100 or E85, the part that fails the most often and the quickest is the pump. For obvious reasons...so I have twin MSD pumps that are external and alcohol ready. I use these pumps with my DIY Alcohol injection all the time.

I'd like to focus this thread on what exactly its going to take to switch over a 95 240SX to run completely on E85. I have two stations right here in Tucson. I'm sourcing a new motor right now, I'm rebuilding an exhaust manifold, rebuilding my turbo and welding 4 injector bungs onto my intake manifold.

This is going to happen, I think it will be a great article to have documented for Nico as well as aa place to start for everyone in KAT to start making good power with just a SAFCII, no timing change needed.

Lets keep this on target and keep the posts literate and concise. Link your resources, and provide as much info as possible. I want to have the first E85 converted 240 to come from Nico...stateside anyway.

Swedish Mike, welcome to KAT!!! I love having input from Europe

WD

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Ok, I did some more reearch. Running E85 rquires 30% more fuel flow not 20%. A slightly rich AFR for on boost is 7.5:1 instead of 11.5:1 for pump gas. So initially for a car to run in NA form, assuming I have everything E85 compatible, I'd need a set of 370's to run on a stock ECU without any boost or a max boost of about 4 psi.

More to come...

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Swedish Mike
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WDRacing wrote:I have a different fix for starting. What I would use is the same thing Saab and Toyota do on their motors that are/were hard to start. I'll plumb a cold start injector, which will cause an over rich condition on startup making it way easier to light off. That combined with some added spark output should be more then enough. You can also have you're timing set to retard on startup with an MSD box, this also assists with hard start motors.

As far as runnign E100 or E85, the part that fails the most often and the quickest is the pump. For obvious reasons...so I have twin MSD pumps that are external and alcohol ready. I use these pumps with my DIY Alcohol injection all the time.

I'd like to focus this thread on what exactly its going to take to switch over a 95 240SX to run completely on E85. I have two stations right here in Tucson. I'm sourcing a new motor right now, I'm rebuilding an exhaust manifold, rebuilding my turbo and welding 4 injector bungs onto my intake manifold.

This is going to happen, I think it will be a great article to have documented for Nico as well as aa place to start for everyone in KAT to start making good power with just a SAFCII, no timing change needed.

Lets keep this on target and keep the posts literate and concise. Link your resources, and provide as much info as possible. I want to have the first E85 converted 240 to come from Nico...stateside anyway.

Swedish Mike, welcome to KAT!!! I love having input from Europe

WD
Hi!

I can write a list of things I do when I convert from gas to E85.

* Bigger injectors or adjustable FPR, injectors are the better option.* Remove/replace aluminum parts from the inside of the tank. (Normally nothing)* Change fuel filter before and a few miles after the conversion. E85 will clean your tank and lines.

If you are extra careful and got a newer car, make a custom ECU remap on a dyno and check AFR. 11:1 is optimal and 8 to 9:1 is safe on a turbo car.

On my daily drivers (N/A´s) I only swap injectors and filters, no problems yet.Pretty sure some cars might run into fuel pump problems but not Volvo or Nissan (so far...).

/Mike

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Yeah, I figured I'd run around a 9:1 AFR, but I have a wideband and a good knock meter to assist in tuning. I posted 7.5:1 because its on the safe side. I'd hate to have someone lean out and pop a piston. Better rich then lean on boost.

I'll also be running Marvel Mystery Oil in my gas tank. I used to used this when I ran methonal. It keeps all of your parts from becoming correoded. So the pumps will last and the lines should be good to go.

I'm opting for 8 42lb injectors for fuel supply. I have 4 installed already and I'm in the process of adding an additional 4 to make up for the additional 30% required. That way I have some room to crank up the boost.

My personal goal is over 300WHP with 10 psi or less.

WD

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This is one of the most interesting threads I've read in a long time. Does the ethanol have any effect on Catalytic converters or any other part of the system? Would the car even need a Catalytic converter? Also, would it matter if the car is OBDI or OBDII?

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Still need the cat, although it isn't harmed by running Ethonal and it doesn't matter if its OBDI or II.

E85 FTW baby

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Swedish Mike
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PapaSmurf2k3 wrote:This is one of the most interesting threads I've read in a long time. Does the ethanol have any effect on Catalytic converters or any other part of the system? Would the car even need a Catalytic converter? Also, would it matter if the car is OBDI or OBDII?
Nothing will get damaged, lower EGT and all. No problem with ODB.

I actually took a well tuned Cosworth to smog inspection a few years ago, only an empty cat cover on a 3" exhaust system. Passed with better numbers than stock!


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