With any mods there are do's and don't. Saying E85 is bad for a street car is a bunch of crap from those who read the internet instead of actually building stuff.

 

@@Phoenix'97, with all due respect, yes Iso-butanol is a good fuel alternative, however, the OP didn't ask about that fuel, and it is not readily available at this time like E85 is, so is not, at this time, an option. I would love to discuss that fuel, however that should be done in another thread and this thread should remain on topic. Also, if you don't have personal experience converting to E85 or what is actually involved for the OP to convert, please, don't persuade the OP away from running it based on internet hearsay.

That being said, I have been running E85 in my 95 TransAm for 10 years now, and with many different engine combinations, from daily driver to only occasionally now, and from stock, to cam-only, to my current 12.5:1 385ci LT4. If you want to know what is involved in converting over to E85, I'll tell you what you need to convert. For the fuel lines, most vehicles after around 1990 have fuel systems that can handle ethanol, ours included. So for the fuel lines they are fine. However, the fuel pump does need upgraded, along with the injectors. I have ran Ford Cobra 39# injectors, when I was just bolt-ons, then I upgraded to 63# Siemens injectors when I went to cam/mild heads, and now with my forged 385. I've been running the 63# Siemens injectors for about 6 years now, and just sent them off last year to have them cleaned/flow-tested, and they all tested within 1-4% of new before cleaning, and all tested as new afterwards. The fuel pressure regulator, I have had one go out, it does use a rubber diaphragm, but 1 in 10 years on E85 isn't bad, so I may recommend an aftermarket here just for the non-rubber diaphragm if you wanted to be cautious, even though it still lasted a long time with the stock one. Fuel pump wise, I have gone through 2 fuel pumps over the 10 years, a Walbro 255 and a knock-off. The Walbro did last about 6 years, the knock off, about 2 before getting weak, (I highly recommend the trap door mod, btw), I recently upgraded this year to a higher flow E85 pump recently with hotwire kit, so this one should last much longer. For oil changes, I change around 2500 miles and use Rotella T6.
You will have to tune for the higher flow rate and AFR obviously. If using the LT1 computer, the way to do it is to "trick" it to supply more fuel by commanding a smaller injector size than you are currently running. I highly recommend investing in a wideband so that you can adjust the injector level accordingly as well as your PE tables. One way to start is to divide your injector size by 1.3 (30%) and use that number to start. Then doing some highway cruising, try to adjust the injector rate until your BLM's are as close to 128 as you can get, and your AFR with a wideband should be showing 14.7 if calibrated for gasoline, 9.8 if calibrated for E85. Around .8 lambda is what you want at WOT for your AFR.
If you swap to an LS computer setup, find a compatible one from a truck that Flex-fuel tables enabled, and you can run the Ethanol sensor and not have to worry about this step. This is what I am changing to next year. The nice thing about E85 being an oxygenated fuel, is it has a wider sweet spot for best WOT AFR. Also, E85 runs very consistent at the track. As far as the engine goes, the more compression you can run the better, as E85 is very resistant to detonation, and has been tested up in the 15's NA, setup dependent of course. Running NA you won't gain too much from it, maybe 2-3% unless you increase your compression, as that is where some of the gain of the fuel comes from, the ability to run more compression and timing than you can with gasoline, although the cooler intake, burn, and exhaust temps help as well. At 11:1 compression you aren't too much over stock compression, so you will gain some but you are leaving power on the table staying so low, even running premium gasoline with our reverse cooled LT's you can go higher than that. Bump that compression up around 12+ and you will gain even more from the fuel switch.

Now everything does have a down side, so here are the downsides to running E85. Less fuel mileage is the obvious one, since E85 burns at 9.8 stoich instead of 14.7 stoich it requires more fuel. However it does run much cheaper than premium, so it usually ends up being cheaper to run. Another downside to this is reduced range though. On our small gas tanks, the 30% or so reduction in mileage means your tank runs out that much more often, which can get annoying having to fill up so often, and having to plan any long distance drives around E85 stations. Another is the injector tip/valve gumming issue. E85 has a tendency to create this tar-like gumming on the tip of the injectors and sometimes on the valves as a result of contact with the carbon mist in the intake from oil. So while E85 will keep your fuel system very clean, this is a not often discussed issue that you may encounter. Brake clean or injector cleaner doesn't easily dissolve it, however, gasoline does very easily dissolve it. So if you occasionally pull your injectors and clean the tips with gasoline (very easy to do), or swap back to your gas tune once every few fill ups, you can help avoid this issue as well. That is all I can think of to get you started at the moment, if you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask or shoot me a PM.

 

Not when premium can run just fine with that CR without the risk of detonation, hell no it's not worth it.

 

That would be dependent on cam timing, ignition advance, quench, etc. Is 10-15whp worth it? To some it is. Some only gain that with an exhaust swap.

 

If you have no further plans for the engine, then I agree, as you will gain some consistency at the track and you will still gain some rwhp with E85, maybe 10-15 rwhp and 15-20 rwtq would be my guess. The gain won't be as large as it would be with a higher compression build. Just curious, is there a reason that you went so low on the compression with your stroker build? Even just running 93 octane gasoline you could have very safely gone 11.5 on the compression, and even 12:1 depending on your dynamic compression and tune. However, if you have plans to upgrade the engine down the road, or just want to swap over, then I say go for it.

 

I was not dissuading the original poster, I was merely giving my opinion and warning about the need to make rather pricey modifications to the car. However, I must thank you for this very informative comment that should answer all of the original poster's questions on what needs to be done to safely use E85 for his car, it certainly is what I expected it to be...

 

On an 11.1 motor? No it wouldn't.
I did 11.1 on mine because I wanted it to be something I could run in stop/go traffic in 100+* heat with the A/C on.

 

so you can put 40 degrees of timing to it on 93 octane?

 

It wouldn’t be worth it is what i’m saying.

 

To YOU it may not be,to others getting 10 or 15whp is worth it.

 

Jesus I've never read so much misinformation in one post lol. E85 is fine for street cars daily driven or otherwise. It's not detrimental to rubber/aluminum like Methanol, I run it in my truck and run regular rubber/braided fuel line and Bosch 044 fuel pumps. I also run a 19gal aluminum fuel cell and have yet to see any signs of water in it or corrosion of any kind, Eventually it will weaken the fuel line but so does gasoline. The only thing I do is top it with regular 93 octane before being parked for the winter. It's still at around E40, It sits for 2-3 months and fires up like normal when the weather warms up. It's nothing like methanol in regards to it's corrosiveness, I've ran a few barrels of that too.

 

Pro's and cons of E85.
Pro
Runs cooler
Runs cleaner
Better performance if compression allows.
if running catless it smells better

Con
Uses more fuel (in my case 37% more fuel when I can find true E85)
Not always available depending on where you live if at all
Not always E85 so it needs to be tested or run a flex fuel system.
Can be hard on certain fuel pumps

 

Thank you....

 

Right. I like to keep **** simple. If there is a claimed "10 to 15rwhp" for the time, effort and money one must spend then **** all if it's worth it. I'd rather run teh spary.

 

Im gonna be throwing in a thinner head gasket anyways and bump the CR up a little as well. So E85 wouldnt be bad idea... all i really need right now is a re tune..

 

Don't worry Dick, I only have a 9.5scr and mid 20s WOT timing

 

You have plenty of advice from the guys who run this fuel. My only concern is that the second-gen LT1 is only designed for E10 gasoline which hardly has the corrosiveness that E85 has. From what I have read, although the corrosive effects are not immediate on the certain metals of an internal combustion engine designed for gasoline use only, none-the-less corrosion is going to happen beyond 15% Ethanol concentration. For racing engines, this may not be an issue if down the road you blow the engine and need to have it rebuilt but for daily driving and engine life, this could have it's problems. Flex-fuel engines naturally will be built with materials that won't deteriorate from higher concentrations of Ethanol in the fuel but older nineties era engines, I would be cautious!

Aside from this, I wish you well in your pursuit of this.

 

 

^Imagine that.