I have a 2002 f-150 5.4L with a superchips tuner in it, and also have a 1999 ranger with a 2.5L 5 speed, what are your guys's thoughts on useing e85 in these vehicles

 

just a thought too....if e85 has a higher octane rating 103-108ish.....then i should be able to put my tuner to the premium setting and it would compensate right?

 

the trucks do not have a dual tune in the pcm. you are lacking a sensor in the gas tank that reads the alcohol content of the gas. E85 has a different fuel to air mixture ratio then just regular gas does. I wouldnt put it in there if I were you. now if you had a custom tune for just E85 then yeah have fun but you will see a drop in mileage.

 

^ Good point from Duece.

Also, you have to make sure the fuel system components can handle the alcohol. Some seals and plastics deteriorate when exposed to E85.

 

ethanol wont eat plastic and seals or at the very worst very slowly. That methanol that will eat everything in a hurry. I have a 01 camaro SS that I converted to run on e85 and have had no issues with it. I run it only in the summer thou because the ethanol doesnt like to run in the cold mornings on start up. I liked it in the car cause i dont have any pinging in the hottest of days plus my car liked it due too the 11:1 compression. but i have a dedicated pcm to run on e85.

 

E85 does ruin certain plastics, rubbers, and metals. Vehicles made after 1995 are designed to accept E10, but generally not anything higher than 20% ethanol. Using E85 in a non-flex fuel vehicle will void the warranty and almost certainly result in decreased vehicle life.

(Unless it is converted by replacing the seals and gaskets in the fuel system, among other things.)

 

Ben, you'll want a richer mixture to get best results. Can your chip do that ? Is your fuel system able to provide as much volume as the computer might ask for ? You don't want to unintentionally go lean....thats when you hurt stuff. Remember you experiment at your own risk, but I wouldn't worry about the 'almost certainly reduce engine life' bit, thats only a myth. DF, on work's old 'puter

 

I've soaked rubber seals, aluminum, steel, stainless in E85 for several months and did not see any corrosion or degradation of parts.

An interesting tidbit on the air/fuel ratio: while the physical air fuel ratio changes when running E85, the percent rich or lean of the mixture itself needs to be the same. The difference is that the stoichiometric ratios are different - E85 does not need to run any richer than straight gasoline, simply by percent rich or percent lean. However, for the same amount of inlet air, more mass of fuel is required to meet that stoichiometric ratio (or desired ratio if not stoich.). Simply running E85 in an EFI system calibrated for gasoline will result in a lean E85 fuel mixture ... about 30% lean without any O2 feedback correction.

From a guy I work with who used to work at Ford in engine development, he said that at teardown after endurance dyno tests, E85 engines had some nasty build-up on the internals from the fuel residue. I don't know that this would be a problem with synthetic oils and proper service intervals, though.

 

Basically accurate, ethanol is corrosive whereas gasoline is oily and bears some lubricants. But it is worthy of note that vehicles after the date(which differs depending on your source) are designed to run 10% max ethanol/gasoline mixture. Anything else will void warranties or require some modifications or require a custom ECU tune.

I've heard of cases where people ran up to 20% without getting check engine lights. And in some cases people ran E85 in their stock vehicles. Results vary and is not recommended by any professional organization including E85 supporters. The only people I've seen recommend it were those who were selling E85 conversion kits.

 

thanks guys, i was just kicking the idea around, i'll stick with good ol' gasoline

 

Ben, I would experiment if I were you. If, that is, you have something else to drive if you break something. 62_ is correct in that your warranty will be voided, but mistaken in the notion that 'vehicle life will almost certainly be decreased'. That just isn't so- E85, in and of itself, isn't going to hurt anything. Allch says that ethanol is corrosive, and that really isn't the case. I suppose that you could get a chemist to explain how ethanol is a very weak acid, but it is weak enough that it doesn't hurt anything. I have soaked an aluminum piston, a connecting rod, and some bolts and bearing inserts in E85 for more than 6 months, and you know what happened to them ? Not a damn thing. Another fellow on this board soaked a 600cfm Holley carb, no damage. Water contamination can damage things, but gasoline is just as likely to have that problem as ethanol. More so actually, gasoline will not suspend water in the mix like ethanol can. Another alcohol, methanol, IS corrosive, not everyone understands the differance.
Any gasoline engine can be made to work on E85, it is just a question of how much the fuel trim has to change. It worked just fine in my lawn mower without any changes. I have also run it in our '91 buick regal, 3.8 fuel injected. And in a '90 thunderbird, also 3.8 fuel injected. The fuel injected engines will try to adjust the fuel mix to compensate, and at anything under 3/4 throttle, they should be fine. My cars didn't seem to notice the differance. But if you were to try to run full power on E85, the gasoline size injectors might not be able to squirt enough. If you raise the fuel pressure, however, the standard injectors will be squirting more fuel for the same length of pulse.
It is interesting that none of the OEMs suggest such experimentation....could it be because they would rather you purchase a new vehile that they wish to sell you ? I see nothing wrong with trying some out, but realize that you proceed at your own risk. But if you search out some E85 message boards, you will find plenty of guys have already figured most of this stuff out. DinosaurFan, on work's old 'puter

 

You're right, Dino. I should have said the vehicle life could decrease unless modifications are done. I apologize for exaggerating.

Unfortunately, I have to disagree with your statement that E85 isn't going cause damage. It can cause damage indirectly through combustion and directly on certain materials.

You correctly mentioned that water contamination can cause damage. However, this contamination is worse with E85 because it produces formic acid when combusted. By the time this will be noticeable, it will be too late, and the engine will require a complete overhaul. It may be a rare occurence, but why take that chance and run it without taking the proper precautions?

Also, if the stock injectors do not flow enough, the engine will run too lean. Obviously a constant lean condition is not good for the engine. Again, one is taking a risk by using E85 without modifications.

 

From engine tuning I did in college, E85 requires about 30% more fuel flow over straight gasoline to achieve similar lambda or equivalence ratios.

 

Doesnt E85 run with a different AFR than regular gas? So why would you want to increase the E85 flow to match the AFR of regular gas?

 

Stoich ratio of gasoline is approximately 14:1, while E85 stoich. ratio is around 9.5:1. This is parts air to parts fuel, meaning there's more air for one unit of gasoline than the amount of air to burn one unit of E85. Using lambda or equivalence ratio references the stoichiometric ratio independent of fuel being burned, which makes tuning slightly easier since the target equivalence ratio or lambda value will be the same, even though the actual air/fuel ratios are indeed different between the two fuels.

A reading of 1 lambda would indicate the 14:1 a:f ratio if burning gasoline, while the same lambda reading of 1 would indicate the 9.5:1 a:f ratio if burning E85. If you have an engine that ingests 14 parts of air (doesn't matter what fuel), you'll need one part gasoline or around 1.4 parts of E85. That's 140% of the gasoline fuel flow, or 40% above the flow required for gasoline, using the air:fuel ratios I listed. In practice the ratios aren't exactly the numbers I used above, so in practice it usually took at least 30% more fuel to reach the stoich ratio of E85 when using the same injectors and fuel pressure and simply changing fuel.