I always ran it in my truck or up to E30 pre blended. I could get to around E30 before I would see a noticeable drop in fuel economy in my 5.0 F150. I have not ran it in the GTI, but I have always put at least 91 octane in the car and after today with the tune, I wouldn't be able to run less than 91 safely anyway.
What's the deal with Unleaded 88?
- Thread starter jayjr1105
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Do you have Casey's around you ? On their pumps for their 88 octane (15% ethanol), they have a sticker that says basically "if your car was built after 2001, you can use this...." with the usual fine-print and disclaimers, etc, etc, of course.
Sheetz has the same stickers.
Yeah, since there is no fuel grade between E50 and E85, it technically only needs to be E51 to be sold as E85. Locally, E85 usually tests out around E70-E75
Depends on the state and their regulations. In Ohio, gasoline can contain up to 10% ethanol and the pump/station doesn't even have to state this, if I'm not mistaken. If it's not the law, it's absolutely the standard. You have to search out ethanol-free gasoline here (we grow a lot of corn here!).
No doubt this will change to 15% in the near future as the folks in Columbus are, ummm, "encouraged" to make this change.
The "Flex fuel" vehicles have wideband O2 sensors and a sensor for Ethanol %, this is how the ECU knows what the target a/f ratio is.
Regular vehicles narrow band O2 sensors can not correct the a/f beyond the E10(ish) threshold.
They have been selling the U88 at Caseys for about a year here. It works just great. The typical fuel maps and engine control can increase fuel by 20% or so over stoic. It would only be at peak load where the issue is.
I watch my fuel injector duty cycle at peak load, it maxes out at about 82% the most I've seen on the 2L turbo. 80% is the generally accepted safe limit for FI delivery capacity. I had to go from 335cc/min to 550cc/min FIs though with just a tune change to stay close to 80%.
I do not use it in the tuned turbo though.
I guess that depends on how old your ECU is as the whether it would throw CELs for Bank 1 and/or Bank 2 too rich? I really don't know as it isn't a fuel grade around here.
On this subject for reasons unknown e15 varies from 10%~15% ethanol and it’s actually rare it’s on the upper edge.
I’ve found the only time I experience measurable fuel economy loss on e15 is during winter months.
I’ve also found it outperforms normal 89 octane fuel on knock counts.
Considering it can be up to 50 cents a gallon cheaper than even RUG (at one specific local station) I tend to run it almost exclusively in place of premium fuel in my one car that specs e15 or premium in the manual.
My other cars I run it when there is a good price spread, sadly recently it’s sometimes MORE per gallon than RUG, was almost tempted to send a letter to the station considering how ideotic that is.
Oh yeah they all have that label. But it’s contrary to the Mazda owner’s manual. I do use E15 in the Tiguan since the price differential is quite a bit.
I thought E85 was required to be at least E70 which is typically winter blend. I will say I did put E85 in my truck in winter and it almost didn't start after sitting out in -20F. I'm glad I had a good battery, because I could have seen how that would've run out trying to fire. It was a lot of cranking. I didn't run it anymore during the winter after that.
This is not true. Every vehicle is different and you can definitely tune older vehicles with narrow band O2 sensors to run E85 without issue.
For example, my 18 Sierra is now flex fuel as I added the ethanol sensor and made the necessary changes in the PCM to allow use of E85. Required a few tables to be changed and a few options checked to allow use. It has only narrow band O2 sensors.
Hermann
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The Maverick Hybrid runs just fine on E15 88 octane. The tanks I have burned returned just ever so slightly better MPG (0.18) than E10 87 octane. There has not been any available my last two trips to Casey's south
Depends on the area. Around here, it can be anywhere from 51% to 83% per law. They usually drop the ethanol content down in winter to allow better cold starting. Last winter when I ran a few tanks of just E85, I tested it and got around 70% each time on the tester.
https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/ethanol_e85.html
According to DOE website, it can be between E51 and E83 to be sold as E85
I wasn't sure. I appreciate the info.
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