Anyone try 50% E85 ina FORD gas engine yet? Guys at work were running it 50/50 MIX in a viariey of car,trucks etc w/o any problems. I don't really plan on doing it but just curious if anyone tried it?
Thanks
04 F250 V8

 

From what I understand, it's a really low octane fuel. Even mixed 50/50 I wouldn't trust it with a good tune. If your still stock it could work, but I think you would lose enough power to hate it.

 

No, it isn't low octane. E85 has an octane rating ranging from 100-105.

The problem with E-85 is that when mixed at the ratio your engine wants to mix gasoline, you run very very lean. You will probaby end up bunring a piston or three. Gasoline burns at around 12-14 parts air to one part fuel. E-85 burns at 8 parts air to one part fuel. Most gasoline engines aren't equipped to inject enough fuel into the engine to make the 8:1 ratio. Flex fuel engines are equipped with injectors that can send enough fuel to the engine and the program map is wide enough it can handle 8:1.


I won't even get into the possible damage due to the corrosive properties of E-85. Flex fuel vehicles have stuff like stainless steel fuel tanks to handle the fuel.

You could make a gas engine into a flex fuel vehicle if you replaced the injectors with injectors that flowed about twice what the stock injectors flow, replace the oxygen sensor with a wideband sensor and reprogrammed the computer to handle it all.

 

That's what it was, volumetricly lean, more ethenol required than gas per air.

Wasn't there also a problem with the tempature the ethenol creates being much lower than gas and causing a loss in power?

 

A properly designed engine can accomodate the lower temp with higher compression, taking advantage of the higher octane.


If some fool is running 50% E-85 in his tank, I would be curious to see how his car runs one year from now.

 

Engines designed to run E85 have larger injectors and are able to sense the mix of ethanol to Gasoline ratio. My 3.0L Ranger ran GREAT on the stuff!! For the record, E85 means 85% Ethanol, 15% Gasoline. They denature it with gas for two reasons -- to LOWER the octane a bit (pure ethanol has like a 115 octane rating, IIRC), and so people won't drink it.

The catch is that you use more fuel because the computer compensates for the ethanol (hence the larger injectors) because ethanol actually contains a molecule of oxygen -- the optimal mix is a bit less air and a bit more fuel. You basically take about a 15% hit on your mileage -- but since it's about 30c cheaper, it's a wash. It is a cleaner, better running fuel IMHO, and I kind of liked putting my $$$ in our farmers' pockets instead of OPEC's. I've heard folks have run E85 in non-E85 vehicles for years without any problems, but I think I'd stick to using it in vehicles made for it. I'm not sure if there's a hit on mileage running it in a non-E85 vehicle, though -- it may just not run as well on the stuff. Of course, the 50/50 mix may be okay, too. If you wanted to run it full time, you could build a higher compression engine and it would probably be just as efficient as gasoline. The compromise is that since most of us still need to run straight gasoline, you can't have a ~16:1 compression engine that'll do that. Maybe once E85 becomes more available, that would be a viable option. Until then, it would be tough. Maybe they'll design a variable-compression engine that runs efficiently on both sometime...

I researched E85 when I had my Ranger, but that's about all I know about it -- I've since bought a diesel F250, so I haven't kept up with it any further.

Joe

 

I have done it a few times but not on a regular basis as I am 80 miles from the nearest E85 pump and at the time it got higher than gas. It needs to be at least $.30 lower to make it feasible. I have filled with E85 when I was as low as a 1/4 tank with no major consequences other than increased rate of consumption and a little rough idle. I wouldn't go over a 50-50 blend if doing it all the time and be watchful of heavy loading the vehicle while burning it. It does have the higher octane but it will still make the engine ping on a high horsepower chip setting.