20k miles on E85 in 97 Grand Marquis

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Local station here sells this stuff for sometimes as much as 80 cents less a gallon. I have a 97 grand Marquis had about 70k miles on it so I put one of those conversion kits on there as an experiment. Really wasn't concerned about long term consequences as the car will likely rust out before the engine is an issue. Car has 91k on it now.

Some observations. The car runs far smoother on E85 with better acceleration and no ping as it sometimes does under regular gas. First oil change was filthy, but now when you approach the oil change the oil is still see through and has nowhere near the volatile smell, it smells for the most part like oil out of the bottle. This substantially cleaned out the engine, a before and after peek under the valve cover was nothing short of amazing. Pulled the intake manifold and all the intake ports look much cleaner.

Downsides, you get more steam out the exhaust, which undoubtedly will be bad for the exhaust long term if you don't get up to operating temp. Fuel economy suffers, in the big car the difference was not much, not enough to offset the savings at the local prices, but could swing things the other way if the price spread is poor.
 
Conversion kit just changes the dwell time on the fuel injectors, keeping them open longer.

Most cars can rub up to 24% Ethanol without a kit.
 
Originally Posted By: TrevorS
They have discovered ethanol creates more ozone.



Please post a link for that...
 
Complete alcohol combustion should yield mostly water vapor and carbon dioxide which is why you get more steam out of the exhaust, especially if the car is in good running condition. If you were doing a lot of extended idling then just shutting the car off I would be leery of using it.

Now if the car is running pretty poorly you'd get stuff like nitrogen oxides this again has a lot to do with how efficient the car was running.

Alcohol burns very cleanly by itself, if you want an example put some 91% rubbing alcohol in a shot glass and light it (I take no responsibility if you are not careful and burn yourself). In actuality is is probably blending it with gas that creates the most problems. Alcohol in and of itself will attract some moisture but by itself evaporates. It leaves no real residue, buy a bottle of Everclear, pour some into a glass and leave it, it evaporates. The residue problems with ethanol blends are likely a result of a chemical reaction between alcohol, water, the gas (and whatever additives it contains) and air. It would be pretty easy to see why the stuff gels up in carbs if you had the exacting chemical formula for their additive packages, no more difficult than balancing a chemical equation and seeing what the biproducts are.

The largest downside I see is how it is produced. If there were an efficient way of producing it without using food corn, maybe using yard waste through muni pile collections, there probably would be more sustainable ways of producing it. As of now, as a blended fuel, it is more a novelty as few stations have it and not all carry it at a good price.

In regards to these increased wear tests of higher ethanol blends, since many are done in existing cars, I believe, like I mentioned in my, test the added Ethanol is freeing up a lot of debris, it floats around the oil and increases wear. If they even up blends to E15 I'd change my oil after a tankful or two, then again shortly after.

As far as solvency vs oil film on cylinder walls, I doubt ethanol is much worse than gas. Take a smooth piece of metal, put some oil on it and give it a wipe with some everclear on a rag or some gasoline, the result isn't much different.

In sum I would be most hesitant to use it with a conversion kit in poorly running cars, if the car was tuned up and running well I would change the oil and fuel filters shortly after, then again after a few tanks. Your gas mileage will suffer, the car might run different (mine runs smoother with more power). The added steam might hurt the exhaust.

If you want to experiment it is one thing but they have a ways to go if they're going to make it an efficiently produced fuel.
 
Originally Posted By: man114
Complete alcohol combustion should yield mostly water vapor and carbon dioxide which is why you get more steam out of the exhaust, especially if the car is in good running condition. If you were doing a lot of extended idling then just shutting the car off I would be leery of using it.

Now if the car is running pretty poorly you'd get stuff like nitrogen oxides this again has a lot to do with how efficient the car was running.


Complete combustion of hydrocarbons should yield water and CO2 as well.

NOx isn't a result of a poorly running engine, it's a result of nitrogen and oxygen (air) reacting at the temperatures and pressure in the combustion chamber...they will form if you attain that temperature with an electric element...

Ethanol can not burn NOx free in an engine.
 
Originally Posted By: Doog
Originally Posted By: TrevorS
They have discovered ethanol creates more ozone.



Please post a link for that...


Google "Ozone Ethanol"
 
Originally Posted By: TrevorS
Originally Posted By: Doog
Originally Posted By: TrevorS
They have discovered ethanol creates more ozone.



Please post a link for that...


Google "Ozone Ethanol"


The professor at Stanford was talking increases of 35 parts per Billion.

Billion! Usually I've seen things in parts per million.

Sounds like B.S. to me.
 
Originally Posted By: turtlevette

The professor at Stanford was talking increases of 35 parts per Billion.

Billion! Usually I've seen things in parts per million.

Sounds like B.S. to me.


The EPA 8 hour limit on ozone is 75 parts per billion. Even one or two ppb is significant for the many cities that are borderline or exceeding this standard today.

Ed
 
Originally Posted By: edhackett
Originally Posted By: turtlevette

The professor at Stanford was talking increases of 35 parts per Billion.

Billion! Usually I've seen things in parts per million.

Sounds like B.S. to me.


The EPA 8 hour limit on ozone is 75 parts per billion. Even one or two ppb is significant for the many cities that are borderline or exceeding this standard today.

Ed


If you look a little deeper and go on the US Department of Energy alternative fuels site, you'll find the relative risk of Acetaldehyde is very low. This is what supposedly creates all the ozone. Burning wood creates a lot more.

The oil lobby keeps throwing out these ethanol combustion products as being more dangerous than that produced by gasoline. It's more old man's tales.

check it out. http://www.afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/emissions_pollutants.html#air
 
Old man's tales? There are plenty of refereed journal articles out there on increased aldehyde, ketone, and butadiene from combustion of alcohol dosed gasoline out there. Educate yourself. Go beyond the Ethanol Board brochure that you picked up at the County Fair.

Read the section on air toxics in the link you posted. Three of the four primary air toxics have direct chemical paths from ethanol. Here's the info on the risk factor 100 1,3 Butadiene. Primary formation in internal combustion is from steam cracking. There are plenty of metal oxides in the combustion chamber from oil additives and wear metals(Fe an Cu are very effective catalysts). Acetaldehyde conversion is also likely taking place.

From Wikipeda:
Quote:
From ethanol[edit]
In other parts of the world, including South America, Eastern Europe, China, and India, butadiene was also produced from ethanol. While not competitive with steam cracking for producing large volumes of butadiene, lower capital costs make production from ethanol a viable option for smaller-capacity plants. Two processes were in use.
In the single-step process developed by Sergei Lebedev, ethanol is converted to butadiene, hydrogen, and water at 400–450 °C over any of a variety of metal oxide catalysts:[6]
2 CH3CH2OH → CH2=CH–CH=CH2 + 2 H2O + H2
Lebedev.svg
This process was the basis for the Soviet Union's synthetic rubber industry during and after World War II, and it remained in limited use in Russia and other parts of eastern Europe until the end of the 1970s. At the same time this type of manufacture was canceled in Brazil. Nowadays there is no industrial production of butadiene from ethanol. Lately Lanxess has announced plans to produce butadiene from ethanol.
In the other, two-step process, developed by the Russian emigree chemist Ivan Ostromislensky, ethanol is oxidized to acetaldehyde, which reacts with additional ethanol over a tantalum-promoted porous silica catalyst at 325–350 °C to yield butadiene:[6]
CH3CH2OH + CH3CHO → CH2=CH–CH=CH2 + 2 H2O
Ostromislensky reaction.png

1,3-Butadiene

Ed
 
Originally Posted By: edhackett

Old man's tales? There are plenty of refereed journal articles out there on increased aldehyde, ketone, and butadiene from combustion of alcohol dosed gasoline out there. Educate yourself.


If the EPA is not worried, why should I be. All of a sudden, you are an environmentalist now.

You guys keep getting more into the outer limits.

Where are you picking your articles from?
 
And you keep not answering questions, nor taking a close look at challenges to your beliefs.

Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Originally Posted By: edhackett
Old man's tales? There are plenty of refereed journal articles out there on increased aldehyde, ketone, and butadiene from combustion of alcohol dosed gasoline out there. Educate yourself.


If the EPA is not worried, why should I be. All of a sudden, you are an environmentalist now.

You guys keep getting more into the outer limits.

Where are you picking your articles from?
 
Originally Posted By: turtlevette

If the EPA is not worried, why should I be. All of a sudden, you are an environmentalist now.

As I told you before, I always have been. It was the focus of my college education. I dedicated a 32 year career to it. Now, in retirement, I am going to volunteer with with PNNL's Marine Science Center.
Originally Posted By: turtlevette

You guys keep getting more into the outer limits.

Yup. As they said in the X files: The truth is out there.
Originally Posted By: turtlevette

Where are you picking your articles from?

Here

With that, I'm going to turn my efforts to something with a far, far greater chance of success than trying to have an intelligent discussion with you. I'm going to teach my goldfish to speak Latin.

Ed
 
Originally Posted By: edhackett
Originally Posted By: turtlevette

If the EPA is not worried, why should I be. All of a sudden, you are an environmentalist now.

As I told you before, I always have been. It was the focus of my college education. I dedicated a 32 year career to it. Now, in retirement, I am going to volunteer with with PNNL's Marine Science Center.


Sorry I forgot, so many of you coming at me at once. You're the guy who dedicated his life to the environment and hates the EPA.

I'm off to watch Whale Wars.
 
I take the position that after 5 billion years of meteor bombardment, plate tectonics, magnetic pole reversals, solar flares, ad nauseum, we and ethanol is barely more than a small irritant to the planet. Food is more in danger of governments and human interaction than parts if it being used for ethanol production. Neither side will be swayed by the other. Those that detest ethanol will find plenty of reasons to demonize it. Those that like it will continue to use it as long as the price makes it worth it.
 
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