Thread: another e-85 question dave are you there????

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well it finally happened, we got 1st e85 station in town nobody uses it, and its not far from home. now my question is this.

what all has to be done to a bone stock 80 checy pickup with q-jet to run e85 ? ive got mosty all hard fuel lines only about 2 spots where theres rubber. off the top of the tank to the hardlines and then up front on the fuel pump. if i put braided lines or hardline where the rubber is i should be fine, what about the carb it already runs rich do i need to richen it up still? ...@ 2.59 a gallon im ready to convert!

aluminum, brass, copper, lead and, zinc are bad. Aluminum should be nickel plated. thta's right, long term aluminum manifold is bad. I would not worry about it for a street rod though. if you are paranoid, get it nickel plated.

natural rubber, polyurethane, cork, and leather are bad.

I would use stainless braided hoses with teflon cores .................

You will require 10%-30% more fuel over gasolineeither by changing your efi or bumping the jets in your carb.

And then at the end of day you will not see any significant savings. But maybe you will have saved us some from the evil oil barrens. But then the evil sugar barrens will arise and pud knock us anyway.

BTW my outfit is working on ways to more efficently process sugars for fuel.

Center for Electromechanics

kitz

well ok then, all i asked was how not a political standpoint i spend 60-75 a week in fuel im sure i would save some money.2.59 vs 3.19 hrmm well so i basically answred all my own question, hardline for fuel, and richen up the carb. sounds good to me. spend say 30 bucks in parts and free labor to save $ what can i say but...

Ya may not save any money as you will be consuming more fuel.
example...typical oval track racer might consume 5 gallons of gasoline in a race where the same race car on alcohol would require 10 gallons..
It's fairly new here in St.Louis and I know of only 1 place to get it here in our neighborhood so the juries still out. I've got a cop buddy that came in asking me about it last week and I didn't have any other answer other than what I explained above,but he is gonna try it out and let me know the results.
I'll post his results if and when he gets back to me.

That was not a politcal statement, it was a business statement.

While you were answering all your own questions you kind of missed the point that alchohol does not have as much specific energy as (per unit volume) gasoline so it takes more to use it. I'll bet it's just about a push on total cost.

After you make the change on a carbed motor you are trapped to having to use E85. Modern EFI cars that are E85 compatable actually sense when they are running E85 and auto adjust the injector commands accordingly on the fly.

Kitz

Back in my go-kart racing days we ran Methanol. Once the carb was modified to run on alky, it was way too rich to run on gasoline. It took just abut twice as much alky to run the same distance as gasoline. So what was the advantage? Alcohol runs cooler. We ran milled heads, big ports, and drastically advanced ignition timing (as compared to stock) on Briggs & Stratton engines. The engines would seize in just a few laps if we tried to run gasoline with those modifications...

I understand that E-85 will probably not save me any money, but when it becomes available in this area I want to use it. I'm all for anything that keeps my money from going to the middle east. Those assholes have enough of our money already. I have a couple of questions, though: First, what's the difference between Methanol and Ethanol? Second, would E-85 allow me to boost the compression and timing?

It would be cool if somebody (someone a lot smarter than me) could come up with an easily switchable retrofit that would allow older carbureted engines to switch back and forth between gasoline and E-85...

Methanol as I understand is made (distilled) from natural gas.
ethanol is made (distilled) from corn.

Second, would E-85 allow me to boost the compression and timing?
I'm fairly certain you could,but since it's being blended with gasoline I'm not certain of the octane rating.
It would be cool if somebody (someone a lot smarter than me) could come up with an easily switchable retrofit that would allow older carbureted engines to switch back and forth between gasoline and E-85...[/QUOTE]
Theres a company called dial-a-jet that some of the racers are using might check them out.

well pi** on it then ill just use it in the racecar

The ONLY thing "good" about non petroleum fuel is the fact that it is refined from something beside petroleum. It will never be cost effective in any mileage comparison cause pure gasoline will win every time. It's just the idea that it conserves "real" gas albeit by making corn and sugar skyrocket in price due to scarcity until they get a balance going.

Instead of old Habib in his turban standing there with his hand out it's Cooter in his Red Man cap and overalls.

The ONLY thing "good" about non petroleum fuel is the fact that it is refined from something beside petroleum. It will never be cost effective in any mileage comparison cause pure gasoline will win every time. It's just the idea that it conserves "real" gas albeit by making corn and sugar skyrocket in price due to scarcity until they get a balance going.

Instead of old Habib in his turban standing there with his hand out it's Cooter in his Red Man cap and overalls.