Just wondering if anyone has any experience running their ecoboost on e30/50/85.

I have seen some people reporting better mileage running premium, so i'm wondering if this engine responds with significantly lower mileage as one would normally expect when runing high ethanol fuels.

I run e30 and e85 almost all of the time in my 2010 5.4 (work truck) and pretty well know what to expect, but as we all know the ecoboost is a slightly different animal.

Given ample opportunity, i would very much like to run e85 or e30 on all but the longest trips.

 

No. You cannot use anything above E10 in an ecoboost. E85 causes worse gas mileage as it burns off faster than gasoline. It also invites water into your fuel system. With the ethanol subsidy ending soon, the price of E85 will likely shoot up, as it is artificially low at the moment.

 

^What he said. I wouldn't run it in the Ecoboost at all.

 

I actually go out of my way to fill up with gas that has no ethanol in it. Also, never use ethanol gas in your lawn power equipment. It eats up the seals/hoses.

 

Ethanol can and will eat/corrode seals and certain components in your fuel system if it was not built to handle it in the first place. However, I read someone's experiment with a Subaru WRX in which he went all out in optimizing the turbo charged engine for E85 and had something like 95 or 98% of the same fuel economy as the car did running on gas with just about the same horsepower. I'm sure the same is possible with the ecoboost, but then again it would probably need a lot of engineering to be optimized for it.

 

So true with the small equipment motors. Even the small amount of ethanol they put in the gas up here in the winter is enough to destroy snow blower carbs in just a few years due to it's propensity to create moisture in the fuel systems. Trust me, I know from experience....

 

I wish I could find ethanol free gasoline here in southwest Tenn.

 

My intent here wasn't to start an ethanol debate, just to find out if anyone is using flex fuel in the ecoboost. Correct me if i am wrong, but it is a flex fuel engine, right?

As for the rest of it, I understand that in many parts of the country ethanol is "new" and there have been some teething pains and resentment toward being forced to use it. But around here, it is old hat ... i cannot even remember a time where 10% ethanol blend was not available at the pumps. I can even remember when you could choose between regular unleaded, super unleaded(ethanol), premium unleaded, and leaded. When mom and dad had their 2.2L turbo dodge, it ran much better on the ethanol blended fuel due to the higher octane of the blended fuel. (these engines were known for their spark knock sensitivity and premium fuel was recommended) They didnt like using premium because of the cost difference.

That being said, i use ethanol in everything. lawn mowers, cars, trucks, even the old massey harris. Most of the issues i hear people having with the ethanol fuel I have simply not seen in my vehilces. In fact, i all but refuse to use gasoline that is not blended with ethanol. I have never had problems with water in the fuel, or dirty fuel system problems, mostly because the ethanol will suspend a fair amount of water rather than letting it pool in the bottom of the tank, and ethanol is a natural solvent and keeps fuel varnish in the fuel system at bay.

I like E85, and like E30, and would use it given the chance..... but i wonder how the ecoboost would respond. perhaps there is a different tune that allows the ecoboost to benefit from the higher octane rating of the ethanol fuel?

 

I find it a little surprising myself, but the Ecoboost engines are not 'flex-fuel'. The 5.0 is a flex-fuel engine.

 

you are absolutely right .... i just found it in the brochure....

my bad

never mind everyone ... DOH'T
i shall now hang my head in shame ....

 

It's a valid question that produced some very useful information.

 

I'm just saying, it takes more energy (usually coal) to produce ethanol than ethanol can produce in your car. To me it's like using a plug in car, which the power probably comes from a coal fired power plant. I have a lot of drag race friends who have E85 tunes and are making massive amounts of horsepower on it. The ethanol is going to go away soon, due to the fact the subsidy is ending, or you will have to pay more for fuel blended with ethanol. I like to drink ethanol lol.

 

Whether it consumes more energy per unit of ethanol produced than the energy contained within that unit of ethanol or not is highly debated and difficult at best to accurately quantify. Much of the current data suggests that the energy trade off is just about a wash. Maybe a little to one side or the other, but almost an even trade.

If one belives that (and I do), then my take is that we should be using Ethanol as a fuel for our motor vehicles instead of oil based products. Sure, we would consume more coal, and electric energy as a whole, but that's ok because we have coal ... and we have corn comming out of our ears (seriously, no pun intended).

What we don't have is a sustainable domestic supply of crude oil to supply our demands. An ethanol based fuel can be produced with nearly all domesticly produced inputs, and that is a very cool thing.

As has been suggested, there is a fuel economy problem with ethanol. But this can be largely offset by optimizing the IC system for ethanol fuels instead of gasoline. The engines we have now are optimized for gasoline but will tolerate ethanol. If we were to optimize for ethanol and allow for toleration of gasoline, i belive the fuel economy scales would quickly tip and the ethanol would produce better overall economy.

Even if it were a small net loss in terms of energy, I would argue that as an acceptable cost given the fact that it would be domestically produced.

Im not trying to start a fight or anything, this is truly how i feel about it. I support it and would use it given the opportunity.

The ethanol industry has some work to do to become competitive, for that I have no doubt. I only hope the industry steps up it's game once the subsities come to an end. Personally, i would sorely miss the availabilty of ethanol blended fuels.

 

Good morning:
I am a semi retired automotive engineer
I own a 2011 Ford F150 with the 3.5L ECO Boost engine
I have about 15k Miles on it at this time.
I also blend E85 with premium at about 50-60% E85 to 50-40% premium Fuel.
That mix has to have a significant cooling effect in the combustion chamber with DI & much higher octane.
The truck produces a lot more power with blend.
While I do not know what the injector flow rate is, I think they have adequate capacity to run well on this fuel blend.
Ordered the Bullydog tuner to see what it will do with the higher octane fuel
I wanted to respond to the gentlemen asking about using E85 in the ECO Boost Engine & offer my experience.
Since I am an old fart (67 years old) I am not into to doing anything that I think would harm my vehicle
I also use E10 in all my vehicles, lawn equipment etc.
I have never experienced any problems with the fuel either.
Seems like it is getting a bad rap to to mostly misunderstanding the fuels properties & advantages

 

SUPER interested in your findings.

no way we can egg you into a couple 1/4 mile runs can we? I say this because i think there is the potential for a serious HP increase due to the higher octane and the cooling effect of the ethanol fuel.

I'm glad your background gives you the confidence to try this on your own. most of us, myself included, would not feel confident in this experiment.

I still think that people are having poor performance on E10, in particular with the 87 octane varaity, because of the poor quality base fuel to which the ethanol is being added.

keep us posted!