OMG it's Palmear again
I wonder why he expects only 12 mpg. Is it going to get a 454 big block or what?
Now I looked at the link.
One faulty premise is that any ethanol mods are needed at all. My stuff loves E85 except when it gets really cold out. Simply lower the ratio of ethanol in the blend then to avoid trouble. And Omaha doesn't get as cold, for as long, as where I am so he should be able to enjoy the benefits of a strong ethanol blend for more of the year.
I have NOT seen 30% drops in fe, not even close, especially with my weaker blends which are still stronger than 50/50 E85/regular (which is E10 here).
Another faulty premise is this fixation on "foreign" oil. Oil is oil. Sure importing oil has many and numerous drawbacks... but burning up our native resource (
finite resource I might add) I don't see as any sort of solution. We're not exactly swimming in the stuff either.
Yet another flaw is the assumption of E85 always being 85% ethanol. It can be as low as 70% ethanol. In cold regions, during cold season, the fuel will be on the low end of the ethanol strength scale.
There had to be about a million compact trucks he could have found with 4 cylinder 5-speed combos that would get 30 mpg with gas and/or E85... not to mention diesel/wvo/bio.
P.S. Which begs the question, if he isn't doing really big hauling, which it sounds like he isn't or he would have gone full-size, would an Insight be able to pull a modest trailer? For sure his Prius could.