well i just filled up my 02 Chebby S10 with E85 yesterday, its amost 50 cents a gallon cheaper than regular gas. is there anything special i need to do to the truck to tolerate the new fuel. i know it says on the gas tank door that i should not use any additives when running E85. anything else i should know?

 

Just enjoy!

 

If your vehicle is a flex fuel vehicle. Enjoy !

If not- check the instruction manual for fuels. using E85 in a non flex fuel vehicle will damage the fuel system.

 

E85 shouldn't hurt a 02 vehicle, even if it's a Chebby.

Of course, if it's not a flex fuel vehicle, significant mpg drop may happen.

 

Yes, enjoy! That is until you notice that your gas mileage has gone down per tankful compared to 87 octane fuel. (If you ever monitored it before). And because your mileage has gone down, you will need MORE of the E85 gas to get you the same distance. And if you figure it all out, you will find that it probably cost you a couple dollars MORE per tank to go the same distance. But hey, enjoy it.

At a $0.50 a gallon different in price, you are looking at approximately a 20% savings. So that means you can't go down more than about 20% in mileage. Anything more than that, and it will cost you more per gallon to use ethanol. Remember, pure ethanol is about 30% less efficient in producing energy as gasoline is. Because you aren't burning pure ethanol, it's 85% and the other 15% is gasoline, the ethanol is actually only about 25% less efficient. But I am giving the benefit of the doubt and going with 20%. Good luck. Later... Mike....

 

The efficiency of producing energy (work) from fuel is in the mechanics of the engine and of the tune. Ethanol has less stored energy than gasoline and requires a different air/fuel ratio to burn properly. These engines are getting the same percentage of energy from the fuel, the only problem is, there's less energy available, so more of it has to be burned to make the same (or more) power. Come back when there are engines designed to use ethanol efficiently and we'll see where we are then in terms of fuel economy/cost, and environmental impact. There's no question that flex fuel vehicles are a compromise all the way around.

 

http://e85vehicles.com/e85/index.php


Try going to that site and telling everyone there that they are losing power, wasting fuel, wasting money, losing milage, etc., etc. I know its not it neutral site, but at least the people there have actually ran the fuel and are not just going by what they heard from the news and what they read on internet message boards.

 

Why don't YOU try doing a search on Christcorp's recent posts. He IS talking from his own experience. He DID experience a drop of approx 20% in mileage and when you do the math, a fifty cent savings per gallon at the pump doesn't cover the loss in efficiency.

Also, if you look in the 'You Guys Don't Get It' thread, you'll see WhiteShadow also posted similar results. Yet for some reason, he's tickled pink to be spending more to get to his destinations.

Ethanol is a scam foisted upon the American people that at best will not pan out to work in the long run, at worst, it will cripple this country.


Seriously Cole, do an indepth analysis to see if you are really saving any money overall. You need to calculate the cost for you to go 1000 miles for the two fuels to know if your saving money. Price at the pump is only part of the story.

 

If E85 came out after all of the mpg drop, a couple of dollars more expensive, I would use it in a heartbeat, because Ethanol is produced by corn grown from AMERICAN farmers, converted in AMERICAN plants, so more money goes into AMERICAN pockets.

 

I have put up to 25% ethanol in my car and when I did that I noticed no difference in milage People on that forum are using E85, some with less than a 10% drop in milage. Nearly all with less than a 20% drop There could would be very little to no difference in milage if people would build more engines optimized for E85.(I realize that is not practical until more stations come online, however.)

And by the way, How could you lose 10% of your milage when the fuel is only 10% ethanol. That would mean the ethanol had NO energy. Either that or something is wrong with the car to not adjust correctly.

I also agree that the money for ethanol is going to a much better place than the money we spend on gas/oil.

 

There are a lot of debate going on about ethanol vs gasoline and efficiency. Let me just say this 1 way. A vehicle made for gasoline is potentially the most efficient when using gasoline. A vehicle made for ethanol is most efficient when using ethanol. Flex fuel vehicles or fuels that try and "MIX" 2 different fuels to find a compromise, are the least efficient of all forms.

So, if people are going to go with ethanol, then go 100%. Forget this FLEX and compromise crap. At least I could then respect the position. I wouldn't agree with it, but I would respect it. There is no reason in the world to have E10 and E85 fuel. The only reason for such a compromise is for political reasons. The reason for E10 mandates in the first place is because companies like Archer Daniels Midland have lobbied the politicians to force it on the consumer so that they can make more money. It's not the government doing it because it's the right thing to do. It's the politically correct thing to do to the voters, and financially correct thing to do for the lobbiests.

When Henry Ford started producing the automobile, as well as accounts in Europe and their car crusade, grain alcohol is what was used as fuel. Obviously they didn't have a major need for pretroleum being the combustion engine was just being invented. So, the question begs to be asked; If you already have a fuel source that you are familiar with. That's you've been distilling for hundreds of years. That you know what it's capabile of doing. Why in the world would you change from using it to using gasoline? Why not improve on the engine that is newer and still being developed instead of changing the fuel source? And why now, would we be going "BACKWARDS" in technology back to a fuel source that was originally used. It was obviously easier for Ford and the other people working on the combustion engine to "MAKE" grain alcohol (Ethanol) then it was to drill and refine pertroleum. Even if the use of petroleum for other uses was becoming the norm, if using grain alcohol was better, cheaper, more efficient, and so on, why would you leave it?

No. You really have to look at ethanol beyond an emotional state. The whole; "It supports the USA and farmer" is admirable, albeit VERY MISGUIDED. Very little money goes to supporting the local farmer. You think it does, but it doesn't. And the majority of that money is in subsidies from the tax payer.

It isn't possible to grow enough corn, beet, cane, switch, etc... to produce the amount of ethanol required to support our needs. Our country doesn't have that much land or water to do it. Ethanol is not the right answer. It's not even the right direction. It's not even a band-aid until something better comes along. If all those subsidies were given instead to ALL the universities in the country, to be used towards developing alternative sources of energy, we would have much better returns on our investments. Unfortunately, the American tax payer and the Universities aren't the lobbiests that get the government's attention. Anyway, feel good and be happy. Later.... Mike.....

P.S. The question was asked; " And by the way, How could you lose 10% of your milage when the fuel is only 10% ethanol. That would mean the ethanol had NO energy. Either that or something is wrong with the car to not adjust correctly." My answer is; take a gallon of 87 gasoline, make 20% of it WATER. Then, run it in your car and see what happens. If you think it will be exactly 20% less gas mileage, then go for it. As I wrote above. 100% ethanol in an engine designed for it, is one thing. 100% gasoline in an engine designed for it, is also one thing. Flex-fuels and mixing ethanol into gasoline engines is something different.

 

I definitely agree with you there, but it doesn't have to be optimized for 100% ethanol. Even optimized for E85 would make a substantial difference. Plus, E100 would suffer terribly in cold starts in cold weather. The 15% gasoline aids in cold-weather performance and general driveability.

That's a terrible comparison, because water is not combustible. Ethanol burns! From an engineering and thermodynamic standpoint, I have to side with the person who asked the question to start with.

 

You are correct; water is not combustable. Until turned to steam. By the previous poster was making the point, in a round about way, that if the fuel was ONLY 10% ethanol, that it is impossible for the MPG to be reduced past 10%. If so, then that meant that the ethanol had no efficiency. My point was that as individual components, chemicals react a certain way. When combined, they can react totally different. No different than adding equal parts of hydrogen and oxygen and coming out with hydrogenPeroxide. Add twice as much oxygen, and you get water. Yet hydrogen can be used as a fuel, so how if water isn't combustable.

Point being, 10% ethanol in gasoline CAN reduce the efficiency MORE than 10%. Later... Mike....

 

Last I checked, steam was just as non-combustible as water. Ethanol contains approximately 70% the amount of energy as gasoline, so from a pure efficiency standpoint (energy out/energy in) it is impossible to lose more than 10% efficiency with a 10% ethanol/90% gasoline mixture (E10 has 97% of the energy of 100% gasoline). As far as gas mileage is concerned, that depends on the individual engine and tune.

I worked as engine team leader for a Formula SAE student race team for the past three years, last year switching to E85. Raw fuel economy was 16% less with E85 when compared to 100 octane gasoline. Same turbo, same engine, same compression ratio, 13 more foot-pounds and a couple more horsepower than with 100 octane.

Unless driving style changes, I don't see how 3% less energy can cause more than a 10% change in miles per gallon, especially since the engine itself is getting the same percentage of energy out of the fuel as it did with straight gasoline.

 

sorry about the "Steam" combustable statement. I meant to imply that water could not produce the energy similar to gasoline, in the sense of moving pistons, until it was converted to steam. You are totally correct that it's not combustable. Same with components of hydrogen and oxygen, but as H2O (Water) it isn't combustable. Later... Mike....