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My first ethanol/E85/sourmash whiskey experiment for performance.

Q

qwkswede

Old and Slow
300+ Club
Joined
Mar 19, 2003
Location
Denver, CO
I drank a little whiskey, and decided that if it works so good for me, maybe I should try it in the Volvo too.

I'm not quite as haphazard as I am about to sound. But the short story is this.

1. Add 25% fuel to the megasquirt fuel map, across the entire range.
2. Fill up the tank with E85 for $2.60 per gallon.
3. Drive and smile.

My car is running just fine on the corn fuel. It was really amazing to me that it was so easy, and just a simple richening of the maps made the car completely driveable. I think ethanol ignites nicely in a wide range of AF ratios. That probably helped the easy transition. I did allow the EGO feedback to work over a wide range of + and - 20% so that megasquirt could target the AF ratios on its own if the map wasn't spot on. But thats the only rear TRICK I did. I'm iterating through my normal VE table tuning procedure now.

Now the next step is going to be getting a proper "alcohol tune", and make some power out of the home grown fuel. If I can. I know I'm going to run out of injector flow, and maybe fuel pump flow if I get too crazy. But right now, at 15psi, I have a fair amount of room to grow. I have seen 70% duty cycle at the maximum right now.

Are there any other sour mash burners out there on the forum right now? Its fun!, I'm enjoying the experiment.

I am guessing that the general direction I should head is the same as with any High Octane fuel.
1. More timing advance.
2. More boost.
3. All while keeping the WOT Air/Fuel ratios at about 12:1 (not really 12:1 but 12:1 on my wideband O2 sensor readout). Are there any arguments for switching to Lambda units here? It seems like it might make sense so that the units make sense going from gasoline to ethanol.
4. Watch the fuel pressure and duty cycle as I creep up on the power to see how my "supply" is doing.

What should I expect?
 
Peter L. runs e85 in his badass 960, it scoots along pretty well.

You should expect to make less power than with gas (assuming your gas setup was maxed out) as you'll need more fuel to do the same thing. However if you have overhead you should be able to make a lot more power once tuned and turned up.
 
Yep, the overhead question is still open. I was never maxed out with gasoline. I'm hoping I can take advantage of the 105-110 octane that reportedly e85 posesses. I'll try and add some timing advance on the way home tonight and see how it responds.

But certainly, I already feel the loss of power running on a gasoline timing and boost map. It does however run nice and smooth! That could be the feeling of low power I guess.

linuxman51 said:
Peter L. runs e85 in his badass 960, it scoots along pretty well.

You should expect to make less power than with gas (assuming your gas setup was maxed out) as you'll need more fuel to do the same thing. However if you have overhead you should be able to make a lot more power once tuned and turned up.
Click to expand...
 
Fred runs E85 on his 945. I have megatune set up to display all my EGO gauges in lambda. I think it makes far more sense than AFR.

Plus, it's ****ing EURO.
 
Karl Buchka said:
Fred runs E85 on his 945. I have megatune set up to display all my EGO gauges in lambda. I think it makes far more sense than AFR.

Plus, it's ****ing EURO.
Click to expand...

yeah i use lambda as well, esp nice when running a different blend of gasoline/E85 when the optimal AFR is something inbetween 9.6 and 14.7....

E85 is very nice, engine runs great with it... in hoping to go back to E85 asap! :rockon:
 
I puut a switch on my dash that grounds JP6 (IIRC) to swap the fuel and spark tables. That way I can switch between E85 and gas simply by running it fialry low, topping off on the 'other' fuel, and flipping the switch.

Of course, as soon as I did that, the only E85 station in StL county proceeded to GO OUT OF BUSINESS, leaving the closest working E85 pump about 17 miles away in St. Charles.
 
JohnMc said:
I puut a switch on my dash that grounds JP6 (IIRC) to swap the fuel and spark tables. That way I can switch between E85 and gas simply by running it fialry low, topping off on the 'other' fuel, and flipping the switch.

Of course, as soon as I did that, the only E85 station in StL county proceeded to GO OUT OF BUSINESS, leaving the closest working E85 pump about 17 miles away in St. Charles.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a cool idea. I will have to look into that. It sounds easier than uploading an entire new map.

Did anyone have corrosion problems? Or problems with fuel filters becoming plugged?

And how much more aggressive can you be with the timing?
 
this is interesting, might have to look into e85,

cause it is much cheaper than gas.

maybe boost & cheap fuel can co-exist
 
I plan on swapping to E85 ASAP, need to do some work on my transmission and swap some parts on the car and maybe replace a ****load of seals and gaskets so i quit burning and blowing oil out. how well would LH2.4 run with e85? im putting 37# CFIs (or bigger if someone wants to trade) and an adjustable FPR in the car anyway so running fuel thats cheaper and higher octane makes sense! also will be getting JAW and a wbo2 sensor soon. and finishing my 3" downpipe and puttin in my IC etc etc etc too much **** not enough time to do it
 
qwkswede said:
Sounds like a cool idea. I will have to look into that. It sounds easier than uploading an entire new map.

Did anyone have corrosion problems? Or problems with fuel filters becoming plugged?

And how much more aggressive can you be with the timing?
Click to expand...
No clue, it is 105 octane, though. Play around with it and report back.

If that station hadn't gone out of business, I'd have done a tank or two of tuning so far. But so far I've been too lazy to make a nearly 40 mile round trip just to tank up on E85.
 
There's only about half a dozen stations in the entire UK selling it at the moment. Nearest one is 75 miles away from me. Hopefully that situation will be resolved once the 142 is running (especially since unleaded is now $2.20 a litre), as a Holset powered, E85 burning 16v is gonna be fun!

Lots of timing, lots of fuel- can't go wrong!
 
Seals

Watch your seals guys, the E85 will eat the stock seals leaving you with a nasty fuel leak. Some companies out there are selling E85 "green" seals which are safe with both fuels. Nice thing about E85, with a "conservative" octane of 105 you can advance the timing and turn up the boost without detonation. Unfortunately you will need to use 25-30% more E85.

I only wish there was a station near me. Relocating to CA I would expect this "green" state to have them everywhere.
 
NM240 said:
I only wish there was a station near me. Relocating to CA I would expect this "green" state to have them everywhere.
Click to expand...

I don't think E85 is so 'green' in the long run, but I suppose that's for a different thread.

If I could get E85 I would, just for the performance factor... but I guess I'll have to settle for 110 low lead Ave gas @ 6.50/gal if i want performance.
 
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