E-85 or E-85/gas blend
 

Has anyone tried using E-85 or a blend with regular gas? I used to do this with my Ranger and used a blend of 25% gas/ 75% E-85. Did this for about 3 years with no problems.E-85 sells for 2.80 a gallon, much cheaper than gas at 3.62 a gallon. Any thoughts, coment, advice, etc....

RE: E-85 or E-85/gas blend
 

I've used a 50/50 blend over the past year when I can get it. Ranfine in the 3.5, although the check engine light would come on (it's was running a little lean, but I didn't get any knocking). It should pose no issues with this mix. Besides, the 3.5 and 3.7 are pieces of doo doo. See my LS2 solution.

For a better solution I'm going to put a fuel composition sensor in the fuel line and run a Megasquirt that's set up for Flexfuel. It would be controlling the fuel or fuel/spark only. It's not necessarily because it's a supposedly "greener" fuel...I know it's debatable. I have an 11 to 1 compression and my motor likes high octane fuel.

My H3 is bright yellow and I'm fabricating a jerry can to mount just to the left of the spare tire (I will bolt it to the tire mount). What's really cool is that I will powdercoat the jerry can bright yellow. I will run a fuel line from the can to the fuel tank. The jerry can will be for E85. My fuel line will have a fuel pump and filter in line so I can just push a button when I want to mix in some E85.

RE: E-85 or E-85/gas blend
 

i have to ask... WHY? why would you want to cut a fuel with 105 octain with a fuel with 87-94 octain?

RE: E-85 or E-85/gas blend
 

Well since E85 is 85% ethanal/alcahol it is a drier fuel. Unless your fuel system and electronics are set up to run E85, it will make your comp freakout with on a number of sensors such as O2, air/fuel mixture, EGT, knock sensor and I'm sure others. So if you mix it correctly you can still save a few bucks on gas, cut your emissions and set off any alarms.

RE: E-85 or E-85/gas blend
 

Well in this case I cut it because I don't have a flexfuel vehicle yet, so I mix. Once my fuel composition sensors and fuel management computer is in, it will be happy times.

RE: E-85 or E-85/gas blend
 

Im the case of a carbed mill the only things you need to do are change the rubber lines out and replace the needle and seat to one that is Viton to run an alcahol bassed fuel....my experiance is on our racecar (non computer controlled) how ever i would think that alcahol would not effect the o2 sencer (it messures the exaust mixture) or the map sencer (air) but the cat i can see ... the computer i would think would need a program change

RE: E-85 or E-85/gas blend
 

Absolutely, a computer reprogram would be needed. E85 needs a 9:1 stoich. ratio, as opposed to a 14.7:1 ratio with gas.

RE: E-85 or E-85/gas blend
 

I havedl'ed my Alpha's ECM tune into EFILive on my laptop. I was looking through the tune this morning and found a table which adjusts the AFR based on the percentage of ethanol in the fuel so it appears to be able to adjust it on its own.

Interestingly, I also found a provision for enabling a supercharger MAP sensor and set its limits. ;)

RE: E-85 or E-85/gas blend
 

So does this mean that the Alpha computer has flexfuel capability? If so, all you would need is a fuel composition sensor and the correct pin on the computer to plug the sensor signal into. This would make things a lot easier. I have HP Tuners, so I will take a look. This would make things a bit easier than using a Megasquirt as a piggyback.

RE: E-85 or E-85/gas blend
 

Diablosport is working on e85 programmers that make some gm vehicles e85 ready. Only on some models though. My main concern is the injectors are not ready for this type of fuel with the low lubrication quality that e85 has. We all run e10 for the most part. Mixing 33% e85 with 66% regular e10 shouldnt hurt anything.