e85 mixing

[Airbornemaikai]

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[binaryman3]

Warning! Do not I repeat DO NOT mix E85 with gasoline in an ecoboost engine if you still have a warranty or even of you dont! The engine injectors and main CPU are not designed to handle E85 or any ethanol concentration over 10-15%in an ecoboost. The only alternative to getting an higher octane is to look for racing gasoline with higher octanes to mix with 91 octane gasoline. Using E85 will increase the ethanol content and ethanol has only 70% of the energy that gasoline has and would work against you.

Flex fuel engines using 100% E85 would have about 100 octane but use 30% more fuel than gasoline resulting in poorer mileage.

 

[broken strut]

Warning! Do not I repeat DO NOT mix E85 with gasoline in an ecoboost engine if you still have a warranty or even of you dont! The engine injectors and main CPU are not designed to handle E85 or any ethanol concentration over 10-15%in an ecoboost. The only alternative to getting an higher octane is to look for racing gasoline with higher octanes to mix with 91 octane gasoline. Using E85 will increase the ethanol content and ethanol has only 70% of the energy that gasoline has and would work against you.

Flex fuel engines using 100% E85 would have about 100 octane but use 30% more fuel than gasoline resulting in poorer mileage.

 

[fourZero]

Why wouldn't you want to mix E85? If the only downside is less fuel economy (due to decreased BTU/gal vs. E15), so what? E85 is a tuner's wet dream, the effective octane rating allows far greater timing advance and increased boost.

I'd like to hear how increasing the ethanol from 10-15% to say 30% via a blend would void a warranty. Mind you, you would not get any improved response from the car without tuning, but what are the potential downsides?

 

[amd2800barton]

Ethanol is incredibly corrosive. It can attack polymers (rubber hoses, plastic liners) and metal (pump impeller, fittings, cylinders). If your vehicle is not designed to handle high ethanol content, it could cause a lot of damage. Ethanol is also hydrophilic, meaning it is a chemical which likes water, a LOT. It can literally pull water vapor from the air. Also not good for your engine.

Ethanol makes an okay race fuel for the octane reason you mentioned, though its energy density is lower than gasoline, or other potential race fuels. The upside to ethanol is it is readily available. Generally if you're building a race car with insane amounts of pressure for which you would use ethanol, the engine and gets rebuilt and / or has a decreased life expectancy - no warranty necessary. If you use ethanol with a tune, you've already voided your warranty with the tune, so there's no need to worry about whether Ford will cover engine damage. It wouldn't surprise me if Ford or some other manufacturer had some sort of indicator like the water damage stickers in your phone, though that's pure speculation.

PS: The reason we have ethanol as an additive in our fuel is the corn lobby. The EPA justifies it because it helps with emissions, though there are other additives which could serve that purpose, and the EPA doesn't have to worry about whether your engine gets destroyed. Politicians like it because they can claim energy independence and helping the American farmer, neither of which are very true.

 

[Sgt1411]

Chevron 94 Octane contains zero Ethanol, thats all I use now.

 

[Boostking]

Great information!

To add: E85 would require the tune to command more fuel at WOT. The tune itself would have to be created for E85. One limitation thus far in the aftermarket for these ecoboost engines is fuel modification, ie injectors and fuel pumps. Our stock engine with a tune and a few supporting mods can max out the stock fuel system quickly, hence the reason people supplement with meth injection systems. To run E85 you generally want fueling to support the extra 30% fuel or so that you will need to command. Since our stock fuel system really wont support that, E85 isnt really something you will want in this vehicle yet.

In the future, when bigger fuel injectors and better/higher flowing "high pressure fuel pumps" are available, guys that want to push their cars even further will be able to use E85 if they want. I just dont think its feasible in this vehicle without fuel mods.

As mentions, the additional wear e85 can create negates the actual benefits unless you just do it once in a while.

 

[fourZero]

Great information!

To add: E85 would require the tune to command more fuel at WOT. The tune itself would have to be created for E85. One limitation thus far in the aftermarket for these ecoboost engines is fuel modification, ie injectors and fuel pumps. Our stock engine with a tune and a few supporting mods can max out the stock fuel system quickly, hence the reason people supplement with meth injection systems. To run E85 you generally want fueling to support the extra 30% fuel or so that you will need to command. Since our stock fuel system really wont support that, E85 isnt really something you will want in this vehicle yet.

In the future, when bigger fuel injectors and better/higher flowing "high pressure fuel pumps" are available, guys that want to push their cars even further will be able to use E85 if they want. I just dont think its feasible in this vehicle without fuel mods.

As mentions, the additional wear e85 can create negates the actual benefits unless you just do it once in a while.

You're absolutely right. In my 2006 STi, I upgraded from 560cc/min injectors to 850cc/min when I upgraded the turbo. If I wanted to go full E85, I would need at least 1,000cc/min injectors to keep the duty cycle below 80%.

If you really wanted to upgrade the injectors you could pull the stockers and send them to RC to have them bench tested and opened up. You would most certainly need a tune to even get the car to start with higher flowing injectors. I don't see why the SCT tune couldn't compensate for that but I don't know the minutiae of that particular tuning software.

Ethanol is corrosive, but any car sold in CA is already expecting 15% by volume. The elastomer and fuel pump compatibility MAY not be an issue. I'd love to be the guinea pig on something like this but we can't get E85 locally. :thumbdwn:

 

[fourZero]

.

Did you just go in wholesale and delete every post you've ever made in this forum?

It's a shame, you had a good question and made some valid points in other posts.

 

[Airbornemaikai]

I did.

 

[sciond]

nice..classy move