Quote:
Originally Posted by Miller88
Doesn't it use more than a gallon of fossil fuel to produce a gallon of ethanol.
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With the sugarcane-based ethanol, more usual in Brazil, it takes about 1 gallon of fossil fuel to get 7 gallons of ethanol, altough the usage of ethanol in the process is increasing, turning the process more sustainable. For the corn-based ethanol, it's usually 1 gallon of fossil fuel for just 1,7 gallon of ethanol.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RedDevil
I would not be surprised if engines that have EGR (which adds a lot of heat) generally handle ethanol blends better than engines that do not have EGR.
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Older Opel engines used in Brazilian dedicated-ethanol and flexfuel cars didn't have the EGR, but I'm not sure about the locally-available flexfuel versions of the Ecotec.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Tele man
True in "short-duration" operation for diesels (CI), but not under continued long-duration operation because gasoline/alcohol 'solvent' is damaging to injectors, because the injectors rely on diesel for lubrication...which E85 lacks. The new gasoline direct-injection (GDI, SIDI, etc.) engines will 'test' the quality & durability of new piezo-injectors with gasoline AND E85.
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E85 is not used in Diesel engines, only Brazilian standard E96h and Swedish E95 which uses a specifically-developed additive to increase lubricity AND the cetane rating, altough the most critical point is still the lubricity. With newer common-rail injections it's not so hard to overcome the lube issue, but with older mechanical-injection engines it was not unusual to use a sulphur-based additive in Brazil, which doesn't make so much sense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Allch Chcar
I have only heard anecdotes of fuel injectors clogging due to Ethanol picking up crap from the fuel tank. But never outright failure of fuel injectors. Piezo injectors aren't used in everything. Ford is using cheaper units for their DI FFVs.
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A radical switch to higher ethanol contents can eventually lead to clogging, but before any impurity reach a fuel injector there will be a clogged filter...