Just traded 04 to 08 supercrew w/5.4 and 353's , I see this one is rated for ethenol. Friend of mine tried it and said it lowered his milage and had less power , might be wrong but he said about .80 cheaper to buy at a Walmart store . Just wondered if it would be worth a try.

 

Ethanol is about 20% less efficient. So you will less power and miles.

 

Less gas mileage, less get up, more frequent oil changes.

 

Less MPG is true...Less power is absolutely FALSE!!!

Less power per unit volume means it has to burn more fuel to produce the same power...the PCM adjusts the mixture to compensate that.

I've pulled a 9,000 lb trailer both on E85 and gasoline...and there is really very little difference. If anything, more power is possible with E85 because it has higher octane, thus you can advance the spark timing and produce more power....

 

There is no more then 10% ethanol in almost all gas sold today!

 

Crazy said it.

less MPG = extremely true. can be from 1-5 less mpg depending if you run 10% or E-85. ethanol has a lower energy content than gasoline...so more must be burned to make same power

less HP = false. the ethanol actually can make more power...but you'll use more...and have less MPG...wicked circle
then what do you call E-85?

 

The interesting thing, the University of Minnesota has done studies and found that a blend of 25-30% ethanol will give equal, if not better fuel mileage than regular gasoline.
There's alot of potential with ethanol, and as the years pass improvements will continually be made, as huge strides have been made already.

If you don't mind burning E-85, do some figuring and find out what your mileage drop is, if any, and compare to the cost of fuel and see if you'll save money, loose money, or break even running E-85 vs. regular.

I like to burn ethanol because I grow it!

 

Some drag racers are using E-85 because its great with power adder type engines where higher octane is needed to solve the detonation problem. Regular gas is 10% ethanol, and E85 is 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. Our Ethanol is made from Corn, and doesn't have as much energy per volume as Gasoline. In Brazil, where they sell Ethanol and most of their cars are flex fuel cars that are made by Ford and GM. The only good thing about Brazil's ethanol is that is it made from Sugar Cane and contains more energy per volume than Corn Ethanol (i guess the molecular structure is different). Brazil is of the the larger nations that doesn't import oil and has enough Ethanol for fuel for their population.

 

I've never seen any study of integrity that said ethanol gave as much fuel mileage as 100% gasoline. I just discussed this with an expert who currently works for the biofuels industry and formerly worked for EXXON for 13 years. He is a big fan of ethanol but admits it is less efficient than gasoline.

 

Please provide a link or reference to these studies. Running 10% I loose 2mpg, Running E85 I loose 5mpg.

 

I loose the same, the question is what can we do about it? I used to get 16mpg now since the gas station added the 10% ethanol sticker I get 14mpg.

 

Years back, the used an additive called MTBE instead of Ethanol. The drawback was it was poisoning out water supply. Ethanol does burn cleaner and gives out less harmfull emmisions. To produce corn ethanol, you need to burn 1 gallon of fossil fuel to make 1.3 gallons of Ethanol from corn.

 

please provide reference.


my real life experience shows 1-2 mpg loss with 10%, and the E85 is just worthless.

I will never run E85 again unless I have 0 other choices. I went from 550+ miles/tank to maybe 400 miles per tank the 3 times I used E85. And then it took about 2 tanks afterwards before my mileage went back up after flushing that crappy E85 out

 

I wonder who funded this, because it's exactly the opposite of the findings of the US government.

Let's keep biased commercial self-interests out of discussions, okay?

 

I'm going to address some ethanol myths:

- E10 blended gas is not used at most places, not even close. Ethanol production makes up about 4% of fuel in gas engines. Factor in how much is used in E85 and you'll see that most gas does not come as an E10 blend.

- Ethanol in a Ford FFV engine giving more power --- well, maybe the butt-o-meter shows this... but a dyno doesn't. Timing can increase with E85 due to its higher octane but the flex fuel tables in Ford's don't come anywhere near advancing the timing enough so you end up breaking even. If you see a power increase its likely because other factors were causing the PCM to pull back timing when running gasoline.

- In order to extract more usable energy from lower BTU fuel (such as premium gas and ethanol) two things can occur: increase timing and increase compression. Increasing timing past a certain point does nothing for additional power unless compression is increased. This is why supercharged and turbo-charged applications can gain enormous power when properly tuned for ethanol. Ford's ecoboost is basically a turbo charged engine with direct injection.

- E85 has 24.7% less energy per gallon than gas. According to the Energy Information Administration of the US government it takes 1.33 gallons of ethanol to travel the same distance as as 1 gallon of gas, assuming the same thermal efficiency of the engine.

- E10 has 3.3% less energy per gallon than gas and you can expect a corresponding decrease in mileage so don't buy E10 fuel unless it costs about 3.3% less per gallon (about 11.5 cents currently). That bargain for E10 at Walmart isn't a bargain unless you save more than 3.3%!

- Car companies aren't producing flex fuel vehicles for us, the consumers. They are doing it because it costs them very little to make while giving them much needed CAFE credits.

- Ethanol is a huge tax scam and transfer of wealth to farmers and blenders. If the government truly wanted ethanol to be viable to reduce oil use they wouldn't slap a 54 cent per gallon tariff on imported ethanol. The corn lobby and blender's lobby are pushing ethanol because of government subsidies. Subsidy is a nice way of saying the government is taking your tax dollars and giving it to someone else. The E85 at the pump isn't costing you less... you're paying for it in taxes. Every gallon of it you put in your tank only goes to further support this bad policy. Remember... these numbers don't even include state tax subsidies! Next time you see a farmer on a forum pushing ethanol it isn't because ethanol (in its current status) is good of the nation, its because its good for his wallet.

- Ethanol is ethanol. The molecule doesn't change if its made from sugar beats, corn, sugar cane, etc.... its still the same molecule: C2H5OH

- Take a close at who funded University of Minnesota ethanol study - the ethanol lobby. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

- Ethanol emissions, less? Not so! Ethanol increases ozone emissions greatly. Even a small increase in ground level ozone causes respiratory problems to skyrocket. Ethanol is supposed to reduce carbon emissions, but when you factor in the coversion of forest to crop land to displace land coverted to ethanol production, carbon emissions actually go up 93%. Guess who produced this data? David Tilman, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota, in his own study with scientists from other universities. NO2 emissions double from ethanol production due to fertilizer use. Ethanol results in increased emissions of aldehydes.

Follow the money trail folks... don't believe the hype pushed by those with an economic interest in pushing ethanol.