Blending E85 with gasoline in non-FFV car?

[Blue99]

Mike - I haven't run across an E85 station in the Milwaukee/Racine area.

What is the brand of the E85 fuel? We have the rather large ethanol plant in Monroe, just west of Madison.

Some good info on E85 Ethanol at this Site.

Per the FAQ's:

What are the differences in an FFV model for E85?

There is only one major additional part that is included on an FFV - the fuel sensor that detects the ethanol/gasoline ratio. A number of other parts on the FFV's fuel delivery system are modified so that they are ethanol compatible. The fuel tank, fuel lines, fuel injectors, computer system, anti-siphon device and dashboard gauges have been modified slightly. Alcohols are corrosive. Therefore, any part that comes in contact with the fuel has been upgraded to be tolerant to alcohol. Normally, these parts include a stainless steel fuel tank and Teflon-lined fuel hoses.

What happens if I accidentally fuel my gasoline-only powered vehicle with E85?

Although your vehicle was not manufactured to run on E85, no problems should occur if you mistakenly fuel once with the alternative fuel. The largest difference between an E85 powered vehicle and a gasoline powered vehicle is that their computer modules are meant to read different amounts of oxygen within the fuel. E85 contains a higher amount of oxygen than gasoline and E85 compatible vehicles are made to read that higher amount. When a higher amount of oxygen is read by a gasoline powered vehicle, your "check engine light" may appear. However, the vehicle will run just as it will with gasoline.

 

[tblazed]

Seems to me money saved would mostly be offset by a reduction in MPG. E85 at 40¢ less per gallon for 10 gallons, half of a 50/50 mix, for a total of 20 gallons, figuring $2.00 a gallon for regular gas, would save you $8, 20% on the cost of the whole tankful. If there's less than a 20% reduction in MPG and power, you are on the "+" side!

 

[Rickey]

I wouldn't reccomend using a fuel with more than 10 percent alcohol in any vehicle not designed for more than that concentration. Experts correct me here if I'm wrong: Alcohol's lubricity is less than gasoline resulting in more wear for the fuel pump,injectors,etc. Alcohol is corrosive and has an affinity for water which compounds it's corrosiveness. More alcohol content WILL result in less fuel mileage, in the neighborhood of 50 percent less for the pure stuff if the engine management system can adapt to it's presence, worse mileage results if the computer can't make the correct adjustments to the fuel curve. If you get a check engine light this would probably indicate alcohol content outside the computer controled fuel system's ability to adjust for. Obviously the blend suggested is less radical than pure alcohol, so the loss of fuel mileage would be less. Bottom line: I wouldn't do this to any of the vehicles I own. Good Luck. Rickey.

 

[tweeker43]

don't do it. there are a lot of differences between flex fuel systems and normal fuel systems.

ffv systems have lots of stainless steel. alcohol is fairly corrosive, and will have higher water content in the winter.

there's no real benefit to running e85 unless you have a ffv.

 

[GT Mike]

Blue99,
The brand of E85 is called "RenewE85" and the station carries the same name. It's located between Omro and Berlin on the intersection of Hwys 21 and 49. This is about 5 miles at the most from where I work, so filling up there would be easy. They're also working with local gas stations in the Oshkosh area to install E85 pumps at existing locations. The plant producing it is Utica Energies which I can see from my backyard.

As far as the stainless steel stuff goes, yes I know about that. But, on my car, most the components in the fuel system such as the lines, etc. are plastic. Only the fuel filter and a couple feet of line connecting one end are metal.

Since I have tons of parts for this car sitting around at the shop, if something does go awry, it wouldn't take any money to fix it...Just a little time which I have plenty of.

I think I'll give it a try at something like a 30% E85 blend and see what happens, especially with the fuel trims and O2 values at various throttle angles, and also pay close attention to my MPG. Heck, even the E85 website said there should be no long term harm in filling up with straight E85 once except for a possible SES light and reduction in performance and mileage.

No matter if it works in the car or not, I'm still going to run it straight in my garden tractor. I can play with the air/fuel mixture to get it set where it needs to be manually, and I know there's nothing in that fuel system that could be damaged by long term exposure to ethanol.

 

[Big Jim]

If you put aside the issues of parts that should be more robust to hold up to alcohol, you still have one huge issue.

Alcohol must run much richer than gasoline. When building racing engines to run on alcohol, much bigger carb jets are needed or the fuel injection system must be altered to compensate.

If you run an engine intended for gasoline on a concentration of alcohol much above 10% you run a severe risk of severe engine damage from running way to lean, especially under load.

I wouldn't do it.

 

[GT Mike]

Could I do it safely? What sort of problems could I anticipate having by running say a 50/50 blend of E85 and regular gasoline?

The car is a '97 Pontiac Grand Prix, 3800 V6 non-supercharged.

The reason I ask is they're building a new E85 station close by, and it'll be 35-40 cents a gallon cheaper than regular, so if I can blend it half and half with no harmful side effects, I'm all for saving a bit of money on fuel.

Some people have said that ethanol is hard on fuel pumps and injectors, O-rings, and the like, but if a 10% ethanol blend is totally safe to use continuously, what difference would a little more make?

 

[T-Keith]

Remember Ethanol has a lower caloric value then gasoline. I noticed a gas mileage difference with 10% ethanol, imagine what 85% would do. Yes there are changes made for an E85 otherwise they would be available across the board.

If the E85 is that much cheaper it is being heavily subsidized, so your paying for it one way or another.

-T

 

[tblazed]

And no one caught my math error! Saving 40¢ on half of a 20 gallon fillup would save you only $4, 10% off the cost of a 20 gal tank. That makes the savings, if any, even less. I'd bet there would be more than 10% loss in MPG.

 

[DJ]

GT Mike, if you do run it in the lawn equipment make sure you drain it before winter, the hydroscopis tendancies of alcohol are often overlooked Rickey already mentioned it but it seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. That is a big reason why it is a bad thing for hotrods, lawn equipment, and recreational stuff like 4-wheelers and boats. It might work fine during the seasons when the stuff is used but after sitting you will be far more likely to have problems.

 

[joatmon]

quote:

---

Originally posted by GT Mike:
Could I do it safely? What sort of problems could I anticipate having by running say a 50/50 blend of E85 and regular gasoline?

The car is a '97 Pontiac Grand Prix, 3800 V6 non-supercharged.

The reason I ask is they're building a new E85 station close by, and it'll be 35-40 cents a gallon cheaper than regular, so if I can blend it half and half with no harmful side effects, I'm all for saving a bit of money on fuel.

Some people have said that ethanol is hard on fuel pumps and injectors, O-rings, and the like, but if a 10% ethanol blend is totally safe to use continuously, what difference would a little more make?

---

Check out this link for the Chev. Suburban I drive:

Suburban Specs

Yep, with E/85, rated 10 city, 13 highway.
With gasoline, rated 14 city, 18 highway.

So, I can buy gasoline at ~ $1.95 and ethanol at ~ $1.60. More miles/$ with gasoline. No contest.

With E/85, $ .16 per mile city, $ .123 per mile highway.
With gasoline, $ .139 per mile city, $ .108 per mile highway.

For those that don't view the link, this a flex fuel vehicle designed for E/85.

Happy Motoring,

Jack

 

[T-Keith]

Excellent post Joatman! You pretty much closed that book.

-T

 

[DJ]

If Ethanol were a good option for renewable energy some might be willing to pay more to run it BUT it is not a good option so hopefully this sort of thing died and the subsidies can be used somewhere more useful.

 

[GT Mike]

Lots of good info which I thank everyone who contributed.

I have one more question before I let this whole alky-fuel thing die...

Remember the Dodge Spirit/Plymouth Acclaim FFV cars from the mid-'90s? They were M85 or gasoline flex fuel cars.

My question is, can E85 be used in place of M85? Will the sensor detect ethanol the same way as methanol?

I have a buddy with one of these cars and before telling him to try it (he's not as brave as me) I figure I'd research it out a little more.

What differences are there between ethanol and methanol as far as things like octane, BTU/unit, etc?

Wonder why the whole methanol fuel thing seemed to fizzle? Is ethanol destined for failure too?

 

[GT Mike]

Well to add to this thread, I did it, and have been doing it for a while now...50% E85 blended with 91 octane E20 from the same supplier.
Ran about 2000 miles worth thru it so far.

The verdict: This blend burns very clean as indicated by the color of the spark plugs and tailpipes. It smells a little funky compared to straight gasoline, but it's a relatively tolerable smell.
Power output is nothing short of incredible...As if I were running race fuel in the car. Absolutely 0° Knock Retard in any driving environment including the awful humid 90+° days we've had here these past couple weeks. Even though ethanol has less energy per unit than gasoline, it tends to burn more completely and efficiently, which is almost certainly why the power output is so good compared to regular 87 octane gasoline with no ethanol.
MPG has taken quite a dive which I expected since the PCM is seeing readings it doesn't quite know how to react to due to the oxygen content in the ethanol. My long term fuel trim (LTFT) is sitting at +16.4% compared to very close to 0 on straight gas or E10, or +5.4% on this supplier's 91 octane E20.
I've lost on average roughly 5 MPG with this blend compared to regular gasoline.

No fuel system component issues to report, and I have been keeping a close watch on things in this area too. I've taken the fuel pressure regulator apart and check the condition of the O-rings, and they appear to be just fine.

I'm thinking an adjustable fuel pressure regulator might help the stock PCM get along better with this mix, as the LTFT won't swing so far positive, and the system can be artificially enriched slightly. This may be the short answer to the missing MPG, but it's still just putting a bandage on the real solution which is a reprogrammed PCM.

If/when some other issues arise, I'll be sure to report back, but till then, I'm enjoying my $1.82/gallon fuel (E85 is $1.559, and E20 is $2.119 for the number crunchers) and proving lots of things wrong and a few right too.

 

[Gary Allan]

I'm uncertain of your control module ..but your LTFT (called long term adaptive cells in my DC PCM) will always try and solve for not too many rich or lean conditions in open loop. In closed loop it does as well ..but uses all the sensors to regulate the pulse width.


Do you know what the ideal A:F ratio is for E85?

 

[unDummy]

Lubricity??? where is it when you compare gasoline with ethanol. I'd seriously consider a upper cylinder lube(2-stroke or MMO) if using E85. Your fuel pump, injectors, valves, rings, cylinders, and pistons are being abused by the low lubricity fuel. Several ounces of oil added to each full tank of gas should prevent wear of the above mentioned components.

I get my ethanol dose by using a top tier gasoline:
1.3.1.2 Base Fuel
http://www.toptiergas.com/deposit_control.html

Scroll to middle for A/F ratios:
http://www.saeindia.org/saeconference/ethanolfuel.html

A simple fuel PSI bump should bring you closer to the A/F ratio needed for E85 since most cars run rich to begin with. Also, since E85 is very high octane, I would consider bumping the timing to take advantage of the E85.

Other info:
http://www.ethanolrfa.org/factfic_enperf.html

 

[Sam3]

unDummy,

The 1.3.1.2 spec, Base Fuel, is a test fuel that when use without the deposit control additive must produce over 500mg of intake valve deposits.

1.3.1.3 Demonstration of Performance. The base fuel from 1.3.1.2 shall contain enough deposit control additive such the IVD is no more than 50 mg averaged over all intake valves. Results for individual valves and an average shall be reported.

I think the reason 10% ethanol is required in the test fuel is some deposit control additives tend to react with ethanol and precipitate out.

 

[GT Mike]

According to that site listed, the ideal A/F ratio for E85 is 10:1. That seems horrifically rich to me, but I could be wrong. Without the car being run on a dyno with a wideband O2 sensor measuring the tailpipe one will never know what the ideal ratio should be in a given application.

I just cannot see this being correct, because if it were, certain FFVs like the newer Taurus would take a monumental dive in MPG running on E85, but as it is, their MPG is pretty close to the same as on gasoline. YMMV, but the Tauruses (Tauri?) and Caravans running around this area claim little to no impact on MPG, and even my buddy's Tahoe noticed less than 1.5-2 MPG reduction but paired with a newly found heavy foot (this stuff makes mad power in the Vortec 5300) this could be the explination in part too.