| Author | Message | ||
     Scottorious |
so i just decided i wanted to screw around and i filled my tank with e85....I dont know if i should be surprised or not...it ran fine maybe my optimism is telling me it feels more powerful but its at least not any slower than it was...and for a fact i know it runs smoother especially at idle..i'll probly make an e85 specific map and actually test gasoline vs e85 on a dyno, i wanted to get a baseline figure before i dug into it anyway. | ||
| Pkforbes87 |
The manual recommends no ethanol content above 10%. I'm not sure what percentage E85 is, but I'd keep an eye on things. IIRC, the concern with high ethanol content is it's potential to damage seals, gaskets, etc. E85 may give you room to play with more mods though such as higher compression or adding boost. I know next to nothing about such things, but the way a coworker explained it was that the octane rating of E85 is around 110-115, so it can be used in conjunction with higher boost and/or compression without the risk of pinging. He's successfully converted his SRT4 to run on E85. Must know what he's talking about, he's putting 400HP to the rear wheels with a twin turbo'ed 4cyl  (Message edited by pkforbes87 on October 23, 2009) | ||
| Guell |
phil, the srt4 doesnt have power to the rear wheels, and are you sure its twin turbo? Thats not a popular setup on a 4 banger. | ||
| Pkforbes87 |
Front wheels! Woops, its hard for me to remember that an American "hot rod" can be fwd. I'm sure it was twin turboed. Think he used garrett t25's or something? Again - I know zilch about any of that, just going off what we talked about at work while everyone else talked about their latest WoW raid. (I work with a lot of nerds) | ||
| Guell |
Ok, i could see twin t25's those are pretty small turbos, would work well on a 4cyl. I used to be big into the tuner crap. I got out of it after i purchased the buell. Havnt missed it at all haha. I would watch all the rubber in your system, the e85 is supposed to eat it up i believe. It shouldnt be hard to convert the system for it though. | ||
| Scottorious |
yah i think i want to do a full conversion...not for the money savings but because if in fact it does run cooler then im combating an air cooled engines number one enemy. And I know for a fact its running smooter, dont have an explanation on that quite yet other than maybe it cleaned the crap out of my injectors. I also know its not much slower if slower at all. I may replace injectors as i might exceed their duty cycle by pumping all the extra fuel, what does anyone think for a compression ratio. I was thinking 11.5 or 12 to 1 on a 1250 cylinder kit with stage 2 heads, might leave cam stock for now unless someone knows a lot about cams and has some great advice on a cam that isnt going to tear my valvetain up if i dont replace every single part with expensive gear. | ||
| Oldog |
Scott my understanding is that e85 is some what corosive, and WILL damage some fuel system components, the Alcohol will tend to develope more water as part of the combustion process, not to mention draw water from the air and or pick up water in the fuel system. I hope it works ok for you, please keep us posted. | ||
| Guell |
It wouldnt be hard to convert for e85, theres far less parts on a bike than on a fuel system for a car and people convert cars. I had thought about doing it on my m2, but only having one station around that sells e85 i didnt think it would be worth it. | ||
| Scottorious |
what would anyone consider to be the highest compression ratio to run 93 octane. around where i live in central IL theres e85 everywhere, but if i go out of state it becomes harder to find. I could make an E85 and regular fuel map on ecmspy easy enough but i cant just change the compression ratio | ||
| Phelan |
You can hardly even find 93 octane down here. | ||
| Scottorious |
really, 93 is about everywhere in central IL. maybe i should re work my plans...or just carry fuel wherever i go. | ||
| Guell |
you can get 93 everywhere here too, even one of the local stations sold 110 octane leaded gas | ||
| Scottorious |
so it looks like my parts are going to come from nrhs, the axtell cylinder kit. everyone had good luck with that company? | ||
| Phelan |
I know their cylinders have held up to even the most extreme bonneville efforts (200+ HP) by Aaron Wilson. You shouldn't have any issues with the cylinders  . | ||
| Pkforbes87 |
I've got iron sleeved NRHS cylinders (not axtell) on the 2002 X1. A 1250 kit with 10.5:1 pistons. Also got the billet motor mount and pushrod bases. I've had zero problems. Installation was a breeze with the reading materials included from NRHS, even though it was my first time doing in depth top end work. The only problem I have with them is that they're not a sponsor here. | ||
| Texastechx1 |
so i just decided i wanted to screw around and i filled my tank with e85....I dont know if i should be surprised or not...it ran fine maybe my optimism is telling me it feels more powerful but its at least not any slower than it was...and for a fact i know it runs smoother especially at idle..i'll probly make an e85 specific map and actually test gasoline vs e85 on a dyno, i wanted to get a baseline figure before i dug into it anyway. like PK said, you can't run more than 10% mix. E85 is.. 85%! DUH!!! if you wish to run E85 you will need to change EVERY piece of of rubber in your fuel system to handle the extra alky. | ||
| Xl1200r |
E85 is less combustible than regular gas and as such makes less power and results in worse gas mileage. The computer can't adjust itself for this like a car can, meaning if you make an E85 map, it will only run right on E85, which isn't available everywhere. Last I read, E85 costs about a third less and gets about a third less MPG, meaning it saves you zero dollars. I don't see the point. And Texas is right - you'd better replace any rubber fuel hoses you got there. If the injector nozzle is rubber, you'll want to replace that, too. | ||
| Scottorious |
ok you have stated a lot of facts,e85 contains less btus than gasoline. Yes e85 wouldnt save me money. Yes e85 is corrosive. however saying alcohol makes less power isnt exactly accurate, first of all, we have air cooled engines...our number one enemy is friction and heat. alcohol has a cooling effect which can lower engine temperature so we all know when our engine is staying cool its feeling the most powerful, when the engine gets hot our ignition retards the spark a bit and richens the mixture to keep the engine in one piece which means that we arent running our best. so why not keep the engine a little cooler with alcohol? we can then bump up the compression safely because of alcohols higher octane, advance the ignition a bit and set up a fuel map for alcohol and who knows maybe make more power...or at least its an experiment. right e85 is not available everywher, however in central IL and e85 is really easy to find, and if i know im going someplace with less e85 i could always change my map back, given i dont increase my compression ratio too much for pump gas. and no my goal is not to save money, its to have a wicked machine with corrosive exhaust fumes..that alcohol stinks! and alcohol being corrosive, sure alcohol is only at a 10 percent mixture in e10 but theres still alcohol and its still corrosive so over time it should show the same effects but it doesnt. my dad has worked at a gm dealership as a technician for 30 years and hasnt seen alcohol related fuel system problems in cars since they made the switch to e10...yah older cars were prone to fuel system failure when they ran e10 but cars now are designed to handle alcohol if they werent your grocery gettin van would be slowly clogging its fuel filter with the insides of the gas line and the truth is thats just not happening. and even if the fuel system of my buell is not alcohol compatible how hard is that to replace?????? we havent even mentioned the fact that alcohol burns cleaner and reduces buildup on all engine parts, that seems like a plus to me. so all in all there must be something to alcohol. alcohol drag cars? must make some power or they wouldnt use it. Indy racing cars run alcohol partially because its safer than gas but they are making serious power. So i guess i do see the point of trying it out. even if i made the same power but ran smoother and cooler it seems like an advantage to me. | ||
| Scottorious |
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/article _54531e3c-ab0a-5103-bf48-371e685235f3.html | ||
| Scottorious |
http://www.ethanolproducer.com/article.jsp?article _id=4524 | ||
| Texastechx1 |
E85 makes less power and MPG than pure gas or E10. even if you tuned the ECM to advance the ignition and raise compression b/c it is true that E85 is less likely to detonate, you will still not make more power due to it lacking the ability to make power. the only reason guys run E85 in those big boost cars in Houston, etc is because its the ONLY pump gas they can use that won't cause pre-ign (detonate). if they were to use race gas to get the same ability, they would make A LOT more power. I'm not bashing you, this idea is just a pipe dream (just like it was when it was introduced years ago). (Message edited by texastechx1 on October 28, 2009) | ||
| Scottorious |
Referring to Figure 2-2, gasoline has a latent heat of about 140 Btu/lb; methanol, 474 Btu/lb; and ethanol, 361 Btu/lb. In an engine, vaporization of the gasoline fuel/air mixture results in a temperature drop of about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Under similar conditions, the temperature drop for ethyl alcohol will be more than twice that of gasoline, and for methanol the drop will be over three times as great. These temperature drops result in a considerably greater "mass density" of the fuel entering the engine for alcohol as compared to gasoline. The result is a greatly increased efficiency for alcohol fuels. To visualize why, remember that at a given pressure, the amount of space a gas occupies is directly proportional to the temperature. For example, if one pound of a gas fits into a certain container at a given pressure and the temperature is cut in half, the container will now hold two pounds of the gas at the same pressure. In an engine, a stoichiometric mixture of methanol and air would be over three times colder than the same gasoline/air mixture. This means that there is now over three times (by weight) as much methanol in the cylinder. Now, even though methanol has only half the heat value of gasoline, the net gain in "volumetric mass efficiency" is over three times. So, for example, if the gasoline/air mixture in a given engine cylinder produces 100 Btu on each stroke, the same engine would produce 150 Btu per stroke with methanol. This power gain due to increased volumetric mass efficiency is the primary reason for the popularity of methyl alcohol as a racing fuel. With ethanol the effect isn't quite as dramatic, but the greater heat value partially offsets the lower latent heat. Overall, this power increase with alcohol fuels considerably mitigates the liability of low heat value. taken from http://www.journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/et hanol_manual/manual1-2.html | ||
| Texastechx1 |
I've SEEN the tests to use E85 to increase power in different types of engines. each time has been a big ol bag of fail. its ONLY benifits that I've ACTUALLY SEEN (not read online) are its resistance to detonation and price. and the list of flaws can go on and on. don't get me wrong, I like your idea of using something other than gas, it just won't make it any more efficient. you're talking about spending a lot of time and money to get what? maybe a couple hp AT THE CRANK out of these things? slip-on, K&N, tune and be done with it. | ||
| Scottorious |
I am not sure what tests you have seen. I put a full tank e85 in my motorcycle without even a proper e85 tune and it felt the same if not a bit faster, at least not the noticeable bag o fail you talk about. and to say the internet doesnt have worthwhile resources is a bit wrong in my opinion. the youtube link they test both e85 and gas and e85 comes up with a full foot pound of torque more than gas in a small engine, and circletrack.com couldnt get away with sayin alcohol makes more power than gas unless it was true. I think if someone really set their engine up for running alcohol properly it would be awesome, yes the detonation avoidance would be awesome the cleaner burning fuel with less deposits in the engine...and i think as race teams have known alcohol can make power, for goodness sakes the indy racing league is using ethanol and thats no slug race....heres some more links for everyone to check out http://www.circletrack.com/enginetech/ctrp_0702_al cohol_engine_maintenance/index.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev6N9VWTWVI&feature =channel | ||
| Texastechx1 |
and to say the internet doesnt have worthwhile resources is a bit wrong in my opinion. never did. if you had read my post in its proper context you would understand what i was saying. i base my opinion off of expirience and you base yours off of info that you've read. never said nything about the info that you found to be inaccurate. yes, MANY different race classes run some sort of alky. it DOES burn slightly cooler than gas, it DOES burn quite a bit cleaner (less carbon build up in cylinders, etc.), and can handle a SHIT TON more cyl pressure before detonation. BUT... there is NO signifigant difference in power between gas and E85 ALONE. this is why i remarked on you 'internet' research... you are getin your ideas and opinions from reading. I have actually been there for the real life experiments, seen the results and science behind it. helped a friend build a turboed 4-banger in a lil nissan to run on gas or alky. At 10psi the lil thing made almost 400rwhp on 93oct pump gas. with the exact same tune he only made 370rwhp on E85. BUT with E85 he could up the boost ALOT and push out over 455rwhp. we weren't the first to figure this out either... FAR from it. there is a group of guys in the houston and austin areas that run Mitsubishi EVOs at 30+psi on E85 and make great power... but if they were to run a 115 race gas they would make alot more. here is the only reason i'd run E85 in a buell. If i wanted to turbo the beast at 15+psi but still keep the stock 10:1cr without detonation. P.S. please understand that i'm not "bashing" you, just enjoying a nice internet debate of ideas.  |
