E85 vs THE REST!

[prasac]

i thought i would do a little write up about what we have found about this pump wonder fuel. for the last 18+ months ourselves and alot of friends have changed to this fuel. street to race cars included NA, Blown, Turbo, NOS cars. some changing from full on race fuel others from premium unleaded, the results were unanimous E85 bettered all of them. all the people i have spoke to have had no issues with fuel lines, filters etc. we have heard people saying it's difficult to run a car on NOS with it. the 2 NOS cars i know using it also don't report any issues.

the first car we changed was the brother's 3L 2JZ 80mm turbo powered, Powerglide gearbox Toyota Corolla, the little nugget was pumping out 770rwhp@32psi on C16, ran a 8.4@159mph best. the fuel we were using was just plain bowser pump E85 straight from United Petroleum @ Rozelle. after a few baseline runs on E85 the first power run showed 820rwhp@32psi, torque was also up 70ft/lbs. we weren't expecting such a big power difference considering C16 was a 116-octane. who would have thought a $1/L fuel could outperform a race ruel costing 10 times more. we had to put the timing down a little but the power was still there after putting boost up to 36psi we ended up with 890rwhp. a pick up of 120rwhp with E85 and 4psi we feel it would have made more power than it did but the turbo was out of puff, the turbo was rated 1100-1200hp 2 the motor. we found the car sounded crisper, better throttle response, car boosted quicker and much better smelling fumes. first pass out the car ran a 8.0@174mph. 4/10th and 15mph quicker.

next car we did was the other brother's 4L Twin 62mm Turbo V8 Capri, Powerglide box. we have played around with a variety of different fuels in this car ran 9.0@151 on BP 98 Premium the car made 675rwhp/680ft-lbs torque on 22psi.

for this first time on E85 we went a race mix drum E85 from Platinum Racing Products. once again the E85 lived up to expectation. 4 degrees more timing on the same boost 730rwhp with just the E85 change. on 27psi it made 800rwhp, however, we could tell by the graph that the turbo's were choking as the power was rolling over very early. after an exhaust housing change and adding a CDI for better spark (a very good ignition is needed for cold fuels) we ended up with 910rwhp@30psi full exhaust, with twin cats. picked up over 100ft/lbs of torque. has to date ran a best of 8.20@166. picked up the same benefits as we did with the Corolla. engine note was just that much better.

we had an E85 tune to race on and a BP98 tune for the street. we then decided to completely change the Capri to E85. we weren't going to use race E85 on the street as it was double the price, even though we averaged quite good fuel consumption been averaging around 12-15L/100km.

first pump E85 we chose was the Caltex E-lex as it was more accessible, power showed around 800rwhp, we didn't get to race it on 30psi with the E-flex because the E85 changed consistency. i bought the first drum of E-flex tested it and it was around 85%, then the next time we filled up when going to race we bought was 72%. because it was Winter blend, (they add more gasoline to the mix to make the cars start easier in Winter) the car was running fat as a pig with the E72 in there.

we did however race it on low boost E-Flex VS BP98. on BP98 22psi we ran 9.0@151 on the E-Flex because of the extra torque thru the whole rev range, we could run 9.0@152mph on only 18psi.

had we first tuned the car on the E72 and put E85 in there was a possibly of hurting the engine (will get to that later). for under $30 it's worth buying a tester, here is a link to the one we use http://www.quickfueltechnology.com/s...test-tube.html also get a couple of 20-50ml syringes, makes things easier when you need to add the fuel and water to the test tube. the syringes are only a $1 or $2 from a chemist. also a good purchase would be an air fuel meter, for around $300 you can buy a really good one, they are very simple to setup in your car. we have one installed in the car, its an NTK AFX it has a 5-wire sensor, cost around $320 delivered from the US. here is the meter in work in the car. as u can see they are very responsive and a good idea to have http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mp433TOz5k

so after the E-flex fiasco we decided to go with the United Pretroleum E85 from Rozelle here in sydney. same fuel that we ran in the Corolla. so far that has been brilliant. on 30psi the car makes around the same as it did on the E-Flex just slightly more torque. out at the track the car has run a best of 8.37@164mph. it is extremely consistent in cold and hotter weather. also on the street it drives much cooler about 10-20oC.

both cars use Speedflow 100-series braided rubber fuel lines, Bosch 044 pumps and Speedflow fittings. absolutely no problems or leaks since using it. the fuel even sat in the Corolla for over 3 months before going out with it again. it didn't corrode or eat anything. car went out and ran an 8.1 but we hurt the engine. initially we thought an injector failed, but after further investigation it was a NOS problem that torched the head, so we can't contribute that to the E85.

i know many cars in the US that have ran E85 for years using factory lines and haven't had a problem. after changing to E85 for the first time you should change the fuel filter after 2000-5000km's, as the E85 tends to ''clean'' your fuel line to a certain degree. after the first fuel filter change it will be fine.

the good thing about E85 is it is a very strong fuel and u really have to mess up bad to hurt an engine. we have run the AFR's as fat as low 10's and as lean as 14.0 and the power difference was minimal. we were quite shocked on the 14.0 AFR the car didn't pop, ping, nose over or anything it just ran like normal only 1/10th and 2mph slower than it's perfect tune.

here is a show of the log pretty much the whole run the car ran around 14.0 AFR, we still don't know why it leaned out so much. FR1 is the AFR line.


we have found AFR's around mid 11's to be the best on our cars, same like a little leaner some a little fatter. usually around a 7-8% difference in ethanol content you won't see much of a change. we have run E82 and E90 so if ur worried about consistency don't be too much. as said before ethanol has a very good detonation resistance and with AFR's. driving on the street you won't notice too much of a difference. at WOT an 11.7 AFR may go to 12.5 with the ethanol content difference.

alot of people have wondered can E85 also be used without an intercooler etc, how much boost can be run. yes, it can be done. i am considering tuning my own car on E85 without using an intercooler. cars in the US have been doing it with great success for a couple years. no the cooling effect of ethanol isn't anywhere near as good as methanol but it can still be done. run the car fat enough usually mid 10's AFR and it will cool the intake air temps down enough to run high boost and still make alot of power.

feel free to add your own results, i'm surprised there hasn't been a thread for E85 results done yet.