OEM's also know that alot of people aren't gonna run the e85...
I have a little spark box that i got a while back called a megajolt jr. cost about 100 bucks, deletes the need for a distributor, and lets me put EDIS on pretty much anything I can mount the crank trigger on (the only other things that are needed are the edis module, coilpacks, 36-1 trigger wheel, crank sensor and wires). best thing is that its fully programmable, and that two different spark tables can be switched between with a switch on the dash. would be nice if you could hook it up to a TFI dizzy and have it control the curve like an eec-iv computer would.
with using a stock style distributor you would need to figure out beforehand about what you want your timing curve to be, buy a recurve kit and swap out the weights and springs until the mechanical advance curve was how you wanted it, maximum vacuum advance can be adjusted on alot of dizzy's. however when you want to tweak your curve, your going through the whole process again. there are a few shops out there that still have old sun distributor machines that can figure out what the curve is for you with the dizzy out of the car.
a bit hotter of a spark is needed since the compression makes it a bit tougher for the spark to jump the gap. and IIRC ethanol likes to blow out the spark a bit easier too, or something like that. but most of it is in the curve.
forgive me, but I don't think that your thinking for running a 2bbl carb is quite right. adding to what jimandmany said, regardless of how big the carb is, the engine is still going to need that 9.6:1 (or whatever it is) air/fuel ratio when running ethanol.what the higher compression does is increase the volumetric efficiency of the engine, making it a better air pump. technically if you could get it to run without detonation, it would run way better on gasoline.
so even though with each pound of air your engine is ingesting more ethanol than it would gas, the higher volumetric efficiency means that your not running the engine as hard to do the same amount of work, which is where it *should* even out.
what does matter with carbs is the actual throttle bore size. quadrajets have an underground following because their primaries are so small that air flows really, really fast through them, which means that the carb can be much more precise with how it gives the engine fuel. a quadrajets primaries look about the right size for the 144 in my falcon! but the secondaries are big enough to drive a mack through.
IIRC the biggest ford 2bbl flowed 434cfm and the the most common slightly small one flowed just more than 350cfm, and then think about what that 500cfm edelbrock is when you don't have your foot on the floor!
on another note, I had a 500 cfm holley 2bbl on my capri for a couple months. with it tuned to the best of my ability it run way to rich at idle (it would start flooding idling in denver traffic) but would get a lean misfire when i ran it hard, an got better fuel economy at 85 than it did at 45.
on yet another note, the MSII for my bronco can be hooked up the a gm style flex fuel sensor and can adjust fuel and spark for any mixture of gas and ethanol, however the compromise would still be the compression ratio.
I'll step down now, I had a bit more time this evening!
