My biggest hang up though is fuel system cost for E-type fuels, imo to run a dual fuel setup effectively some sort of aftermarket ECU with a flex fuel sensor seems ideal.
I just recently upgraded my fuel system to a -08 feed and twin 450's to reach my 1000whp goal w/ C16, I'd rather not redo it for E-type fuels if C16 will get me where I want to go.
The only time I'd really use C16 is for hero drag/dyno sessions which will be rare given that stock block LS motors (LS1 in this case) seem to encounter the most block/crank issues above the 1,000 crank hp mark.
Pump gas and 15-16 lbs. (might be able to do more) should make around 800whp which should be enough to get me into the bottom 9's maybe 8's IF I can put it down effectively.

 

There're only two E stations in my area, one on a military base which I can't get on and the other is 1.5 hours away so this would be a drum deal regardless of fuel type.
I guess the next question would be the cost difference between C16 and the Ignite Red Capizzi favors?

 

I don't know the price of C16, but this was what I was told about last year's price for Ignite:

$450 for a 55 gallon drum. That included $35 shipping . The more barrels we get the less per barrel shipping is.

 

We raced the same blower car at 30PSI with F1X on Q16 and E100 and currently run it at 35PSI on E100. The Q16 was great but got super expensive ($1,000 plus a drum) and got harder for us to get. Q16 also makes the plugs look different than most people are used to. We ran the same A2W intercooler with both fuels and run cooler on E100. The E100 is not as picky on AFR as the Q16.
We have another blower car we run on C16 and it likes to be a lot leaner than our E100 and Q16 cars.
Anything we race heavily if it runs E we only race it from E from a drum. Its just always consistent and we know what we have. If its just a street car then we do flex fuel setup and use pump E.

 

if you are in southern WA state, forged fuels is like $225 a drum for e85 ($50 drum fee first time)

i stopped buying pump e85 (sequential is the only place that pumps it here in OR) when it started testing as e65 and/or coming out pink like someone mixed it with offroad diesel

 

Pump 93 and meth or just pump 93? I didn't know one could stretch out pump 93 without meth on an 800 rwhp setup, I've never tried it but just curious.

 

We've been doing flex fuel on OEM computers for more than 15 years now and it works well, while the older 0411s and P59s have more limited tables vs the Gen4/Gen5 computers it can still be done without too much of an issue. The biggest issue is that most of our GM OEM computers don't have separate crank fuel tables for gas/ethanol or any sort of modifier for it and while you can dummy it up with open loop gas/alcohol fueling (since those do exist) it's a workaround and not the best. Aftermarket computers like the Motec and Haltech definitely work the best here with flex fuel as there are true modifiers and separate blend tables for all of that stuff but again the OEM stuff has worked well for a long time with only minor quirks.

Also twin 450s will get you close to 1000 rwhp on E85 but it might be at the limit depending on your combo. You can always back it down to like E60 and get 95% of the benefit of full E85 and not stress the fuel system as much.

 

I'm more in the middle in Tacoma, the farthest distance from all sources lol.

 

Just pump 93, I ran 14 lbs. on my last turbo six speed car with only pump and it was easily over 700whp.
I currently run an oversized A2W setup that keeps my IATs really low, and I have a fairly good-sized turbo so I feel confident I can get there.
There's a guy on this forum same car as mine with a 370, S491 and A2A running as much as 18 lbs. on pump going well into the 8's so he's gotta be upwards of 800whp+.

 

I need to figure out what PCM my 1999 Camaro has in it, I thought I had looked into it, and someone had said I would need a newer one as mine won't support a flex fuel setup but that was a while ago and the source not super reliable.
My fuel system would require substantial upgrades to run an E-type fuel for sure and I'm still hesitant to run it as quite a few local guys have been using it and have had a lot of issues with it.
I know there are plenty who have no issues and leave it in their tanks for weeks on end, but these guys are long time racers, and they know the deal and they still have fuel system issues among other things.
Really quick, my buddy gave me an unopened pail of Q16 when I bought the car which is now 4-5 years old so it's probably no good but would Q16 be better than C16 or is there a difference?

 

Surely @AwesomeAuto has some input.

 

Here's the guy running 8's on pump gas.
370 billet 85mm 8.87@150 on Pumpgas Upgrading to 25.3 going for 7s - LS1TECH - Camaro and Firebird Forum Discussion

 

I'm glad you touched on the stock ecu topic as that's all I use, but never with E40+ fuel.

If you're mixing your own pump gas/ethanol blends, aiming for your ethanol content sensor to read in the range of 40-50% E.......could you simply have a dedicated ethanol tune with optimal cranking/startup/in-gear/hi-low octane spark values that would cover that range without issue?

I realize the high octane table would be extremely important in fine tuning for the specific E% you have as well as the VE table to factor in the new oxygenation and alcohol related fuel requirements. However, would the other idle and part throttle spark settings, maybe even part throttle and idle/startup fueling, be fine if on a 40% E mix one day and 50% another?

I'm not sure if you trust the p59 ecus to do their thing with ethanol content % data, so I'm asking as if the ecu doesn't know what E% you have.
*I've also heard about not letting the ecu update the ethanol content other than once per startup, to keep fueling from jumping around...I know nothing on this so please comment on that if possible.

 

Sure you can, I did this on my Viper before I went Motec and the C7 ZR1 didn't have flex capabilities either when I started running ethanol in it so I hard coded it for E50.

I would not rely on a single tune to have that much variance between 40% and 50% ethanol, not from a fueling aspect but timing wise. Going from 40% ethanol to 50% ethanol is only a few percent change in global fueling but the timing implications can be larger at that ethanol level. Once you are past E60 timing will mean less so to speak.

I converted my 2000 Camaro over to a P59 PCM way back in the day so I could run 3 bar with flex fuel and it worked great. You can still use the 0411 PCM with flex but I believe you are limited to a 2 bar OS unless you scale, but the P59 has better table support anyways.

That is not possible nor advisable. For example in non-return fuel systems if you have the flex sensor up front and you just filled up you wouldn't want it to lock onto whatever it sees on startup as it will take several minutes for the new mix to get up to the front of the vehicle and hit the flex fuel sensor. This is also why there are delay functions in the computer to tell it how long to wait to adjust fueling once the sensor sees a change. Once the fuel is mixed which is basically right after you fill up it isn't going to be jumping around unless the sensor is no longer saturated and gets uncovered with air pockets like if it's in a return line and you go WOT and start using up all of the fuel in that line. Most good aftermarket computers have a latch function that can be setup to prevent that from affecting the tune but you can also just put it in between the fuel rails and regulator so that flow to the injectors isn't affected or use a fancy bypass setup on the feed so that it doesn't choke down the flow.

 

Ok thank you for all the info NicD

 

Darn I forgot 1 more question NicD!

If going from a nicely dialed in 93-only tune as far as idle and part throttle spark goes, and then transitioning to an E blend with 50% alcohol, should I take 3 to 4 degrees out of the "93-only" tune's spark tables as a ballpark?

For WOT I'll dial in spark on the dyno to see where it gains and stops gaining, but the idle/part throttle on E is more mysterious for me.

I use lambda error% in the Hpt scanner for fuel tuning so I guess that will all be fine as normal. Not sure if I should actually change the "stoich" value in Hpt or leave it though.

Thanks

 

I run ethanol without a flex fuel sensor. It's a little extra effort to test e85 content and mix in the appropriate amount of 93. I run 50% ethanol because of fuel pump limitations. I run a magnafuel 4303 with 1200 cc at 43 psi injectors. I get most of the benefits of ethanol at only 50%. Later I added a small amount of methanol injection on at 4 psi as well.

 

I may do the same.The ethanol tanks would be during special occasions, I wouldn't mind catering the tune for that day/event.

In my area we basically have to order-in any kind of E85, so it's not like I will be able to drive up to a gas station. I hear the content at the stations can vary quite a bit anyways, so what I'm getting at is I'll do my own blending for a confirmed mix of 50% E like you mentioned. So in a way I won't need a content sensor connected to the ecu but just one for my mixing needs (maybe an actual alcohol tester, not sure what's better).

 

I don't bother removing any timing at idle/part throttle areas when using ethanol vs pump gas. It's so damn close and you won't notice a difference either way even though technically ethanol burns a tiny bit faster than pump gas so many OEMs will pull a couple of degrees or so at light part throttle, but again it's nothing I would even worry about.

WOT it will obviously take more timing than pump gas would since pump gas is **** and it will detonate well before MBT with a setup like this.

Definitely change the stoich value to match your fuel, think of it as just a global fuel multiplier that doesn't affect airflow, load, etc.

 

This to me seems like a ton of extra time and money to use a fuel that seems only slightly better than a fuel like C16 that will also get you where you want to go.
The E-type fuels may cost less but factor in the added required components, time for travel to get the drums, the hassle of moving the drums, mixing/testing the fuel and for how little you may be running that car at that level seems C16 would be a break even and require only an additional tune.