Converting engine to Ethanol
 

I know you guys have heard and talked about ethanol and engine converting ur engine a million time. What im try to do is convert it with having to spend a hold lot of money doing it, then over people would be more amp to do it. If it wasnt going to cost mabye less then a 100 ducks to do it. any ideas? the old curb engine aren't so bad but its the fuel injected im having a hard time with.

What kind of car are you dealing with and what do you mean convert? Also why do you want to convert?

I found this to be pretty accurate with the Daewoo. I can a run a mixture up to E50 around a 10% decrease in FE. After that mixture it will drop to a maximum of about 23%

Befor you do this, check out the mpg drop you get with E85 (EPA of 2008 chevy impala flex fuel) it drops from 29mpg on gasoline to 21mpg on E85, add to that the recent study that shows that ethonal contributes more to global warming then gasoline, that it takes half a gallon of oil to produce the ferterlizer and pestisides that are used in growing corn, and nearly as much fuel (gas, diesel, natural gas) to farm, haul, and prosese the corn into alcohol that it is close to being a net loss, add to that the economic side of it, that a recent servy (radio news broadcast) of economists say that bio-fuels are bad for the economy because of how they displace food production and drive up food prices.
anyway, to convert your engine to run on alcohol (E85) you need to rase the compression, give it a ritcher mix of fuel, and replace your plastic and rubber parts so they will not be attacted by the higher amount of alcohol.
to make a flex fuel vehicle (straight gas, or E85) you need to do all the stuff that is needed just for E85, plus add/replace a number of sensors and maybe the cars computer so that it can tell what fuel it has, and self adjust for those fuels.
The main reason for having to do all of this is that an alcohol burning engine is differnt then a gasoline burning engine, yes some can burn both, but not well, just like our A/C delco light plant can burn gasoline or kerosen or maybe even bacon greese, but not well, and not without alot of manual adjustments.

Holy Mackeral, are you sure about all that???

I pour it in the tank and go. Anything after '88 or so will run on it, but expect some driveability issues if you go straight E85 in sub-freezing weather. I have found at concentrations of 50/50 or less E85/regular, there are no driveability issues and the fuel economy doesn't drop very much if at all.

I'm with Frank on this. I can run E50 with out much loss in FE. I been running a mix of E15 for quite a while, with no mods to the car, which give me better FE then straight gas.

Converting engine to Ethanol
 

I'm not sure why the economy is focused on ethanol, because another alcohol , butanol, (which has just one more atom of carbon in it)can be a direct replacement for gasoline with no modifications to existing systems and a yield of 10% better mileage.

but butanol is rather exspensive to produce, so far all of the butanol that is being produced out side of a lab in very small amounts is being produced in China...

I've talked to a number of people localy that keep track of their gas mileage, including a friend of mine that I work with who has a motorcycle shop, and they all say that E10 gives them a 15% drop in gas mileage, and the drop in E85 came right off the EPA web site and their numbers, not mine, some of the other bits of info come from our book shelf of books on making your own fuel and modifications you need to make to your vehicle to use home brewed alcohol fuels.

Converting engine to Ethanol
 

LMAO, ok I maybe stickin my neck out here; but how expensive is it?

The last actual report I read on the cost of producing ethanol, said that it actually costs ADM $5.42 cents to produce a gallon of ethanol; that was in 05.I expect you will ask , then how can we afford to put it in fuel if it costs that much to produce?

The government subsidizes its production. If memory serves me ADM recieved several billion in subsidies for production of ethanol in 05. Lil wonder new production facilities for ethanol are springing up all over the midwest, with the government virtually gaurenteeing at least a break even situation for producers.

The next question would be who ultimately pays for those subsidies? You get to answer that.

Is this going to be another ethanol subsidy thread? I'd love to talk about how heavily oil is subsidized too, then...

Converting engine to Ethanol
 

I believe ya! Nope no more to say, can't solve a thing this way.

wikipedia.org is quoted at $8 per gallon for Butanol as it sounds like it's made in a simaler but more complex and touchy proses then ethonal.

Running E85 in a '94 Acura (see signature). All I did was install injectors with an 18% greater flow rate. Run 3000+ miles with no issues except harder starting when it's below 20 degrees outside. I'm currently beating the EPA rating gasoline rating for my vehicle. If you take into account that E85 is 15-20% cheaper it adds up pretty nicely.

I plan on advancing the cam and ignition a few degrees. Should give me even better mileage. The nice thing about E85 is that it's 105 octane, so detonation is much less of an issue.

okay heres the thing, yes u can just e50 in to the tank and go, but im thinking more along the lines of E100, the new flex fuel are made to run off of E85, but there not made to just run off E85, they are also made to run gas, and we all know u cant have the best of two worlds. they are made to be efficient on using gas, not E85, the reason why is because the harmonic balancer have to be ajusted 3-5% to run efficient. no one going to ajusted it each time they switch fuel types, that why the just make able to run E85, but what im trying to find out is how to make the fuel injecters spray long with have to buy a four or five hunderd dollar kit.

:confused:

What do u mean?

I mean what the devil are you going on about?

You're right, the kits are a rip-off for what they are. I simply found some injectors off eBay that had about a 20% +/- greater flow rate. For well less than $100 I got the injectors, new seals, and bypassed the injector resistor. The ECU automatically adjust for the larger injectors via the O2 sensor. So whether I'm running gas or E85 the engine is within stoiciometric limits. If you're thinking that "the a/f ratio is different for gas versus ethanol" then you're right, except the ECU adjust for lambda ~= 1 which is what gas and ethanol both like. Bottomline, throw in some larger injectors and you'll be all set (as long as the car has an O2 sensor...pretty much anything after 1988).

Converting engine to Ethanol
 

I just listened to this link; not only is the gentleman promoting ethanol and ways to get it to work in any car , but he and an associate added 65% water with it.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/waterfu...igh-mpg-expert

I'd like to see a BTU/ gallo rating for E-85.
I don't believe that it is effective to make it out of corn (sorry Midwest).
I do Believe it is effective to make out of sugar cane.
I do believe it is (and will be come more so) effective o make out f switch grass.

In my state (big sugar cane growing) it was illegal to use Ethanol made from sugar cane in a on road motor vehicle until last year. However there are (were then) 2 plants making Ethanol out of sugar cane for use in Europe (as far as I know un-subsidized).

Ryland is right about how it doesn't make sense to make ethanol from corn.

The way our agriculture works is that we basically convert oil to fertilizer to food to alcohol.

Either just use the oil for fuel, or use some other plant material that is easier to grow and doesn't drive up food prices. Ethanol is a renewable, clean burning fuel, but not by how we are making it right now.

We finally have an E85 pump near where I live. I would be interested in experimenting with it.

The gasoline in my 4-county area is all 10% ethanol. That is a huge deal in how much ethanol is needed because that's like 1 in every ten cars having a full tank of E100!

My old car (Chevy Spectrum) originally got 47 MPG. After the E10 fuel was introduced, it dropped to 30 mpg, and eventually went back up to 35 mpg. The ethanol was introduced to help control air pollution. Not sure how dropping fuel economy from 47 to 30 helps pollute less.

I am on the north-western edge of the county. If I go either north or west not too far, gas stations have signs that say "good ol' gas" on them.

The other day, I had go west into the boonies anyways, so I tanked up on 100% gasoline while I was there.

I will track my mileage and see what kind of difference in economy I get.

I would have to agree Frank, the only way I could see the mileage bein worse is if the engine had a whimpy compression ratio.

The farming practice is a different issue. It's gotten better since no-till became more common but the over-fertilizing is still there. E85 has less of a factor on corn prices and food prices. The biggest cost is still manufacturing and distribution of products. Farming is pretty unsteady in itself too, with recent weather being very unstable it's record drought one year then record rainfall the next. Growing corn for ethanol is still a much more efficient solution than building more gasoline refineries.

The amount of power in a gallon of E85 can be found here, it's something like 65.5% of a gallon of gasoline and comes from the USDA's report. Figuring the fact that the worst flexfuel vehicles get 70% of their original mileage, E85 is about 5 points more efficient.

Fuel injection systems can adjust 20% from the factory. I found a good conversion guide here.

Bascially converting to E85 is easier if you don't want the flexfuel. The adjustable injectors are an issue. I read through the entire turbobricks article and besides requiring a block heater or simply dumping fuel for cold startups the flexfuel injectors are a little harder to find. Getting 42% bigger injectors is easy with all the aftermarket performance parts out there. No change in the ECU required. But they'll run really rich/lean if you try to run a fuel mixture outside of the injector's range. Running injectors sized for E50 and carrying a little extra E85 to mix for fuel ups might work for those who want a little more room for filling up on gasoline.