Originally Posted by Shownomercy

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

Originally Posted by kgkern01

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

I think this is a bad idea and it will destroy your engine!

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

I would be worried to use E85 which is why Iso-Butanol draws me in but I don't want to hijack this post.

Originally Posted by BTC

You don't want to dissuade the OP, but

Originally Posted by kgkern01

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

I am just giving the original poster my honest thoughts, my honest two cents! So, if you have a comment in favor of E85 you are warmly received whereas if you have a comment to the contrary everyone must gang up on you? Is that how discussions and debates are to be held on this forum? The original poster has been given my tale of caution about using E85 on an engine that was not designed to run on it. This is not internet hearsay, either, not from chemists and engineers! If the original poster still wishes to use E85 in his LT1 engine, he needs to have it built like a flex-fuel engine with the same fuel system and components that won't suffer from Ethanol corrosion as would a gasoline dedicated engine from the 90s that was designed in the 1980s.

He has my blessing to use E85, but for the sake of his engine, it's needs more than just a program tune.

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

I can't ignore the chemical properties of Ethanol and the fact that it is clearly stated to have corrosive properties which is why conventional engines can not use more than 15% Ethanol blended fuels! If you start to put this information together followed by all the hear-say on the internet, you can figure out why using E85 in a conventional gasoline engine might be a bad idea!
.

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

I am just giving the original poster my honest thoughts, my honest two cents! So, if you have a comment in favor of E85 you are warmly received whereas if you have a comment to the contrary everyone must gang up on you? Is that how discussions and debates are to be held on this forum? The original poster has been given my tale of caution about using E85 on an engine that was not designed to run on it. This is not internet hearsay, either, not from chemists and engineers! If the original poster still wishes to use E85 in his LT1 engine, he needs to have it built like a flex-fuel engine with the same fuel system and components that won't suffer from Ethanol corrosion as would a gasoline dedicated engine from the 90s that was designed in the 1980s.

He has my blessing to use E85, but for the sake of his engine, it's needs more than just a program tune.

Originally Posted by Shownomercy

Everyone is ganging up on you cause you speak of something you know nothing of except from what you have correlated from book reading.

Real life knowledge always trumps the black and white of book info.

Originally Posted by kgkern01

Originally Posted by Shownomercy

Everyone is ganging up on you cause you speak of something you know nothing of except from what you have correlated from book reading.

Real life knowledge always trumps the black and white of book info.

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

So, does the original poster have these modifications already? Thank you for helping to verify what I am trying to say the original poster needs, an E85 conversion kit for the second-gen LT1 engine.



One of your own just admitted that the LT1 engine NEEDS MODIFICATIONS to safely run E85 whilst you others claim the LT1 needs no modifications! Real life knowledge? More like disinformation that could screw up a fellow member's engine! I hear those bells ringing now!

Originally Posted by LLLosingit

Changing injectors is not modifying the engine it's modifying the fuel system as I and others have pointed out numerous times. You just continue to make yourself look foolish. The OP already has aftermarket pump and injectors as he stated in his first post, He also asked if it was worth switching to E85. He did not ask if he could run E85 on the stock fuel system lol

Originally Posted by kgkern01

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.

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

I don't care about how I look to anyone on this site. As long as the original poster is set-up for E85 use, that is all that matters. Foolish commenting or not, his engine and fuel system need modification, even if it means changing injectors and tuning the PCM for E85.

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

I think this is a bad idea and it will destroy your engine! you need your fuel system and engine components fortified against the corrosive property of ethanol.

Originally Posted by LLLosingit

Remember your first post?


Ok so what needs changing on the engine itself? Not counting the injectors...they are part of the fuel system, No counting the tune because that's not part of the engine either.
Nothing on the engine needs to be modified to run E85, Only the fuel system and that's more because of fuel volume requirements than anything and the tune because of the changing fuel needs of the engine. So what actual engine mods are needed?

PS Ethanol is not that corrosive, Methanol will eat away at aluminum unless it's hard anodized where Ethanol does not. You can have E85 in an aluminum fuel cell for years and see no corrosion damage yet methanol will start etching it within a few weeks.
How many cars do you have running E85 ? I'm still betting you have none and never had a single one.