e85 lq9 Z

[150plusZ]

hello everybody i was just wondering what i would need to convert my lq9 6.0 litre chevy to run on e85. ive heard that running on ethanol does not hurt the engine but it also says that i need a converter kit? the engine is out of a 2006 Vortecmax pickup

[mobythevan]

I am running my 5.3 on e85, but I installed larger injectors and have a standalone ECU so I coul program it for the ~33% increase in fuel.

[Bigdeezs]

I thought that you needed special rubber seals throughout the fuel system that could hold up to the E85. Like it is more corrosive or something?

[smokeybear]

i know that some people are having fuel pump problems on some of the GM cars that run e85 and have heard it does corrodes them.

[onephatz]

the fuel, e85, does not corrode anything any more than gasoline does. the problem with e85 is that it absorbs alot more water than gasoline does. fuel lines made of carbon steel will can be corroded much faster than regular gasonline because of the water content. that's why most e-85 cars/trucks run stainless steel fuel lines. that is the ONLY corrosion related reason. as far as the rubber is concerned, yes e-85 will swell natural rubber but most if not all rubber put into cars today is ethanol compatable. would a car that is capable of running 10% ethanol be compatible with fuel that is 85% ethanol? yes stricktly speaking, but the comptuer does not have the ability to adjust the fuel enough to compensate for the change in required afr.

[Crash]

E85 is a summer blend fuel. If you run it and tune for it, you'll have to retune during the cold seasons. There's issues starting a cold motor with E85 so they change the mix to E75 when it gets cold. Since the 80s most fuel lines have no problem handling the E85. Since the early 90's, they'd been talking about increasing the 10% to 20% in normal gasoline, so if your lines are from the 90's, you'll be fine. The biggest issue is how much you drive your car. If you daily drive your car and drive a lot, E85 is fine with or without the water issue. However, if E85 sits a while in your tank, it will collect too much water.

 

That being said, E85 is not for garage whores.

[mobythevan]

I have problems starting my car when the temps get below 5 degrees F.

[WizardBlack]

Saying that a car is fully compatible with E85 without knowing the specific vehicle and what it was swapped into is dangerous. There ARE cars that have failures from regular gasoline with high ethanol content for winter blends; let alone E85. Particularly some domestic vehicles. Some injectors are still made with pathetic seals such that they will get ate out by even winterized blends from some fuel vendors such as BP.

[cannonball55]

E85 needs to be handle like alcohol (which it mainly is). Drag racers for years have known of the corrosive effects of alcohol (why they run gas thru their systems after a day of racing). E85 = junk imo. Yeah you pay less for it but it eats up your system and it makes less energy (less mpg). I say let the tree huggers pump that stuff in their vehicles all they want but i'll pay $5+ a gallon for race gas before I put that crap in my cars. I prefer my alcohol poured slow over ice with a splash of coke.

[mobythevan]

That must be why alcohol never caught on in racing

[jt1]

E85 needs to be handle like alcohol (which it mainly is). Drag racers for years have known of the corrosive effects of alcohol (why they run gas thru their systems after a day of racing).

 

Bah. Drag racers and sprint cars run methanol, which is pretty corrosive. Ethanol, the stuff in E85, is far less corrosive, not even in the same league as methanol. Both are alcohols, but there is a lot of difference.

 

jt

[JustinOlson]

E85 in general won't give you much issue on a modern car's fuel system besides maxing out its capacity. E85 is the best thing to happen to hot rods on the street in a long time IMO. Turbocharged engines really shine on it

[Crash]

That must be why alcohol never caught on in racing

Top Fuel cars run Alcohol.

 

E85 has better potential of making more power as well as it burns cooler. But it still has too many problems. On basic tune in the summer, E85 will make 5% more HP than 91-93 Pump Gas. The E85 has a longer burn time than gasoline as well allowing the piston travel to be pushed longer during combustion providing more torque. The compression can be raised (on some applications as high as 14:1) because the Octane rating for E85 is 105 (106 in some areas) and thus making more power. If tuned and the heads are setup for E85 only, the car can make 15% more power.

 

Again, I still don't think E85 is a good answer for anything other than drag racing, though.

 

(Sorry if something didn't make sense. I've had a bit to drink.)

[mobythevan]

Anyone that would run race gas on the street if it was legal will want to run E85. You will be able to run as much boost and more timing with E85 than race gas. You will make more power. If you think that is only worth it on the track then I'll just scratch my head and agree to disagree with you.

[Crash]

Technically, because you make more power with E85, the MPG difference is actually not quite much when properly tuned. More power means less throttle from stop'n'go scenarios. As well, the engine works less to achieve the same goal while cruising at freeway speeds to defeat friction/drag. Therefore, again, less gas usage. Recent tests for E85 have shown that in comparison with the 25%-30% drop in MPG before with E85, a properly tuned car will only see a 4%-5% drop in MPG.... In other words, instead of 21MPG, you may see 20MPG. That alone will show that you do save money with E85 and the distance you get to the tank is going to be no more than 20 miles less...

 

With a 20 gallon tank you'd see:

91 Octane (20x21) 420 Miles to the tank at a cost of ($2.40 x 20) $48.00

E85 (20x20) 400 Miles to the tank at a cost of ($2.06 x 20gal) $41.20

 

Savings: $6.80 (On average, E85 costs 14% less than normal pump gas)

 

Comparatively speaking, that's close enough that you likely wouldn't care about that extra 20 miles when you've saved nearly the cost of 3 gallons of 91.

 

As an example of proper E85 tuning, see the Ford Flex.

 

Gas/E85 pricing: http://e85prices.com/california.html

[TimZ]

E85 is a summer blend fuel. If you run it and tune for it, you'll have to retune during the cold seasons. There's issues starting a cold motor with E85 so they change the mix to E75 when it gets cold. Since the 80s most fuel lines have no problem handling the E85. Since the early 90's, they'd been talking about increasing the 10% to 20% in normal gasoline, so if your lines are from the 90's, you'll be fine. The biggest issue is how much you drive your car. If you daily drive your car and drive a lot, E85 is fine with or without the water issue. However, if E85 sits a while in your tank, it will collect too much water.

 

That being said, E85 is not for garage whores.

 

E85 goes all the way down to E70 in the winter for the reasons stated. (Regular gas gets different mixes for winter too, btw). The stoichiometric point goes from 9.8 to 10.7 - so if you've tuned for the summer blend, you'll be ~10% rich, which isn't a huge disaster.

 

I've not been hearing of people having a whole lot of problems with E85 when stored over the winter, or doing anything special before putting the car away for the winter - I think if you have a sealed tank its not that big of a deal. I guess I'll find out shortly.

[TimZ]

E85 needs to be handle like alcohol (which it mainly is). Drag racers for years have known of the corrosive effects of alcohol (why they run gas thru their systems after a day of racing). E85 = junk imo. Yeah you pay less for it but it eats up your system and it makes less energy (less mpg). I say let the tree huggers pump that stuff in their vehicles all they want but i'll pay $5+ a gallon for race gas before I put that crap in my cars. I prefer my alcohol poured slow over ice with a splash of coke.

 

It continually amazes me as to how much superstition exists out there about E85, and how "evil" some think it is. The main race fuel available here is Turbo Blue, which is leaded and currently costs $6.58/gal.

I've tried this stuff before, and it totally crapped up my combustion chambers and plugs with lead deposits. Let's see - less power, higher EGTs, combustion chamber deposits, can't run a wideband (or any O2 sensor for that matter) any length of time, and it costs more than three times as much. No thank you - I'll stick with the "tree hugging" E85.

 

BTW - I've been meaning to post this up - here are some pics of my exhaust manifold, turbine housing and turbine impeller after a full summer of E85 and several 600+ hp dyno pulls (yes, that is clean, bare cast iron on the inside of the turbine housing):

 

[WizardBlack]

If tuned and the heads are setup for E85 only, the car can make 15% more power.

 

Again, I still don't think E85 is a good answer for anything other than drag racing, though.

 

You're stuck in the world of Normal Aspiration, my friend. Turbo guys see a jump from 93 octane to ~105 as a big, big boost increase. Way more than 15% for sure.

Likewise, leaded race fuel will eat wideband oxygen sensors; which is not good for those who drive their car a lot.

Leaded race fuel is getting harder and harder to acquire (in fresh condition) in many places.

[Crash]

I totally agree. But I was just looking at it from a conversion point of view. LQ9's are generally N/A motors. But you're absolutely right that FI applications see much more HP gains.

[TimZ]

I'm still confused as to the reasoning behind saying that E85 is only good for drag racing - is this just based on availability?

 

Back to the original question - As far as the engine conversion goes, it would help to know what you are using for fuel delivery (Carb? EFI? Progammable?)

 

Then on the vehicle side, you will want to go through the fuel system and replace any ancient hoses that might be in there with Ethanol-compatible equivalents - NAPA sells compatible fuel hose, and if you want something fancier, Jegs is pretty good about calling out what is compatible and what is not. Make sure that there are no brass components in the system - replace with either anodized aluminum or stainless. I've seen some say that they have not had problems with aluminum bits, but I took my aluminum fuel lines and fuel rail to a local anodizing shop and had them anodozed.

 

Finally, it would be a good idea to pull your fuel tank and have it cleaned and internally coated with an alcohol-resistant coating (I used Red-Kote as I recall). On cars this old, there will almost certainly be a fair amount of lacquer - like coating on the inside of the tank, which the ethanol will dislodge and either clog your fuel filter or your pump - this seems to account for most of the "Ethanol killed my fuel pump" stories. Also some tanks (and I have no idea as to whether this is the case for the Z) have a "Terne coating" as a corrosion inhibitor, which gets leached away by the ethanol - this is why I recommended using the internal coating.