I have a 1979 F-250 that i plan on dropping a 429 4V V8 from a 1984 ford bus. I plan on rebuilding the engine and i want it to be able to run on E-85. What i want to know is if there is any special considerations i should take in building the engine besides of course the entire fuel system. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

I believe as long as you keep it close to OEM Specs & tune you ought to be able to do that wth no real problems.
However if you start "Tweaking" the engine and make it more performance oriented than OEM Spec, I'm pretty sure it will turn out to be it will be a disappointment. I am not certain of Timing Specification for the E-85 fuel in a series 385 engine. But that info should bre available.
You might find a more detailed analysis, or experiences with the late industrial 385 series 429 CID- 4V & E-85 Fuel useage in the 385 [377-429-460 Engine Forum]
FBp

 

i heard that E85 is almost 20% less efficient that 87octane...i dont know how it is, but the source i heard it from is a good one.

 

thats true. ethanol doesnt have as much energy per oz as gasoline does, so it takes more ethanol to do the same amount of work. when ethanol gets cheaper, everything will be good because it wont cost so much to buy the extra fuel, but right now with it being as expensive if not more so than gasoline, it hurts to take the mpg hit that comes with using e-85.

jamie

 

i dont know what it is like where you are from, but here in minnesota ethanol is at least 40 cents cheaper per gallon than regular unleaded, plus you are giving more money toward our economy rather than those in the mid east.

 

i know in illinois that there are only a few places where i live that you can get true E85, and those places were about the same price as gas, if not just a tad higher last time i was home. it costs alot to make ethanol and there arent that many production facilities (compared to refineries)

i was a farmboy in illinois before i was in the Navy, and wholeheartedly agree with spending the money on ethanol rather than crude (even if it did cost me more)

helps farmers, helps economy, and helps the good ole USA.

Jamie

 

All of the carburetors I have worked on are made of aluminum and E-85 will corrode them. I suppose you can switch to fuel injection.

 

i run the e85 in my sonoma. it burns less efficiently, but has a higher octane rating, just over 100. my truck runs better on the stuff, but goes through more of it. the prices here are about 30 cents less per gallon than gas. from what i've heard, you would need to have the metal parts teflon coated to be able to resist the corrosion of the ethanol. you should be able to run a higher compression ratio than gas also. from what i understand, it's pretty similar to racing fuel.

 

mmmmmm.......racing fuel

 

this is similar to what i have been thinking about and instead of starting a new thread i will just post in this one......if i were to jump the compression ratio in my 75 lincoln 460 (in a 79 f250) up to about 13.5-14.5:1 with domed pistons/smaller combustion chambers and re-jet my carb, i would be optimizing the engine for the e-85 and would also be looking at a serious performance gain, wouldn't i? this is more a question than a statement and would obviously totally put gasoline out of the question, but would it work? any input on this would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance


justin

 

If E-85 is corrosive in carbs, why can you run alcohol in them. Holley makes special parts for alcohol, like bigger jets, accel. pumps, etc. Just curious.

 

Actually you do have to run the same types of things that you use for methonal. the alum parts need to be hard anodized. And kermmydog not to pick on ya, but ethynol is alcohol, so is methanol, just made from different base products, and thus need treated the same way.
jgreen the bumping of the compression, and usually advancing the timing. plus rejetting of the carb are the things that need to be done to optimize the engine for running E85 or any alchohol. One big advantage is your engine is going to run cooler without overheating problems.
I am not a expert on running alky by any means, and hope that someone that does run the stuff a lot will chime in and give use more advice but that should get you started.

 

Any long term daily use of E85 will shorten the life of any carburetor. Sure they prep them for racing applications, but none of then get used daily for years on end. The way to get the durability and performance you are used to is with fuel injection.

 

Personal opinion and my only experience using propane is in agricultural/captive fleet applications (tractors and fork lifts), but if I were building a high compression engine, I'd use propane or LNG. All the same availibility problems associated with ethanol at least for now.

 

I have messed around quite a bit with alcohol in race cars in the past , we ran around 15-1 comp , seemed to dyno the best there for our need , YES the alcohol will attack the carb especialy the float bowls , what i found or what i think what happens is that when it evaporates it starts a corrosoin process , so what we did is when we put it away for the week we pumped the float bowls full or regular gas and started the engine for a few seconds.
I also had a vw that ran on alcohol ,had delorto carbs , and i premixed oil with the alcohol , like a 2-stroke , it didnt take much . the whole idea was to coat the inside of everything that came into touch with the alcohol with the oil when it evaporated . I do have to admit it worked great and never had problems with it.
One other thing , I also found that i used to burn about 2 to 1 , 2 gals of alc to 1 gal of gas ,it did vary , but that was usually the way it worked , keep in mind that we were out for horse power not economy .
If i lived where e85 was and it was cheeper ,i would do it in a second and wouldnt think twice , but where im at we dont even have it at the pump yet .