I think it's more to do with the way the computer is programmed. I was never maxing out the injectors. It was simply that the computer had no idea (and still doesn't) that E85 is in the tank. So when it looked at manifold vacuum, MAF flow, and throttle position, it determined it needed to go open loop. When it does that, it looks at the things mentioned above and holds the injectors open a factory determined time per revolution. It does this since it needs to run it richer during near-WOT to WOT conditions than it does at cruise, to maximize power and avoid pinging. A narrow band oxygen sensor simply is not useful for anything other than stoichiometric mixtures.

So you run into the problem I was having. At part throttle it would run just fine, since the computer would use the O2 sensor to maintain a stoichiometric mixture, be it with ethanol or gasoline. But push the gas a little bit further and go into open loop, and it simply injects the correct amount of fuel for what it was calibrated for: gasoline.

Now was the reserve capacity there? Maybe. Maybe not. With Ford's stock fuel injection strategy, we will never know. All I've done is compensate for the additional fuel required with bigger injectors.

Another thing that has me slightly concerned is these aftermarket kits that go between your computer and fuel injectors. What they do, is hold your injectors open a little bit longer to supply the additional fuel. What concerns me there, is like Eric said, what happens when there wasn't enough injector reserve capacity to begin with? Fuel injectors need to be off at least 10% (IIRC) of the time to cool down between pulses. One of these kits may very well overdrive the injectors, causing damage.

So really, unless the vehicle came equipped with a wide band O2 sensor AND the computer uses it to adjust fuel throughout the entire range of operation, NO gasoline only vehicle should operate entirely properly on E85. What I have shown, is that some may operate adequately, but there will be problems.

The other problem, that I dont appear to have run into, is fuel pump capacity. When I put the bigger injectors in, I was concerned that Ford may have used a fuel pump that was barely adequate, and at WOT the fuel pressure may drop due to the increased flow. That does not seem to have been the case on my vehicle, but I think it could present a problem for others trying to convert.

Sorry for the book. When you install a Holley Commander 950 fuel injection system on an old 390, you tend to learn A LOT about fuel injection.

 

Following this thread I've come up with a couple questions, first being that I assume a non-FFV means a non- Fuel Flex Vehicle?

Second being with larger injectors could I run E85 in my 1994 F-350 with a 460?

There isn't a E85 station at home, but supposedly theres one close here in NW Ohio, with the price of gas down im not worried about it right now, but if it goes back up to $3 a gal then I need to look at alternatives.

thanks and sorry for the bit of wander, I searched a bit and didn't find anything ... sorry -myers

 

Hey, dont worry about it! That's why we're on here, to discuss this stuff. That's why we have an alternative fuels forum, right?

Yes, non-FFV was my abbreviation for non-Flex Fuel Vehicle.

Could you run E85 in your 460? Possibly. I make no promises or guarantees. If you wanted to follow my route, you'd get larger injectors. I'm still not entirely certain that 25% larger is the correct number. I've heard everything from 10% to 30%. I suspect I should have gone 20% instead of 25%.

Here's the table I used for fuel injector sizing. Note that this is for Accel fuel injectors, and may not reflect stock Ford sizes. The way their numbered, the last two numbers of the part number are the lbs/hr rating, the middle number means a set of that number, and the first three numbers probably designate it as an Accel fuel injector:

http://www.jegs.com/footnotes/accel_fuel_injectors.html

According to this, if you wanted fuel injectors to run E85, AND we figure 20% larger, here's what we come up with:

Accel's stock replacement for your motor is 26lbs/hr.
26*1.20=31.2

So you'd need to pick between their 30 and 32lbs/hr injectors.

If we figure 25% like I did with mine:
26*1.25=32.5

I think the Accel 32lbs/hr would be the ones to go with for your motor. Again, no promises or guarantees...

This is, of course, assuming your fuel pump can handle the extra flow. That I have absolutely no idea about.

 

Our local news aired a story last week about a guy in Watertown SD that is re programing the computers on cars and trucks to run on the E85. Th estory doees not give any contact info though they mention his name.

go to www.keloland.com and search for the story

 

Typical of KELO and others, not on the site... not important enough to keep the info around....
You've got an advantage on the rest of us there in Watertown, that's the only place I know of with varying percent mixes, everywhere else it's 10% or 85 percent, not 20 % like you have there... I don't recall, but doesn't that pump also have 50%?

 

Install a fuel pressure gage and watch it while you are running WOT. If pressure can be maintained by the pump you have adequate pump capacity FOR THE MOMENT. Pumps do wear over time and electrical connections corrode reducing pump efficiency.

Note: It is HIGHLY DANGEROUS to run a pressurized fuel line into your vehicle interior. Make sure you have the proper fuel line and secure connections. I take no responsibility for this suggestion.

 

What is WOT? -myers

 

WOT = The common abbreviation for Wide Open Throttle used in most service books and references.

http://autorepair.about.com/library/.../bldef-886.htm

 

Experiment concluded!

For now...

A few factors influenced my decision to end this test and run gasoline again.

First, winter is coming around. There was a bit of a cold snap earlier this week, when night time temperatures were down around 50F. I went out to the Explorer, crank.... What, no start? Crank again. Sputter. Crank again, starts up. That's funny. Next day, cold engine, same thing. It then ran and drove just fine after it started. Warmed engine starts right up. I think the engine control computer needs the cold start enrichment modified.

Second, the price of gas fell like someone dropped it off a cliff. It was down to $2.159 this morning, which is below the last price I saw E85 at.

Third, I need this thing to make it through winter. Starting problems aside, being stuck in a snow drift 20 miles from nowhere is NOT my idea of fun. Besides, I've got another plan on the way...

My plan is to build a real ethanol motor. I'll be getting a junkyard 4.0L next week. I'm going to build this thing up with high compression, like we always talk about on this board over winter, and swap it back into the Explorer next spring.

There's a couple ways I could do this:
I could change the heads, using stock pistons, and have about 10:1 compression. Then, I could run premium gasoline if I needed to, and run E85 when available. I still wouldn't get the most out of the E85 though.

I could use 4.0L SOHC pistons (flat top) with the above mentioned heads, and I'm going to guess get around 12:1. E85 required, but would fully utilize it.

I could use 4.0L SOHC pistons (flat top) with my existing heads. I'm going to guess this would get me somewhere around 10.5 or 11:1. With a big cam I could still probaby run premium gas if I really needed to.

There's also a couple cams from Comp Cams I could use, to play around with the dynamic compression ratio. Between that and head porting, this has the potential to be a very fun motor...

Or, lastly, I could just rebuild it stock, run gas, and forget the whole thing.

What does everyone think here? Or, should I start a thread in the 4.0L forum?

OBTW, I had mileage results with the 460 injectors. I will not post them, since when changing the injectors back out to the regular ones, I noticed I did not have the fuel pressure regulator plugged in! OOPS.

 

800 miles ago I converted my '98 Ford 150 4.2L V-6 2x4 with 95,xxx miles on it to a FFV and its been runing great on E-85 with NO problems ever since. I'm even running on a fuel filter that has 30,xxx+ miles on it and against the kit manufacture's recommendation to change it at 500 miles after installing the conversion kit.

I installed a Full Flex Gold unit [ http://www.fullflexint.com/ ] and I can't say enough good things about it. Its truly plug-and-play and the Full Flex units have a set of dip switches, (unlike the other units on the market), that permit you to change curves with the simple flip of a switch.

So far my gas mileage on E-85 is 2-3 mpg less than with I got with unleaded gasoline. If I hold the speed to 60 mph I get 15.5 mpg on E-85 and the best I've gotten at that speed on unleaded was 18.7 with the tail gate down running down wind.
At 78 mph this little 4.2L V-6 gets 12 -12.7 mpg compared to 14.5 -15.5 mpg on unleaded and driving around in town below 50 mph I'm getting 16.4+mpg.

I've had two Dyno runs before and two after the conversion and I've gained 9 HP when running on E-85. The Emissions test shows that it is running very clean - 10% Hydrocarbons at cruising RPM. (where the max. limit is 100%) and CO & CO2 have been virtually eliminated (0.01% where 1.0% is max).

The only problem I've experienced is the extra cranking required to get he engine run smoothly when starting on a cold morning. It may be that the fuel filter is getting clogged however we want to test the 'Kim Hotstart TPS Model' coolant system heater before changing the fuel filter just to see ft a warm engine jacket will make a difference.

I'll keep you posted on the cold starting issue.
<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->__________________
George in
Santa Fe, New Mexico
'92 Ford Taurus 3.0L V6

'98 Ford F-150 2x4 4.2L V6
K&N Air Filter; 5 Spd. Auto;
Auburn 4.11 Limited Slip Diff.
w/ Speedo Calibration problem
<!-- / sig -->

 

E85 is a bit tougher to fire on cold mornings, but as you noticed, ti cranks more and does fire.
I have a question though, how can you virtually eliminate CO2? I can see CO, but CO2 is still going to be ther in proportion to the fuel used, as well as some water vapor.

 

It looks like you are losing ~20% on your mileage with your rough testing which is right in line with the published figures of about 25%.

Cold starts can be improved by adding a couple gallons of gas to the mix in cold weather.

Changing the fuel filter may be a good idea as a preventative measure.

There is more information and precautions (CEL etc) listed here:
http://www.answers.com/topic/e85

 

Copies of the Emissions test that the City of ABQ ran for me and the Before & After Dyno Curves on my '98 F150 just after I installed the Full Flex Gold [ http://www.fullflexint.com/ ]FFV Conversion Kit are attached.

The how and why that the FFV conversion works I'll leave to Dan Lorenzo the technical expert at Full Flex International, Inc. [ Dan Lorenzo: xpertech_inc@hotmail.com Email: dan@fullflexint.com<!--mstheme--><!--msthemelist--> ].
(I'll cc: him on this so he can join in with his 2 cents.)

Well, it looks like attachments aren't in the cards even tho the FAQ seems to indicate they're possible so I'll have to copy (below) a part of the original email msg. I sent announcing the success of the FFV Conversion.

[ Late yesterday evening, Jimmy Garner at Liberty Automotive, (471-8844 here in Santa Fe), completed the installation of Full Flex Inc.'s, Full Flex Gold 6 cylinder FFV Conversion Kit [ http://www.fullflexint.com/ ] on my personal '98 Ford F150 XLT 4.2L V-6 SFI pickup truck.

Attached is a copy of the before (w/Unleaded Gasoline) and after (w/a full tank of E-85) Horsepower/Torque & Air/Fuel Ratio curves that I had Chris at Dyno Edge in ABQ run on his Dyno this morning.
The stats. below are from the tests that the City of ABQ's Chief Emissions testing tech, Tim Martinez, ran for me this morning just before the Dyno run. (I have .jpgs of print outs of the following but I can't figure out how to attach them to ths post.)

1) 830 RPM (Idle)
HC (ppm) = 7 (max allowable is 100 ppm)
CO (%) = 0.01 (max allowable is 1%)
CO2 (%) = 15.20 (16.0 is optimum; anything over 14.5. is ideal)
O2 (%) = 0.03 (shooting for the lowest possible)

2) 2273 RPM
HC (ppm) = 10 (max allowable is 100 ppm)
CO (%) = 0.01 (max allowable is 1%)
CO2 (%) = 15.20 (16.0 is optimum; anything over 14.5. is ideal)
O2 (%) = 0.04 (shooting for the lowest possible)

Gas mileage to ABQ at 78 mph = 12.7 mpg w/ tailgate up.
(E-85 @ $2.779/gal in SAF)(with 21.5 gal of E-85 & 3.5 gal of Unleaded left in the tank at the low fuel light.) (descending in altitude from 7,000' msl to 5,000' msl.)

Gas mileage back to Santa Fe at 78 mph = 12.0 mpg w/ tailgate up.
(E-85 @ $2.99/gal in ABQ)(after the emissions test, the Dyno run and a visit to see my Granddaughter.)(ascending in altitude from 5,000' msl to 7,000' msl.)
My 'usual' gas mileage using Unleaded has run between 15 to 18 mpg depending on the direction of the Wind; whether the tail gate is up or down. (Lowering the tailgate increases my MPG's by 0.5 to 0.9 mpg.) and Load (whether I'm hauling my 950# BMW Touring bike or not). ]

 

Ok, that looks better, CO is down, but CO2 isn't zero, it's more reasonable there.

 

I'll be building my E85 motor this winter. Check the V6 forum.