E85 help
11-16-2014, 06:54 PM
#2
I have only messed with blending it years back when I had a boosted platform but also studied up on it in hopes someday it would come to Maine but its still 2 states away..
As far as what is needed to run it , its all based on the fact that stoich afr for gasoline is 14.7(14.1 for e10) and for e85 stoich is 9.7 provided its actually 85% ethanol which you can determine with a flex fuel sensor or the diy cheap way in a test tube ( do a search it easy to find the procedure)
so you can see the stoich afr is approx. 33% richer so you will need to be able to reliably supply at least 33% more fuel so if you already had a fuel pump upgrade and larger injectors you may need nothing but typically fuel pumps and injectors are the major hard parts needed , then you would need the tuning capability to set up your tune to adjust for the fuel and the larger injectors , if you don't already have a real tuner (hpt/efi live) you will need one or know a professional tuner familiar with tuning your platform to run en e85 as well as a wideband o2 sensor to verify that your hitting your lambda targets (easier to tune alternate fuels using lambda than afr)
You may hear opinions about needing to upgrade rubber components , fuel lines etc due to ethanol eating rubber or corroding metals but most of this has been proven incorrect and is related to known issues with other more corrosive alcohol based fuels like methanol. E85 does have a reduced shelf life compared to gasoline and will attract water over time so if you know the car is going to sit for a while swapping back to gas for storage is a good idea.
Alcohol is a very good solvent so initially it will be cleaning a lot of varnish left from gasoline which leaves a residue on everything it touched in your fuel system so a good filter and frequent changes during this initial period after changeover would be a good idea , flex fuel Tahoe filter is a commonly used one since its designed for e85 use.
A couple good places to research how e85 works , its strengths ,weaknesses , ways to gain the most power from it from timing to how rich to run it etc... would be on the grand national forum in the e85 section http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/for...cal-forum.143/ , I spent some time on the e85/e98 forum on one of the mustang forums too lots of supercharged Shelby/roushes swapped to e85 http://www.modularfords.com/forums/2...lternate-Fuels , pretty much any platform with forced induction will have a forum section specific to e85 or alternate fuels why this one still does not is a mystery....especially read the stickys on those e85 sections to gain knowledge quickly.
Good luck with your swap !
As far as what is needed to run it , its all based on the fact that stoich afr for gasoline is 14.7(14.1 for e10) and for e85 stoich is 9.7 provided its actually 85% ethanol which you can determine with a flex fuel sensor or the diy cheap way in a test tube ( do a search it easy to find the procedure)
so you can see the stoich afr is approx. 33% richer so you will need to be able to reliably supply at least 33% more fuel so if you already had a fuel pump upgrade and larger injectors you may need nothing but typically fuel pumps and injectors are the major hard parts needed , then you would need the tuning capability to set up your tune to adjust for the fuel and the larger injectors , if you don't already have a real tuner (hpt/efi live) you will need one or know a professional tuner familiar with tuning your platform to run en e85 as well as a wideband o2 sensor to verify that your hitting your lambda targets (easier to tune alternate fuels using lambda than afr)
You may hear opinions about needing to upgrade rubber components , fuel lines etc due to ethanol eating rubber or corroding metals but most of this has been proven incorrect and is related to known issues with other more corrosive alcohol based fuels like methanol. E85 does have a reduced shelf life compared to gasoline and will attract water over time so if you know the car is going to sit for a while swapping back to gas for storage is a good idea.
Alcohol is a very good solvent so initially it will be cleaning a lot of varnish left from gasoline which leaves a residue on everything it touched in your fuel system so a good filter and frequent changes during this initial period after changeover would be a good idea , flex fuel Tahoe filter is a commonly used one since its designed for e85 use.
A couple good places to research how e85 works , its strengths ,weaknesses , ways to gain the most power from it from timing to how rich to run it etc... would be on the grand national forum in the e85 section http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/for...cal-forum.143/ , I spent some time on the e85/e98 forum on one of the mustang forums too lots of supercharged Shelby/roushes swapped to e85 http://www.modularfords.com/forums/2...lternate-Fuels , pretty much any platform with forced induction will have a forum section specific to e85 or alternate fuels why this one still does not is a mystery....especially read the stickys on those e85 sections to gain knowledge quickly.
Good luck with your swap !
Last edited by murphinator; 11-16-2014 at 07:12 PM.
11-17-2014, 01:01 PM
#4
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Very helpful stuff. Need to supply 33% more volume most high quality products are now compatible. Feel free to give me a call I can help you spec parts and system for your setup.
11-17-2014, 11:33 PM
#6
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Here we go again and in my case an E85 user my son is the tuner he too uses E85 in his own car, in our case we do our own wrenching and what I know is what I will say in contrast to saying what is believed by anyone else or so and so may think.
E85 uses about 15% more fuel compared to gasoline.
My favorite E85 fuel hose is Earl super lite blue dot braded hose cause of ease of use and don't stink true the hose so you don't smell fuel around your car.
Is my favorite common pump racing fuel.
What you were doing with 60 lbs. hr. injector now you may want 72 lbs. hr. if your duty cycle was at 80% running gas with your 60 pounders.
If you where running a Walbro 260 now you may want a 360 pump.
It doesn't hurt to try doing the change over with what you have unless you still running the original fuel pump. In must cases running a 260 Walbro will do unless you are running a lot of power, it will be good to 500 whp N-A.
Bottom line....
Usually you just change fuel pump, injectors and pour in E85 and go tune it.
Spec 20 whp and 12 wtq or about a length and a half in stock car.
Let us know your outcome.
E85 uses about 15% more fuel compared to gasoline.
My favorite E85 fuel hose is Earl super lite blue dot braded hose cause of ease of use and don't stink true the hose so you don't smell fuel around your car.
Is my favorite common pump racing fuel.
What you were doing with 60 lbs. hr. injector now you may want 72 lbs. hr. if your duty cycle was at 80% running gas with your 60 pounders.
If you where running a Walbro 260 now you may want a 360 pump.
It doesn't hurt to try doing the change over with what you have unless you still running the original fuel pump. In must cases running a 260 Walbro will do unless you are running a lot of power, it will be good to 500 whp N-A.
Bottom line....
Usually you just change fuel pump, injectors and pour in E85 and go tune it.
Spec 20 whp and 12 wtq or about a length and a half in stock car.
Let us know your outcome.
11-18-2014, 01:39 AM
#7
Staging Lane
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Here we go again and in my case an E85 user my son is the tuner he too uses E85 in his own car, in our case we do our own wrenching and what I know is what I will say in contrast to saying what is believed by anyone else or so and so may think.
E85 uses about 15% more fuel compared to gasoline.
My favorite E85 fuel hose is Earl super lite blue dot braded hose cause of ease of use and don't stink true the hose so you don't smell fuel around your car.
Is my favorite common pump racing fuel.
What you were doing with 60 lbs. hr. injector now you may want 72 lbs. hr. if your duty cycle was at 80% running gas with your 60 pounders.
If you where running a Walbro 260 now you may want a 360 pump.
It doesn't hurt to try doing the change over with what you have unless you still running the original fuel pump. In must cases running a 260 Walbro will do unless you are running a lot of power, it will be good to 500 whp N-A.
Bottom line....
Usually you just change fuel pump, injectors and pour in E85 and go tune it.
Spec 20 whp and 12 wtq or about a length and a half in stock car.
Let us know your outcome.
E85 uses about 15% more fuel compared to gasoline.
My favorite E85 fuel hose is Earl super lite blue dot braded hose cause of ease of use and don't stink true the hose so you don't smell fuel around your car.
Is my favorite common pump racing fuel.
What you were doing with 60 lbs. hr. injector now you may want 72 lbs. hr. if your duty cycle was at 80% running gas with your 60 pounders.
If you where running a Walbro 260 now you may want a 360 pump.
It doesn't hurt to try doing the change over with what you have unless you still running the original fuel pump. In must cases running a 260 Walbro will do unless you are running a lot of power, it will be good to 500 whp N-A.
Bottom line....
Usually you just change fuel pump, injectors and pour in E85 and go tune it.
Spec 20 whp and 12 wtq or about a length and a half in stock car.
Let us know your outcome.
Should one Wablro 430 be fine for 76mm turbo and a TU1 cam? What size injectors would you think I would need?
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11-18-2014, 07:44 PM
#8
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i did the same 80mm on a stock headed 6.0 on 10psi 640 hp 620 tq with a TU1, 2 walbros, 96's and plenty of room left to grow with a 3rd walbro in the tank 
11-18-2014, 09:03 PM
#9
Be careful about cylinder pressures. People often think (as I did) that since e85 has such a high octane, you can run stupid amounts of pressure. I learned the hard way that it doesn't really work out that way.
The ethanol content is good; High octane, runs cool and clean. Good stuff. But the gasoline part isn't so good. Most blenders use the cheapest worst gasoline they can find to mix in there for the 15%. That can get under the first ring lands and cause detonation. Then you get something that looks like this:
Of course, you can always use race fuel E85, which uses a high quality race fuel instead.
The ethanol content is good; High octane, runs cool and clean. Good stuff. But the gasoline part isn't so good. Most blenders use the cheapest worst gasoline they can find to mix in there for the 15%. That can get under the first ring lands and cause detonation. Then you get something that looks like this:
Of course, you can always use race fuel E85, which uses a high quality race fuel instead.
11-19-2014, 12:50 AM
#10
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Be careful about cylinder pressures. People often think (as I did) that since e85 has such a high octane, you can run stupid amounts of pressure. I learned the hard way that it doesn't really work out that way.
The ethanol content is good; High octane, runs cool and clean. Good stuff. But the gasoline part isn't so good. Most blenders use the cheapest worst gasoline they can find to mix in there for the 15%. That can get under the first ring lands and cause detonation. Then you get something that looks like this:
e fuel E85,
Of course, you can always use rac which uses a high quality race fuel instead.
The ethanol content is good; High octane, runs cool and clean. Good stuff. But the gasoline part isn't so good. Most blenders use the cheapest worst gasoline they can find to mix in there for the 15%. That can get under the first ring lands and cause detonation. Then you get something that looks like this:
e fuel E85,
Of course, you can always use rac which uses a high quality race fuel instead.
Hope it didn't f up the block too bad..... 
11-19-2014, 07:36 AM
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Be careful about cylinder pressures. People often think (as I did) that since e85 has such a high octane, you can run stupid amounts of pressure. I learned the hard way that it doesn't really work out that way.
The ethanol content is good; High octane, runs cool and clean. Good stuff. But the gasoline part isn't so good. Most blenders use the cheapest worst gasoline they can find to mix in there for the 15%. That can get under the first ring lands and cause detonation. Then you get something that looks like this:
Of course, you can always use race fuel E85, which uses a high quality race fuel instead.
The ethanol content is good; High octane, runs cool and clean. Good stuff. But the gasoline part isn't so good. Most blenders use the cheapest worst gasoline they can find to mix in there for the 15%. That can get under the first ring lands and cause detonation. Then you get something that looks like this:
Of course, you can always use race fuel E85, which uses a high quality race fuel instead.
Op I would run an In tank walbro 260 =quiet and effective for general driving and just add an on demand Walbro 360 to come in at 4PSI triggered by a pressure switch connected to vacuum.
That's your power pump I like them outside inline just have a -12 bung welded to you factory tank use a -12 short hose to an inline shutoff valve then a short -10 hose to pump, use pump outlet size hose to an inline one way valve and continue to pressure regulator to be join there to your in tank pump line from where you continue to fuel rails.
Use a return -6 line from pressure regulator return port to tank, connected to far end of tank away from in tank pump.
I like return line on top of tank splashing the side tank wall to use that as cooling means for return hot fuel.
Guy and girls my posts not to contradict others or how other people do their thing, I'm simply saying how "I" would do it.