Im at the point where I have to put a fuel system on my car. Im only doing this once so I want to get it right the first time around. I have really been thinking of going with e85 for the cooler temps and the power I have seen people make with it. Right now my car is stock motor making 640/540 with a D1. Im in the process of buying stuff for a motor build as well as about to place my order for my fuel system this week. I don't drive my car every day but do drive it on the weekends with the occasional long trip to the beach (420 miles round trip). The closest e85 station to me is about 40 minutes so I would look at buying it by the barrel and keeping it in my garage. I was also hoping I could run e85 and not have to run meth on top of pump gas.Those of you that are running e85 and driving it like I do, i got a few questions:

Do you regret it in any way?
How many miles do you get per full tank?
How much more power did you make on e85 vs gas?

Any other info that would help let me know. Thanks

 

I've ran e85 for a little over 1,000 miles. I love it so far. I've never calculated the mpg's, but fwiw, I haven't noticed a drastic difference.

 

Thanks for the input. How much do you drive your car and how close is the closest station to you?

 

you can bank on E-85 using 25-30% more fuel VS pump gas depending on your driving habits. It was a cheap alternative to race gas and the station is only 2 miles from my house, so it made sense. However if it were either buy a barrel of E85 or run pump w/ meth.. I would go the pump gas route. You are not spraying Meth the entire time you're driving, so its not that big of a deal to keep up with. M1 is also pretty cheap, and you can still cut it with water too if you wanted. The pumpgas tune in the car (no meth) went 115mph in the 1/8 the E85 tune went 124mph (car weighed 3100 raceweight) . Was able to lean on it a little more with the E85. the difference is a little off because boost went from 18lbs/14* timing to 25lbs/17*timing, i would say a good 150-160rwhp

 

Yeah I heard it used a good bit more fuel. I wish I had a station 2 miles away. It would make this decision alot easier!

 

don't mind my 4x4 status, it was the first time I drove the car and hadnt adjusted anything yet!

 

So far I've only made about 100+whp with some boost and timing over 93oct but ran out of injector. I'd recommend you get hptuners if you don't already have it and then you an flash back and forth from two different tune files. That versatility will help if you are doing road trips. Also, I store fuel as well by the 55gal but live about 8 miles from a pump. I also test it often to make sure it's 85% since I'm in the Midwest where winter blend drops. I only get e85 from the same shell gas station. I'm putting in dual 340 pumps and fic2000 injectors this winter. So yeah if you plan on running it, build the fuel system accordingly.

My supra buddies have proEFI standalone in their cars and they swear by them since they can integrate flex fuel sensors and adjust boost, timing, and afr accordingly. It's pricey but is a solid option if you don't want to worry about being without fuel or fluctuations.

 

Yeah I do have HP tuners. My concern is if I switched to the gas tune and still had some e85 in the tank and vice versa as to how that would affect the tune. Obviously I would get the tank as low as possible before I switched the tune.

 

If you're anything like me you will never find out how much mpg you will get to a tank. Every tank is different because its so hard to stay out of boost. However I can say that just cruising it was about the same as it was on 93.
No regrets at all here . I don't think my stock ls1 Would have survived on pumpgas at the power level I was at if not for e85.

 

Been e85 for years even na. Now 800+ whp and will never go back.

 

What is the "shelf life" on e85 if i was to keep it in my garage? it stays pretty warm in the garage and of course I would keep it in a sealed container.

 

I have run E85 for about 4 years now and I love it. I don't understand everyone's fuel loss. If you set the tune up a little lean for cruise you can do very well. I never get anything less than 20mpg's and I rape my car on a daily basis. No way my car would have ever made it while learning to tune on anything other than E85.

We have E85 everywhere in our area up to 2.5 hours away in any direction so it makes sense. If it wasn't everywhere I would probably do 91 and meth.

 

Have you ever actually verified that with a gps or made sure your odometer is accurate? I have a 3200 pound volvo with a pretty tight converter and I struggle to get 18-20 cruising on the freeway with a 3.08 gear. All that goes right out the window as soon as it sees boost, like I can watch the gauge drop after a couple pulls. Not calling bs but would be very impressed if your pullin down that mileage while beating on it.

 

I went through this same issue with my BMW 335 and now I struggle with the same issue for my Camaro build. There simply are no e85 places close (30-45min drive). I'm not a huge fan of meth though and will spend most of my time on the street, autocross, and road course so i don't think it'll be that big of an issue. Maybe an e85 pump will show up local soon. Fingers crossed!

 

Sounds like my exact situation!

 

So how about the shelf life if I keep some sealed in my garage?

 

I havent noticed anything with shelf life.i had several containers sealed in my garage for months and before i fill the tank i check it withy tester and it still is 85-88%

 

A lot of people say that because E85 demands 30% more fuel that you'll see a 30% reduction in fuel economy. From a straight conversion, yes this observation is probably close.

Tune specifically for cruising with E85. With its higher octane rating, you can lean the mixture out to the point where it is within 10% of gasoline without any side effects. You can also add timing to make more cruising torque, so you have to get less into the throttle to maintain speed. An ideal E85 tune will get within 10% of the fuel economy of gasoline and be a much better fuel for boost.

So if you were getting 24 mpg with gas on a normal cruise while controlling your urge to hammer it, you'll still be able to get over 20 mph with E85.

As far as shelf life, lots of people are able to store E85 in sealed drums in their garage for ~6 months. I've seen articles where it was tested after 6 months of storage and was still testing as 85% ethanol. With this, its safe to assume that the results up to 1 year wouldn't be much different. Still, it wouldn't be a bad idea to toss in a small bottle of fuel treatment with it on fill-up, as its often the gasoline that has issues with long-term storage.

 

Makes sense. Thanks for all the info. Can someone dhoot me a link to the tester for e85 y'all are talking about?

 

i have a 12 gallon cell. We drove it 155 miles to memphis for super chevy. My buddies carried 15 gallons of fuel for us thinking we would get like 12 mpg's. we left at 3am and wasnt sure if gas stations would be open. when we got there we topped it back off and to our surprise it took 7.5 gallons.