E85 Conversion

[Morten Andre]

Hi

Anybody have any experience with running their mopars on E85?
I was thinking of converting my 71 Charger that has a 70 440.
The engine is mostly stock, it has a CH4B intake, headers, 2,5" exhaust, Holly 750 Street Avenger.
The motive for doing it is the high price of gasoline in my country (Norway) and the higher octane rating.
Generally, E85 is a mixture of 85% alcohol and 15% gasoline it has a lower energy rating than gasoline and
the car will use about 15-20% more of it. The octane rating is about 105 and if the compression is raised some efficency can be regained.
The price of gasoline is about $8.50/gallon here and E85 is about $5.25/gallon. So I think some money can be saved. 
Appreciate your inputs!

[Ghoste]

I don't know if anyone here has purposely set out to build their car to run on the stuff in a race package but I'm pretty sure someone was working hard on it for a strong street application.
Seems to me there was a thread on it a while back in the Engines, Transmissions forum?

[suntech]

Hei Morten Andre....Rolf  fra Kristiansand her  

Ok back to english....

For starters yoy will need to make sure your carb will flow 30% more fuel, since that is in the ballpark of the increase you will need.
Make sure you have hoses and floater seats that will hold up against Ethanol. You will also need to run more timing.
There are power gains in using E85, but you will unleash more gains if you bump up the CR  

I copy and paste somthing i wrote in an earlier thread here:

E 85 is not 85% gas, and 15% Ethanol......it is the other way around.....15% gas and 85% Ethanol!! You will need to make sure the hoses and floater seats etc will stand up against the ethanol. Most modern hoses etc does. You will not need a bigger carb. Ethanol contains more oxygen than gas, so you get your extra oxygen through you fuel line! The carb needs to be able to flow app 30 % more fuel, without starting to foam, or needing to increase fuel pressure to a point that floater needles are not capable of sealing as they should anymore. you can start with jetting app 30% bigger in surface area, but you might be able to go down some from that. You will be able to, and you will need to jack up the timing quite a bit. To low timing will make the exhaust system run very hot.

We have a 2,4 litre ( 4 syl inline 16 valve, fuel injected) motor we use in rally x, and used to run unleaded 93 ( ron+mon :2 )and we ended up 23 to 28% richer on WOT, and from 7 to 11 deg more timing, also on WOT, when swopping to E85. We spent quite some time cleaning up the mapping throug entire RPM´s and throttle range, and we were super happy with it! We also bumped up the CR from 13,2:1 to 15,1:1, without problems. This engine had peak power 282 hp @ 7100 rpm , and we picked up just a few HP there, but the big one was midrange........ 18% gain @ 4700 rpm!!   E85 is good shit.......when used right!!!!   

[Ghoste]

Just curious, but is E85 a lot more common in Europe?

[suntech]

I think i would be lying if i said yes Ghoste!

In the town i live, Kristiansand, with app 60000 peolpe, or somewhere in that ballpark, we have just ONE place that has it. How far i need to go in each direction,  to get E 85 i actually dont know.
The thing is that with the gas prices here in Norway, and rest of Europe for that matter, is nothing short of outragous, compared to the US, and people are looking more in to it , for that matter.
Also there are power gains found by using it in motorsports, ( look my earlier post) plus a lot better cooling, and for us that has E 85 available just up the road, it is no big deal to go there with a few jerry cans before each race weekend. I love the stuff for that purpose, and i just might make a E 85 mapping on my Charger too, but i think it will be mostly ran on normal gas. Gotta try once at least, to see the difference on the dyno
I think a lot more would use it, if the availability was better...........i know i would!

Rolf

[Ghoste]

Ah okay.  It seemed to me like most of the inquiries about it came from Europe so I thought it must be readily available.  Never considered the price aspect.

[mhinders]

Greetings to Norway and especially to Kristansand where I spent quite some time in the mid 80ies (projects at Hunsfoss fabrikker). Lovely summer city, I hope to visit again some time in the future.
I am considering the E85 option too, but pricing here in Sweden doesn't really make it attractive from an economic point of view, considering the 30% higher consumption. But from a performance point of view it's certainly attractive.
Good luck with your projects, I'll do engine work next winter.
Cheers,
Martin

[red79]

I don't know about europe, but brazil is all about ethanol in a big way--by law all fuel is at least E25 (25% ethanol, 75% gas), E100 (pure ethanol) is available everywhere, and something like 40% of the cars in the country can run on both (flex fuel). all new cars sold there are flex fuel capable as well.

this is mainly due to the fact that brazil is the second largest producer of ethanol after the US (they make it out of sugar cane, while we mainly make it out of corn and inedibles). and it's warm enough there even in the winter that they rarely run into the start problems that plague E100 cars in cold weather

[Ghoste]

Are Formula 1 cars straight ethanol burners?

[red79]

nope, F1 cars burn plain ol gas. the blends are tightly controlled, and the teams vary the composition for weather conditions, tracks, etc., but there's mainly just an octane limit

[Ghoste]

Then other than alcohol class drag racing are there any motorsports that run straight ethanol?

[mhinders]

In Sweden and Finland E85 is available everywhere, and usage is encouraged by the authorities...but pricing is set such that there is not much incentive to switch...unless you are hard core "green"...or a performance seeker...
Cheers,