E85 in 2001 Civic DX - It works!

[ksa8907]

Originally Posted by syncro_user

In cold weather it can drop to as little as 70% alcohol, the rest petrol, and yet the price stays roughly the same. So more energy for the same money!

To the OP: are you planning any engine mods to take advantage of the e85's higher octane?

Pumps here in indiana state minimum 51% ethanol for e85.

[Enki]

E stands for Ethanol, so E20 would be Ethanol 20% by volume, and E85 would be 85% ethanol by volume.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by WyrTwister

So , flex fuel cars & pickups will do 85% ethanol ?

That's exactly what they were meant to do, but some folks in my country claim they can even go on Brazilian E96 hydrated ethanol.

[123gts]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

I rather see e100 hydrous, takes half the energy to produce

I agree but will never happen in the USA. Look how many new flex fuel vehicles are being sold here. hydrous e100 Does not work well in cold weather. The cheap fix the auto industry does to help with cold starting is mix in more gas in the winter. You cant mix hydrous e100 and gas I have tried.

Enki I would love to know more about your engine build. I wanted to do the same thing but because the closest place selling E85 is an hour away it seemed like a bad idea to have an E85 only car.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by 123gts

I agree but will never happen in the USA. Look how many new flex fuel vehicles are being sold here. hydrous e100 Does not work well in cold weather. The cheap fix the auto industry does to help with cold starting is mix in more gas in the winter. You cant mix hydrous e100 and gas I have tried.
.

E85 is politics at its best , hydrous is illegal at the pump because it isn't denatured.

Cold start issues are due to poor engineering, glow plugs or ether start solves it the same way it does on diesel.

Pure water can be mixed into diesel or gasoline.
The process to do it is called emulsification, ultrasonic or surfactants can easily mix hydrous into gasoline. Depending on the surfactant the mix can stay that way many months.

Emulsified diesel is already a commercial product said to reduce emissions and reduce fuel consumption.

Lack of will is why we setup a wasteful ethanol system.
Starting with the feedstock
Moving to the high energy fermentation process (the old slow way uses no energy)
Ending with an inability to admit hydrous is superior to e85 and could have all issues cheaply addressed (ether start is what a $25 option?)

[Enki]

I think you guys are overthinking the cold start issues. If you have a tuning solution or other trick you can use to fatten up cold starts, there won't be much in the way of cold start issues. My own car, for example, when tuned on Cobb Accessport would take several cranks to get going and when it did finally start, would run like crap until the ECTs got to about 100 degrees. On the new software I use for tuning (Versatune), it has tables built in for cold start enrichment and I've not had an issue (more than one crank required to start) since.

Edit: Video for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxP8k8yyB-0

Originally Posted by 123gts

Enki I would love to know more about your engine build. I wanted to do the same thing but because the closest place selling E85 is an hour away it seemed like a bad idea to have an E85 only car.

What would you like to know?

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by 123gts

hydrous e100 Does not work well in cold weather. The cheap fix the auto industry does to help with cold starting is mix in more gas in the winter.

In my country all the dedicated-ethanol cars and the earlier flexfuel ones used to be fitted with an auxiliary cold-start gasoline tank. Nowadays that some port-injection flexfuel cars are fitted with a heating device at the fuel rail, and others rely on direct injection, cold start became less problematic.

You cant mix hydrous e100 and gas I have tried.

We mix E96h with gas and there is no problem with that.

[123gts]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

E85 is politics at its best , hydrous is illegal at the pump because it isn't denatured.

Cold start issues are due to poor engineering, glow plugs or ether start solves it the same way it does on diesel.

Pure water can be mixed into diesel or gasoline.
The process to do it is called emulsification, ultrasonic or surfactants can easily mix hydrous into gasoline. Depending on the surfactant the mix can stay that way many months.

Emulsified diesel is already a commercial product said to reduce emissions and reduce fuel consumption.

Lack of will is why we setup a wasteful ethanol system.
Starting with the feedstock
Moving to the high energy fermentation process (the old slow way uses no energy)
Ending with an inability to admit hydrous is superior to e85 and could have all issues cheaply addressed (ether start is what a $25 option?)

Politics, oil industry and money is why E85 as a automotive fuel is dead for the most part in the USA. I have real world experience with Ethanol far beyond just putting it in my gas tank. I worked with a co-op trying to make ethanol. Bad PR made most Americans not want ethanol. When we said our cars run on alcohol people where interested but as soon as you say ethanol people say I heard about that garbage NOOOO THANKS!!!!!

rmay I agree there are lots of problems with how ethanol is made in the USA it starts with over production of corn and corn subsidies.

Yes hydrous is illegal at the pump because it isn't denatured. you can add things like methanol to hydrous ethanol to make it denatured. If you take ethanol after it has been distilled and try to mix it with gas it will not mix.

cRiPpLe_rOoStEr Brazil is doing things right when it comes to ethanol. As for an auxiliary cold-start gasoline tank yes that works great but to many stupid/lazy Americans will cause problems. Also in this country many major companies will spend ZER0 $$$$ On R&D or implementing the fixes unless they have to, even if the consumer wants it.

Enki I was not overthinking cold start issues and I think most people on here where talking about E85 in a 100% stock car and non flex fuel . If a car is setup to run on E85 it will work fine in cold weather. Also if you bought the E85 during the winter its most likely not E85 a lot of places switch to something like E70 to help with cold starting. Also as for your engine build I would like to know real world data on it. I have read a lot about doing what your doing but have not seen much real world data and not just lab results. How much more power then stock will the engine make and after you have the numbers would love to know Stock MPG vs your E85 build MPG.

[Enki]

Originally Posted by 123gts

Enki I was not overthinking cold start issues and I think most people on here where talking about E85 in a 100% stock car and non flex fuel . If a car is setup to run on E85 it will work fine in cold weather. Also if you bought the E85 during the winter its most likely not E85 a lot of places switch to something like E70 to help with cold starting. Also as for your engine build I would like to know real world data on it. I have read a lot about doing what your doing but have not seen much real world data and not just lab results. How much more power then stock will the engine make and after you have the numbers would love to know Stock MPG vs your E85 build MPG.

My car isn't flex fuel and although I had to modify the fuel pump to run E85, that's a scenario unique to my particular platform. I was able to get better than stock MPG out of a 50/50 mix (which for me is ~E48 since I still have E88 locally); I was getting about 400 miles to the tank on that mix with adjustments to tune only and conservative driving (which for my car is the hard part):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP5j_br9ABI

It's more than I ever got on pump gas and completely stock, that's for sure. Beating the hell out of it like normal with a larger turbo and methanol injection as supplemental fuel (~2 gallons per tank used) I was getting about 200 miles to the tank.

Fret not though, as MPG tuning and analysis will be no small part of my build; currently I estimate that 30 MPG on the highway should be doable with very minor changes to the tune, if any, and that will be on E88 as the fuel.

[123gts]

I have heard of lower % blends getting better mpg never tested that myself. Its kind of like how it doesn't take mixing in a lot biodiesel before emissions drastically improve.

When you say you had to modify the fuel pump to run E85 was that for the same reason op installed bigger injectors?

Also on a kind of related topic. I ran an old Briggs and straton engine on ethanol and only thing I did was close down the choke to change the air to fuel ratio. Engine ran great. Didn't like cold starting much below 50deg though.