E-85

[E.B. Cornburner]

I let my boss borrow mine today, and he filled it up with unleaded. I'd have rather he just gave me the money so I could have put E85 in it. Oh well...Free fuel is free fuel, regardless of what kind.

 

[shadowless127]

one of these days i'll break out Visual Basic 2005 and make an 'E85 Equivalent MPG' calculator for you guys

 

[Yamvip]

That would be great!!!!

 

[lechip]

I +3 what EB said.

I get 2.5 mpg less on E85 but it's about 75 cents / gallon cheaper here so I make out ok.

 

[fast]

how can I convert my '02 4.0 to run on E-85?
(it is the "E" code)

 

[E.B. Cornburner]

how can I convert my '02 4.0 to run on E-85?
(it is the "E" code)

There are conversion kits on the market, but few, if any, are EPA approved, so getting thru emissions (if applicable) might be a problem.

Do a little reading in this forum,
http://e85vehicles.com/e85/index.php?board=5.0
and it'll help educate you as to what's out there and how they work.

As far as doing it with factory components, don't quote me on this, but I'd think a simple swap of the fuel rail and injectors and PCM out of a "K" code Explorer should do it. The only other differences were the fuel pump, filler neck, and a couple other minor things, but those shouldn't present an issue. The filler neck on the FFV is stainless steel, and I think the fuel filter is too. I don't see there being any problem using the gasoline-only style though.

 

[Scott2008]

How can I find out if my explorer is flex fuel? I have an 02 eddie baur 4.6L? I'd like to try E85, there's a station near my house it's anywhere from 40-60 cents/gal cheaper on a given day. Plus, E85 is cleaner and runs at a higher octaine rating... all good news for me if I can use it. thanks!

 

[bigapple]

this may be off topic to questions in here, but anyone who has invested in algae is sitting on a goldmine in the ethanol department... they make near to 30 times more ethanol than corn by volume... if companies were to recycle the CO2 emissions and run it to tanks with algae, they could produce rediculous amounts of ethanol with NO emissions... very expensive though, thats the downside... the upside is, less emissions from cars, and less expensive gas

 

[fast]

As far as doing it with factory components, don't quote me on this, but I'd think a simple swap of the fuel rail and injectors and PCM out of a "K" code Explorer should do it.

I work for a salvage company ... already located the rail/injectors/pcm

 

[E.B. Cornburner]

How can I find out if my explorer is flex fuel? I have an 02 eddie baur 4.6L? I'd like to try E85, there's a station near my house it's anywhere from 40-60 cents/gal cheaper on a given day. Plus, E85 is cleaner and runs at a higher octaine rating... all good news for me if I can use it. thanks!

Yours is not. Only the V6 code "K" was.

 

[bex]

what you save in fuel goes right back into food.

 

[Pinshooter13]

Thanks, but this e-85 is not for me.

Our Ex is a Flex, and for the first time we Filled it Up with corngas. It took so long because the availability sucks so much here in Northeast Ohio. The lists I found online of where to buy it,, two of the four stations in a 50 mile radius were closed up permanantly. The closest station to me is still 16 miles away. The price difference there was about 40 cents a gallon, but we gave it a try anyway.

On the trip to Pittsburgh this weekend our milage went down from 16-17 on average with gasoline, to 12 with the E-85. Mostly turnpike at 65 to 70 mph. When in Pittsburgh we got E-85 at a Get Go four miles from out hotel, and the price difference was only 30 cents.

With that kind of drop in milage and the poor availability around here, it's not even close to cost effective. As much as I like the idea of paying farmers instead of oil shieks, I don't like farmers that much extra!

 

[bex]

it doesn't matter because you are still paying the oil sheiks, just through the farmer now.

 

[E.B. Cornburner]

what you save in fuel goes right back into food.

www.foodandfuelamerica.com

Helps de-bunk a lot of the myths that the naysayers are spreading around.

For me, I wouldn't care if E85 were more expensive than gasoline. I'd still run it. It burns nice and clean, smells good out the tailpipe, and performs better than premium unleaded. Sure, the MPG isn't quite as good as if I were burning gasoline, but it's not that bad either.
One thing I have noticed is people that are curious about it tend to not let their vehicles optomize to it. They'll try one tank and when it gives them drastically less MPG, they abandon it and go back to gas. You have to run a few tanks back-to-back to get the system to fully learn the fuel, I've found. Even for me going the opposite way, from normally running E85 to occasionally running a tankful of gasoline, my MPG doesn't drastically shoot up when I put gasoline in it. I'd have to run a few tanks consecutively in order for the system to optomize to that fuel.

But...Getting this thread back on track...Let's not make this a political adgenda, and keep it to what it originally was started out as.

 

[CDW6212R]

I agree with you Mike, that the FFV do need time for the fuels to become pure, to gain the best PCM control. The idea is great, look at Brazil for many years now.

But the subject of corn and food prices is very much connected to the E85 fuel right now. What is needed greatly is to break the connection between E85 and corn, and food prices. Our prices on almost all foods have gone up a lot in the last couple of years, and E85 is likely a main cause.

We as a nation should not divert any food production capacities for fuel, which raises the cost of food. We have a very large country, more land should be used to make the fuel additives. I don't recall reading or hearing that corn is better than sugar cane for E85. Why are we using corn for E85? What ever works best is what should be used for the fuel. Regards,

 

[bex]

"www.foodandfuelamerica.com

Helps de-bunk a lot of the myths that the naysayers are spreading around."

umm, a bit biased website, would not ever be allowed for reference at any academic level.

wheat, doubled in price since january.

anyway, your right, lets keep it non-political.

as far as why corn and not sugar cane, simple, can't grow sugar cane everywhere like corn. brazil gets by with ethanol because they have a fraction of the fuel consumption we do.

 

[Black02-XLT]

I work at an company that designs ethanol plants and I will tell you that I takes more energy to produce, and transport E85 then gasoline. Also if the government subsidies where not in place every one would not be on on the corn E85 band wagon. On the running of the E85 the CO2 is less but the NO2 is more than gas so you are trading one greenhouse gas for another. I do believe we need a new fuel but E85 is not it.

 

[CDW6212R]

I work at an company that designs ethanol plants and I will tell you that I takes more energy to produce, and transport E85 then gasoline. Also if the government subsidies where not in place every one would not be on on the corn E85 band wagon. On the running of the E85 the CO2 is less but the NO2 is more than gas so you are trading one greenhouse gas for another. I do believe we need a new fuel but E85 is not it.

I agree, ditto, E85 is only a tiny step. We need something which replaces oil imports, and also does not displace needed resources like corn.

 

[E.B. Cornburner]

I work at an company that designs ethanol plants and I will tell you that I takes more energy to produce, and transport E85 then gasoline. Also if the government subsidies where not in place every one would not be on on the corn E85 band wagon. On the running of the E85 the CO2 is less but the NO2 is more than gas so you are trading one greenhouse gas for another. I do believe we need a new fuel but E85 is not it.

I can't see how the NOx emissions can be higher running a fuel that burns approximately 200° cooler than gasoline. What causes high NOx emissions is high combustion temperatures, hence the reason for EGR valves on gasoline vehicles, to allow a little inert exhaust gas back into the intake to cool the peak combustion temperatures.

In all the emission tests I've viewed, the levels across the board were dramatically reduced using E85.

 

[calisoundmix]

it's not just the emissions your vehicle emits, for the overall process (from the fields to out your tailpipe) you have to put in the equivilent of 5-7 times the energy that you get out of ethanol. for gasoline it is much lower.