I was wandering what upgrades would have to be done to be able to run e 85 fuel in a 1996 inline 6

 

Most of the upgrades come to the fuel lines so that moisture doesnt rust the lines out, as well as the seals drying out due to the high alcohol. Another mod you will have to make is larger injectors due to the lower energy content of E85 compared to gasoline. Also, you may need to enable a custom timing advance and retard control to set the timing perfectly for ping control. If you do a search for E85 conversion articles online you will find some rough estimates on how large the injectors will need to be to accomadate the large fuel demand.

 

while E85 does have a lower stored energy content, the reason for the larger injectors is simply a matter of achieving the correct stoichiometric air/fuel ratio for E85. Where gasoline a/f ratio is around 15:1, the stoichiometric ratio for E85 is around 10:1. For the same amount of air, there needs to be a larger quantity of E85 for proper combustion. In practice, it works out to about 35% more fuel flow, so that may help with sizing injectors. Keep in mind that after swapping injectors, you won't be able to run just gasoline unless you swap the original injectors back in place.

 

I have also read that another mod, that is rather major, is the need for a higher compression ratio for the alcohol. The issue with the larger injectors is that the computer is not able to adjust for the higher fuel demand for the alcohol. Also, the O2 sensor input from the computer will still try maintain the 15:1 ratio as best that it can. I am not certain on how you will mod that portion of the input to run alcohol.

 

The O2 sensor works on the principle of lambda, which is a ratio of the actual air/fuel ratio to the stoichiometric air/fuel ratio. What that means is that it doesn't matter what fuel is being burned, stoichiometric ratio produces the same O2 sensor output, even though the actual air/fuel ratios are much different. If simply running E85 with gasoline fuel maps, the O2 sensor will report an extremely lean mixture. The computer will try to richen the mixture, but its range of correction is likely half of what is needed, which will throw a trouble code and result in continuously lean mixtures -- this is where the larger injectors come into play. A higher compression ratio is indeed a plus and will help with combustion efficiency and thus fuel mileage (and power), but it isn't necessarily required to be able to burn alcohol.

 

Sounds like more trouble than it is worth