Turbomustangs.com
along with Steve Cole Enterprises Inc (username: Karl Hungus) has completed
some preliminary testing with the environmentally friendly, cheaper than 91
Octane, E85 fuel blend.
First off what is E85? E85, is a motor fuel blend of 85 percent ethanol and
15 percent gasoline to be used in flex-fuel vehicles. Ethanol is alcohol used
in transportation fuels. It is a high-octane, liquid fuel, produced by the fermentation
of plant sugars. In the United States, ethanol is typically produced from corn
and other grain products, although in the future it may be economically produced
from other biomass resources.
Benefits:
It has a motor octane rating of 104-108, it is also quite cold to the touch.
It is currently about 1.99 per gallon, while 91 Octane is approximately 3.30
a gallon. E85 is cleaner burning, emitting a lot less greenhouse gasses. It
is also a renewable resource. To top it off it is made 100% within the confines
of the USA.
Cons:
It takes more of this fuel to create the same energy as regular gasoline. Therefore
your car will use more fuel and you will see a decrease of approximately 10-15%
in fuel economy. To make big horsepower you will need more fuel pump and more
injector. Many people state that the fuel is corrosive and it could have adverse
effects on aluminum fuel rails, injector o-rings and fuel lines. But so far
in 9 months of testing we have seen no such side effects.
What do I need?
Opinions on this vary greatly. Speaking about high performance
lower mileage cars you probably don't need to change anything. You definitely
need a way to add a lot of fuel to your tune. We know that the Walbro
255lph in line pumps work with this fuel. Any Ford fuel injector seems
to work fine. And so far steel braided hose works fine, we have no data
on the aeroquip blue fuel hose. Generally speaking it would be nice to
have teflon coated fuel lines and a fuel tank with a teflon liner, these are
the types of mods that the factory does to newer flex fuel vehicles. It
should also be noted that the ethanol will do a super cleansing job on your
fuel tank and fuel lines and you should change your fuel filter probably within
a week of using this fuel to avoid clogging other parts. Your lines and
tank will have a lot of varnish on them from years of using regular gasoline,
the ethanol removes all that varnish.
Test
Car
1995 Mustang GT street car, 331 cubic inch, custom twin turbo system with twin
T70 p-trims w/ .58 AR, T56 tranny, solid roller: 242/236, .600 lift, AEM Engine
Management System.
Fuel System: 3, 255lph Walbro in line fuel pumps, 160# injectors. We were
tuning with an AEM wideband system using a standard gasoline AFR. We weren't
using lamda or other multipliers, just gasoline AFR.
No alky, no nitrous, no ice on the intake, etc.
For more
info on the car go here.
The first thing we did was add 40% fuel to the fuel map under
WOT. We also added about 20% fuel in part throttle areas. We were tuning using
a regular gasoline wideband air fuel ratio of 14:1 at part throttle. On the
dyno the car made the best and cleanest power at 12:1.
At 6 psi of boost and 35 degrees total timing the car made 575rwhp
from 6000rpm until 7500rpm. The power never fell off. We tried less timing but
the car didn’t respond well and the power curve was sloppier. At 13psi and about
29 degrees of timing we made 872rwhp. At 20psi and ~24 degrees of timing we
made 989rwhp.
At 30 psi and 20 degrees of timing we ended up with 1066rwhp. The fuel injectors
were at 75% duty cycle at this power level. Whereas with gasoline they were
at about 55%. The fuel pressure was also slightly falling off at the top. The
lack of a large power increase from 20-30psi is due to the tiny exhaust housings
on this street car.
In total we made 16 dyno
pulls and we never heard any detonation, but we did hit fuel cut a few times
during testing. The next day the spark plugs were pulled and there may have
been slight detonation in 2 of the cylinders because the porcelain was speckled.
However the car still runs fine. This is definitely a very impressive fuel.
I also want to point out how impressed I am with this solid roller setup. Sure
it is slightly noisier than my tiny hydro cam. But you can’t argue with that
sick power curve. At all boost levels the car makes peak power at 6000rpm and
holds it solid until 7500rpm, I am sure it would pull up to 8000rpm no problem.
Steve has also tried a larger hydraulic cam to get the same results but it just
didn’t work. The cam was a comp extreme energy hyd roller: 248 @ .050 on int
and exh, 114 lsa. The car also had larger 74mm turbos at the time but the power
would peak at 6500rpm and drop like a rock, even with expensive valve springs.
With the new small solid roller cam the car even lugs along at 1500rpm no problem
and idles fine at 900rpm.
Click
here for a video of the car on the dyno.
Click on this graph for
a larger version.

To learn more about E85
and to check for stations in your area please go here:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/e85toolkit/e85_fuel.html
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