silicone boy Posted September 5, 2006 Share Posted September 5, 2006 A few months ago, I decided I wanted to try and convert my Acura MDX into a flexfuel/ethanol vehicle. Then someone suggested that I just mix E85 50/50 with gasoline. It's been running great. The only side effect is that the "check engine" light comes on, presumably because the O2 sensor is sniffing too little smog. It goes right back when I use regular unleaded. The benefit? It's $1.99 a gallon. I know that may be a subsidized price because it never fluctuates. Hey, I'll take it. To add to the savings, I buy the lowest grade unleaded because I'm mixing it with a higher octane fuel. It feels great to stick it to OPEC and big oil, and besides, it burns a lot cleaner. Afraid of somehow ruining your motor? Remember, I'm doing this in a $45,000 SUV, so I don't take that lightly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tannji Posted September 5, 2006 Share Posted September 5, 2006 did you just mix and go, or was there some adjustment to the engine/ECU required? tannji Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cygnusx1 Posted September 5, 2006 Share Posted September 5, 2006 ...and where can I buy ethanol? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wheelman Posted September 5, 2006 Share Posted September 5, 2006 I've looked into doing this to my Z using Megasquirt but the only source of E85 in my local area is a commercial station I don't have access to. The fuel/air ratio is supposed to be quite a bit higher with E85 (on the order of 50% more fuel with straight E85) but if you're not encountering problems then the ECM must be compensating. Maybe thats why the check engine light is coming on. Cygnusx1, Do a google search for FlexFuel and you'll eventually run across a site that llists all stations selling E85. My guess is there are several in New York so you should be able to get it. Wheelman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
auxilary Posted September 5, 2006 Share Posted September 5, 2006 maybe your CEL is coming on because your motor's pinging... you should get a code readout and find out exactly what it's doing. if something goes wrong, you take it to honda, they do a code check, tell you that you're using an unsupported fuel, and void your warranty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redruM_0381 Posted September 5, 2006 Share Posted September 5, 2006 Doesnt ethanol break down orings and other seals in a NON-flex vehicle? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sumo Posted September 5, 2006 Share Posted September 5, 2006 You might wanna be careful putting that much ethanol in a non flex fuel vehicle. The only thing that ethanol mixes really well with is water, it's also corrosive and not to mention your fuel economy might suffer. We have an E85 station here too but the price is almost neglible compared to regular gas. I'm with you too by sticking it to the big oil companies but your car is slowly being eaten by the ethanol even with the 50% gasoline mix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silicone boy Posted September 5, 2006 Author Share Posted September 5, 2006 You might wanna be careful putting that much ethanol in a non flex fuel vehicle. The only thing that ethanol mixes really well with is water' date=' it's also corrosive and not to mention your fuel economy might suffer. We have an E85 station here too but the price is almost neglible compared to regular gas. I'm with you too by sticking it to the big oil companies but your car is slowly being eaten by the ethanol even with the 50% gasoline mix.[/quote'] True, ethanol was a problem in the 80's with rubber fuel lines and O-rings, but since then, fuel tanks are coated so corrosion here is not a problem. O-rings are made of viton and stock fuel lines are generaly corrosion resistant metal. I'm having no pinging (not likely to because of the higher octane). It's true that the stoichiometric ratio with pure ethanol is more like 10:1 and I'm outside that ratio. I guess the reason I've been OK is that I'm mixing it 50/50 (I'm not making any changes to the air fuel mixture). The latest edition of Megasquirt does support flexfuel, and now that I'm out of my warranty period, I may consider changing the ECU. Overall, I'm happy with the result and I haven't seen any negatives thus far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrFancypants Posted September 5, 2006 Share Posted September 5, 2006 I'm happy with the result and I haven't seen any negatives thus far. Have you measured your fuel mileage yet? Cost per mile is higher on E85 than regular gasoline. Even though it's cheaper per gallon, your mileage will suffer and completely negate the savings. - Greg - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pop N Wood Posted September 6, 2006 Share Posted September 6, 2006 Did you ever stop to consider that driving a Prius would do more to "big oil" than anything you could put in an SUV? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truckin Posted September 6, 2006 Share Posted September 6, 2006 guys e85 is not the answer, the production cost of e85 is just as high as regular fossil fuels. the only reason that the e85 is able to compet in todays market is becuase the federal exsize tax it not included. in the trucking industry they are claming that the bio-fuel is better and the alternative to regular desiel fuel. however they rushed the product to market and didnt do any research on it before hand and now we have clogged fuel filters injector problems and gelling in cold weather and very poor fuel milage. the true problem is the market speculators and the envirometalist not allowing big oil to go get more sources of oil and to have the ability to refine it (this is almost breaking a site rule on politics) to much of this issue is being used as a politacal football and not enough action is being taken to resolve the problem i need a spell check function so i would causin u agains using e85 just yet or converting you ride to use e85 until the market settles down whats goin to happen in 6months when e85 is not available and the price shoots to 4$ a gallon/ this is just speculation but i would wait Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sumo Posted September 6, 2006 Share Posted September 6, 2006 The only thing i dont like about ethanol in general is because when you buy it you are still buying it from "the man". To be specific Archer Daniels Midland supermarket to the world. They are the ones who lobbied to use corn syrup to sweeten our sodas and are doing the same thing for ethanol. If it just went straight to help farmers, the little guy, i have no problems using it. But i agree with truckin, it's not the solution, just an alternative. And before this gets into a political discussion, i read that the flex fuel vehicles use a larger capacity fuel injector than the gasoline counterparts. Do you think that you would have to change that when you try out Megasquirt, or do you think MS can compensate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wheelman Posted September 6, 2006 Share Posted September 6, 2006 Depending on the fuel requirements of your vehicle and the capacity of it's stock injectors Megasquirt would be able to compensate. When I checked into using Megasquirt on my Z to get FlexFuel capabities I found that the ECU would increase the injector duty-cycle by 54% assuming pure E85 was in the tank. So if your injectors can flow enough fuel to meet the demands with an increase of 54% then they would be fine otherwise you'd have to increase their size. BTW: Megasquirt can use the output of a fuel-oxygen sensor to adjust the duty cycle to compensate for unknown ethanol content. This allows the user to add ethanol (E85) or gasoline to the tank without having to run it dry and/or guess at the mixture percentages. Wheelman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Scott Posted September 6, 2006 Share Posted September 6, 2006 Silicone boy, Have you measured mpgs? I'm gussing with a 50% mix, precdicting a milage drop of 15-17 % over gasoline. Price-wise I bet its about a wash. I admire your willingness to experiment! AFRs to compare: Gasoline stoich 14.7 Gasoline Max power rich 12.5 Gasoline Max power lean 13.23 E85 stoich 9.765 E85 Max power rich 6.975 E85 Max power lean 8.4687 E100 stoich 9.0078 E100 Max power rich 6.429 E100 Max power lean 7.8 I was looking at converting, at least for the performance reasons, obviously the price will be no saving when figuring the milage loss. Nothing is going to replace our thirst for fossil fuels, but a dent here or there with some bio fuels won't hurt. I have questions about aluminum lines, need alcohol specifc carb, fuel pump and regulator, and probably fuel cell. What would happen to the inside of a 35 year old tank? Some excerpts from other sites discussing E85: "Fuel injector, carburator jet sizing and fuel pump requirments, can be estimated by using the following rules of thumb as a starting point. For a Naturally Aspirated (NA) engine (carburated) on gasoline most need a Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (BSFC) of 0.50 lbs of gasoline/hp/hour. On E85 the same NA engine would need a BSFC of about 0.65 lb/hp/hr. Turbocharged engines typically need BSFC fueling of about 0.60 lb/hp/hr, a reasonable first guess for fueling required on E85 would be 0.77 lb/hp/hr. For a simple conversion to replace gasoline with E85 take the current "flywheel hp" as a reference point. With E85, power should increase by about 5%, so the estimated E85 fueling would be: (BHPgasoline x 1.05) x BSFCe85 = Estimated E85 fuel requirements (Taken from another site) Pros: 1) The price per mile is much cheaper compared to c12/c16. If you lose a conservative 30% gas mileage, the price versus c12 is $8/gallon versus Denver's $2 a gallon or Springs' $3 a gallon, then you are getting a significant improvement in price per mile. I.E., 30% decrease in gas mileage, 75% decrease in price. If E85 can indeed handle the same power as c16, then you're looking at $2/$3 per gallon versus $16 a gallon. That's huge! I'm not sure of the power limit of E85 versus c12/c16 on a single setup, but I suspect it to be able to handle at least what c12 can (simply because even though its lower octane, its much cooler). I will test this on my car. 2) You will make more power with proper tuning. 8% has been proven 3) It will clean your engine compared to straight gasoline. It appears that e85, at worst, is not any worse than straight gasoline on the poloticial/environmental field. Regardless of the issue that it may not help global warming or dependency on oil in a big way, it helps us performance guys in a big way. At minimum, its an excellent, cost-effective alternative to race gas. ...and it appears that its not going away any time soon. " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silicone boy Posted September 6, 2006 Author Share Posted September 6, 2006 Wheelman I didn't know that about Megasquirt. So I don't need the $600 fuel composition sensor? That's sweet. John I notice about 2 mpg difference in fuel mileage. Most say there is a power increase, but it's not significant. You are right. It's probably a wash. I like it as a higher octane fuel, and as a little trick that you can do to get your car to pass the smog test at the DMV (I don't see anywhere in the regs that you can't burn an alternative fuel during the test. As far as overall cost and energy efficieny of E85, I would remind everyone that it takes an awful lot of energy to distill a barrel of oil, just like it takes energy to distill ethanol. True, we would be paying ADM for the fuel with large scale production. Then again, when it becomes a more popular fuel, production costs should drop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wheelman Posted September 6, 2006 Share Posted September 6, 2006 Silicon Boy, I think what I refered to as the fuel-oxygen sensor is the same thing you called a fuel composition sensor. They use the oxygen level in the fuel stream to determine the ethanol/gasoline mixture level. It's possible to get them for less than $600.00 but you gotta do some looking. Remember back in the mid 90s when gasohol was first offered? It had an ethanol content of about 15%. I had a Ford pickup at the time with a 302 in it I'd built for drag racing. The car I was going to put it in was totalled one night when I was rear ended on the way home from work. Anyway I ran gasohol in the truck and for about 6 months it ran great and loved the higher octane, plus it was jetted to rich on just gas. After the 6 months or so the alcohol had eaten the fuel lines, corroded the tank, ruined the o-rings in the carb and the diaphram in the pump. I didn't know better at the time or I wouldn't have used the gasohol. If you run E85 make sure all the fuel system is rated for it otherwise you'll eventually have problems. Wheelman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
defrag010 Posted September 6, 2006 Share Posted September 6, 2006 Just a fyi.. the unleaded gas you buy at the pump right now is already a 10% ethanol blend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silicone boy Posted September 6, 2006 Author Share Posted September 6, 2006 Just a fyi.. the unleaded gas you buy at the pump right now is already a 10% ethanol blend. As I said, the fuel system components of all modern cars are ethanol compatible. Here in Colorado, we've been using a 10% ethanol mix since the 1970's and we are used to it. I'm surprised when I get on other forums of the fear that ethanol brings to the hearts of car owners in other parts of the country where E10 is being introduced for air pollution reasons, when it's very possible they've already been burning it for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrFancypants Posted September 6, 2006 Share Posted September 6, 2006 Just a fyi.. the unleaded gas you buy at the pump right now is already a 10% ethanol blend. Only Oct-Mar. Ever notice your gas mileage sucks in the winter? Thats part of the reason. Ethanol blends benefit midwest farmers, not your pocketbook or the environment. It's a giant government subsidy, nothing more. MTBE is great for pollution. But then they figured out that the production of the MTBE additive was horrendously harmful to the environment, even though burning MTBE-blends produced less pollution (and more power) than regular gasoline. - Greg - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forrest Posted September 6, 2006 Share Posted September 6, 2006 If you guys want to "stick it to the man" by buying less gas, just ride a motorcycle. 55mpg in town on my 600cc cruiser, and a friend of mine gets 85mpg on his 250cc. Just don't get run over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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