Some hard data with dyno testing on E85…
04-27-2008, 01:00 AM
#1
Some hard data with dyno testing on E85… Hopefully this post makes sense, it's really just a big brain dump of todays activities and I am tired right now. 
I decided to get some real world data today on running E85 in my GTO. The GTO is a stock cube stock bottom end 5.7L motor with AFR 205s milled to get to 11.0:1 compression, a mild cam (220/224), fast 90, and full exhaust with no cats. It has nitrous as well but I ran out of time to do testing with that. It has 42lb SVO injectors and a walbro 255 high pressure pump as well so it’s all ready for this.
I started by making a few baseline pulls on 91 octane with a couple of degrees pulled for the nitrous. This is my every day tune and nothing was changed, it was just how it rolls around on the street. Both runs were basically the same back to back, 422 rwhp and 395 rwtq at a 12.5:1 a/f ratio. Let’s get on with E85.
We drained the remaining fuel out and filled it up with a full tank of E85. I could either have changed the fuel injector size or the stoich table, they both basically get the same result but I just changed the stoich table. Went to fire it up and it would barely idle, figured it was just the remaining fuel washing through the lines but it continued to spit and sputter for over a minute or two. I wouldn’t have thought it would have taken that long to circulate through the lines but it didn’t occur to me until later that my GTO’s fuel system is basically stock and therefore isn’t a return style setup. For some reason I was thinking of my Camaro but it just took a long time to get the old fuel out of the lines before fresh E85 made it’s way to the injectors. I didn’t change the configuration of my wideband and just left it reading gasoline a/f ratios and just did the conversion in my head to compare rich/lean/stoich values of the gasoline readings to E85. Simply put, 14.7 on the gauge is stoich for both gasoline and E85, 12.5 is on the slightly rich side for power enrichment with gasoline but on the lean side for making power with E85. I basically had an empty tank with all E85 so there wasn’t much mixing but my stoich value to put the numbers back in line was closer to a 10.1 vs the standard 9.7 of E85. Maybe it was more like E80, who knows but it was close anyways.
So for the next pulls I didn’t add any timing what so ever, I wanted to see what E85 would do to the horsepower numbers by itself with no other changes. I made another 2 pulls and they were both nearly identical, 427 rwhp and 405 torque at 12.5:1 a/f ratio on the gasoline calibrated wideband. It looks like it gained a consistent 5 rwhp and 10 ft/lbs of torque and it was over the entire curve. Alright, this holds good promise for the next step of adding timing.
So I just throw in another 4 deg across the board and make another 2 pulls. 428 rwhp and 405 torque… yea that’s it. Add another 2 deg and gained nothing but a small rattle up top. Put it back to where the baseline runs were before and just threw 2 deg more timing at it, same numbers again. I’ll be damned it didn’t pick up much if anything by throwing more timing at it.
So I can draw a couple of conclusions here from these tests on the dyno. To benefit a lot from E85 from a power standpoint here I really need more cylinder pressure (compression/forced induction/nitrous). Throwing more timing at it just didn’t do anything for me and I am sure it’s just combo limited at this point. E85 did make more power, but I expected to get some more power by throwing more timing at it, not just from putting E85 in the tank. If they ever get a bunch of E85 stations around here I am pulling my heads and milling them to get ~12.0:1 to take more advantage of E85. I wish I had time to run the bottle, I think it would have been more interesting. The other thing is that the a/f tuning window is fairly big with E85. I made another pull at an 11.5:1 a/f ratio and even while being a full point richer the numbers were identical. E85’s tuning window is larger than that of regular gasoline for sure. The moral of the story, running it fat doesn’t hurt the numbers so let it eat.
Next, gas mileage. Cruising down the same stretch of freeway today with the regular gasoline in the tank I averaged 26 mpg at 80 mph at a 16.0 cruising a/f ratio. I run open loop so I just tell it what a/f I want it to run at. After making the adjustments today on the rollers I drove back to the same stretch of freeway at the same speed and a/f ratio (on the gasoline calibrated wideband) and I was reading ~20 mpg. This pretty much fits the general consensus that E85 takes ~30% more fuel than regular gasoline does. I also looked over the logs today and noted that the injector duty cycle went from ~55% at WOT up top on the gasoline dynos vs ~75% on the E85 dynos. This also comes close to matching up with the higher fuel requirements of E85.
The next E85 test will be my buddy’s daily driver/street *****, a Vortech non-intercooled LT1. He posts up as TT632 on here. I think we will see some better results from E85 on that car being that it’s forced induction and non-intercooled. If I get motivation to put the injector driver box on my Camaro and put some 96 lb injectors in I will get some data on it too but that’s a ways off I think.
I decided to get some real world data today on running E85 in my GTO. The GTO is a stock cube stock bottom end 5.7L motor with AFR 205s milled to get to 11.0:1 compression, a mild cam (220/224), fast 90, and full exhaust with no cats. It has nitrous as well but I ran out of time to do testing with that. It has 42lb SVO injectors and a walbro 255 high pressure pump as well so it’s all ready for this.
I started by making a few baseline pulls on 91 octane with a couple of degrees pulled for the nitrous. This is my every day tune and nothing was changed, it was just how it rolls around on the street. Both runs were basically the same back to back, 422 rwhp and 395 rwtq at a 12.5:1 a/f ratio. Let’s get on with E85.
We drained the remaining fuel out and filled it up with a full tank of E85. I could either have changed the fuel injector size or the stoich table, they both basically get the same result but I just changed the stoich table. Went to fire it up and it would barely idle, figured it was just the remaining fuel washing through the lines but it continued to spit and sputter for over a minute or two. I wouldn’t have thought it would have taken that long to circulate through the lines but it didn’t occur to me until later that my GTO’s fuel system is basically stock and therefore isn’t a return style setup. For some reason I was thinking of my Camaro but it just took a long time to get the old fuel out of the lines before fresh E85 made it’s way to the injectors. I didn’t change the configuration of my wideband and just left it reading gasoline a/f ratios and just did the conversion in my head to compare rich/lean/stoich values of the gasoline readings to E85. Simply put, 14.7 on the gauge is stoich for both gasoline and E85, 12.5 is on the slightly rich side for power enrichment with gasoline but on the lean side for making power with E85. I basically had an empty tank with all E85 so there wasn’t much mixing but my stoich value to put the numbers back in line was closer to a 10.1 vs the standard 9.7 of E85. Maybe it was more like E80, who knows but it was close anyways.
So for the next pulls I didn’t add any timing what so ever, I wanted to see what E85 would do to the horsepower numbers by itself with no other changes. I made another 2 pulls and they were both nearly identical, 427 rwhp and 405 torque at 12.5:1 a/f ratio on the gasoline calibrated wideband. It looks like it gained a consistent 5 rwhp and 10 ft/lbs of torque and it was over the entire curve. Alright, this holds good promise for the next step of adding timing.
So I just throw in another 4 deg across the board and make another 2 pulls. 428 rwhp and 405 torque… yea that’s it. Add another 2 deg and gained nothing but a small rattle up top. Put it back to where the baseline runs were before and just threw 2 deg more timing at it, same numbers again. I’ll be damned it didn’t pick up much if anything by throwing more timing at it.
So I can draw a couple of conclusions here from these tests on the dyno. To benefit a lot from E85 from a power standpoint here I really need more cylinder pressure (compression/forced induction/nitrous). Throwing more timing at it just didn’t do anything for me and I am sure it’s just combo limited at this point. E85 did make more power, but I expected to get some more power by throwing more timing at it, not just from putting E85 in the tank. If they ever get a bunch of E85 stations around here I am pulling my heads and milling them to get ~12.0:1 to take more advantage of E85. I wish I had time to run the bottle, I think it would have been more interesting. The other thing is that the a/f tuning window is fairly big with E85. I made another pull at an 11.5:1 a/f ratio and even while being a full point richer the numbers were identical. E85’s tuning window is larger than that of regular gasoline for sure. The moral of the story, running it fat doesn’t hurt the numbers so let it eat.
Next, gas mileage. Cruising down the same stretch of freeway today with the regular gasoline in the tank I averaged 26 mpg at 80 mph at a 16.0 cruising a/f ratio. I run open loop so I just tell it what a/f I want it to run at. After making the adjustments today on the rollers I drove back to the same stretch of freeway at the same speed and a/f ratio (on the gasoline calibrated wideband) and I was reading ~20 mpg. This pretty much fits the general consensus that E85 takes ~30% more fuel than regular gasoline does. I also looked over the logs today and noted that the injector duty cycle went from ~55% at WOT up top on the gasoline dynos vs ~75% on the E85 dynos. This also comes close to matching up with the higher fuel requirements of E85.
The next E85 test will be my buddy’s daily driver/street *****, a Vortech non-intercooled LT1. He posts up as TT632 on here. I think we will see some better results from E85 on that car being that it’s forced induction and non-intercooled. If I get motivation to put the injector driver box on my Camaro and put some 96 lb injectors in I will get some data on it too but that’s a ways off I think.
04-27-2008, 11:55 AM
#4
Yes e85 is kind of a rip off unless they price it more than 30% cheaper than regular gas. Talking NA cars. For FI cars you buy it so you can run race gas type boost levels with good amounts of timing. On FI price of fuel may not be as important as performance.
Our government like to rip us off. So bet they try to price e85 close to the same price as normal gas. And thats if we ever get it up here at all. We have like three stations in the whole country. My new pontiac montana is flex fuel engine. So ready for it .
Our government like to rip us off. So bet they try to price e85 close to the same price as normal gas. And thats if we ever get it up here at all. We have like three stations in the whole country. My new pontiac montana is flex fuel engine. So ready for it .
04-27-2008, 12:27 PM
#5
The next E85 test will be my buddy’s daily driver/street *****, a Vortech non-intercooled LT1. He posts up as TT632 on here. I think we will see some better results from E85 on that car being that it’s forced induction and non-intercooled. If I get motivation to put the injector driver box on my Camaro and put some 96 lb injectors in I will get some data on it too but that’s a ways off I think.
From kbracing96 post-It's down town on 15 Ave, just south of Madison, at a bulk fuel and oil place called Western States Petroleum .
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04-28-2008, 10:06 AM
#8
Also, a couple more observations now that I have driven it around more.
The first thing I noticed is that the car ran a bit smoother. Now I know I just threw in a blanket 4 degress of timing in the two main timing tables so it should be a little bit smoother but it's also smoother at idle where I didn't touch the timing. It also has a definite smell difference for the better, kind of makes me want to drink.
My average mileage with a mix of stop and go rush hour and some freeway was ~18.5 mpg before and now with the same driving style it's getting ~13 mpg. Even though it only made a bit more power it just feels stronger all around, more than I would have expected given the relatively low power gains.
The first thing I noticed is that the car ran a bit smoother. Now I know I just threw in a blanket 4 degress of timing in the two main timing tables so it should be a little bit smoother but it's also smoother at idle where I didn't touch the timing. It also has a definite smell difference for the better, kind of makes me want to drink.
My average mileage with a mix of stop and go rush hour and some freeway was ~18.5 mpg before and now with the same driving style it's getting ~13 mpg. Even though it only made a bit more power it just feels stronger all around, more than I would have expected given the relatively low power gains. 
04-28-2008, 05:16 PM
#16
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Check your sources!
E85 Stations
There are nearly 1200 Gas Stations in the United States where you can fill up on E85 ethanol fuel.
The number of stations offering E85 is expected to double in a little over a year as service stations are being offered incentives from Government and Ethanol Industry grants up to $30,000 to install E85 Fuel pumps.
Pulled from: http://e85vehicles.com/e85-stations.htm
04-28-2008, 05:50 PM
#18
No I meant country. I am in Canada guys! We have only three in canada right now! We are so behind you guys its not funny.They have been selling flexfuel vehicles for a year or more but no stations to get it at. And as said our goverment..meaning Canadian government is likely to try to charge us same as normal gas and say we are helping the environment and should be willing to pay more or some such crap. I really want it to come up here from my turbo cars.