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E85, IS It Plant Juice Power, Or Fuel System Eating Acid From Hell


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I'm still waiting for nl320 to answer the questions I asked about making your own E100.......

 

Moot point G-Duax, Federal law prohibits distillation of alcohol without a "distilled spirits permit" or a "federal fuel alcohol permit." Doesn't matter if it's not for sale, personal use or otherwise. Turns out the Fed's are kinda touchy about DIYers refining highly flammable substances in your back yard.

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Forgot that one.....

 

The bottom line is that without government subsidies, we probably couldn't afford running ethanol in our cars, even if we cooked it up ourselves.

(probably would cost more due to making 10, 20, even 100 gallons at a time will cost more than making thousands of gallons at a time)

 

Will I use ethanol in my car? Hell yes.

But only with a flex-fuel sensor, and programmable ECU that will allow me to run gas.

 

Oh, another thing.......

The government is promoting exporting ethanol now, that we are partially paying for, to push the whole 'green earth' thing.

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You could use the ethanol as your energy source for distilling.

 

You could use any starch source such as potatoes, grain even sugar. Doesn't have to be corn. It's what's cheap and available in your area. Buy up bulk waste candy.

 

I think there are hydroscopic materials that will absorb water directly from the alcohol vapor during distillation.

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All Federal subsidies for ethanol were scheduled to end in 2016 and they did. It was intended to get production up and running but although the industry is profitable, the industry is still being supported through tax breaks of around $1 billion annually and mandated 10% added to pump gas. Putting that in perspective, fossil fuel industry is getting $14.7 billion in federal subsidies and $5.8 billion in state-level incentives, for a total of $20.5 billion annually in corporate welfare. and another $7.3 billion in tax breaks. And this for the most profitable industry on the planet.

 

Making ethanol fuel economically possible is all about economies of scale and efficiency. At the retail level, you and I will pay $35.30 for a 50lb. bag of grain corn. Using a small pellet furnace there is enough energy in that bag to heat a small home for 2 months. The ethanol fuel industry buys their corn direct from ADM and Monsanto and pays the market price of $3.50 a bushel = to 8 gallons, and about 60lb. The US corn industry produced 15 billion bushels last year, and 33% of that went to ethanol production, so yeah corn is big business.

 

Massive industrial distillation kettles are highly efficient at storing heat, capturing all the vapor and gasses such as methane produced in fermentation and converting it into BTU energy. When the mash is spent, it is sold as feed here in the US and exported.

Under current production standards, fuel ethanol facilities produce 2.8 gallons of ethanol per bushel of corn. In addition, about 17 pounds of dried distillers grains per bushel.

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I did a little research on the SRT4 and it sounds pretty stout. 1000HP on stock internals though, :w00t: holy F'n shit. Would it make a good candidate for a Dat swap? One thing I'm not so psyched on is 6200 rpm limit. Kind of like the KA24DET in that respect. The longer you can get the motor to wind up, the more access you have to power. rarely do you get loads of torque and high revving in a 4 cylinder without VVT, or stroking. Short of stuffing a flat crank V8 or a V12 into a 510, I'll stick with my SR20.  :lol:

 

 

 

The base 2.4L came in a lot of different vehicles.  In NA form, they were rather uninspiring.  NA came in 4-door Stratus/Cirrus, Minivans, PT Cruisers.  Turbo came in the PT Cruiser GT, Neon SRT4, and 4-door Stratus/Cirrus from Mexico.  I sorta recall some minivans from Mexico having the turbo version as well....not sure though.  The 2-door Stratus/Cirrus are totally different vehicles as they were a collaboration with Mitsubishi on the Eclipse platform.  What I'm trying to say is that the 2.4L can be found readily and pretty cheap in NA form...probably turbo form as well since they were frequently wrapped around trees.

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Have you used it? If so what on?

 

We use it at work from time to time. Our 550hp TT 370z that we use for time attack gets E85, as well as most of our own DD's that are boosted.

 

Sometimes use E85 on NA cars when we're trying to squeeze power.

 

E85 is scarce out here in GA.

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In racing with alcohol based motors, you can litterally machine a smaller diameter exhaust valve and enlarge the intake valve, due to the cooling effect of Ethanol.  There is alot more than just allowing higher compression/boost, and more timing, it has a very interesting science associated with it.  Just not taking advantage of it and getting our minds and theory away from gasoline based knowledge is the difficult part as it is completely different stoic and burn properties. It has a bad rap because of that, with gas we think dumping more fuel is needed to make E85 proper, which hurts gas mileage, that whole mentality is way out of line.  Its like a diesel and gas hot rodder arguing.

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Todays daily drivers aren't designed to run e85, and I'm not holding my breath for that to change any time soon. On the horizon, more and more high performance cars are being designed around smaller lighter turbocharged engines, so I would expect ethanol will likely play a part in that revolution. Today, if you have a forced induction weekend track car, it's magic secret sauce. In the pursuit of going faster, at $3.50 a gallon e85's milage rating is an after thought.

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Todays daily drivers aren't designed to run e85, and I'm not holding my breath for that to change any time soon. On the horizon, more and more high performance cars are being designed around smaller lighter turbocharged engines, so I would expect ethanol will likely play a part in that revolution. Today, if you have a forced induction weekend track car, it's magic secret sauce. In the pursuit of going faster, at $3.50 a gallon e85's milage rating is an after thought.

That is what I was eluding to is everything we know about gas doesnt 100% fit into tuning an Ethanol motor.

 

If you built a 91 octane motor whether it was NA or Forced induction, a properly built Ethanol motor would exceed the power and gas mileage.

 

But because there is no Ethanol street motors, the only way to correct for flex fuel is to dump more fuel in to keep it running.

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You're right nl320what, we are describing the same thing, but approaching it from different angles. Race teams have done extensive testing on ethanol, and adjusting for improved combustion via valve size or cam lift. This can yield better performance and milage in a naturally aspirated application. In fact, I've read about guys tuning the turbo RB26 on ethanol who are getting more power by running a Tomei stage 1 intake cam and a totally stock exhaust cam. This plays into the higher hydrodynamic pressure of ethanol. This is another byproduct of requiring a richer mixture of a highly oxygenated fuel, it razes compression in the combustion chamber. My perspective is limited to a specific application of forced induction, and a linear direct throttle response for back road/track driving.

 

I've read tons of magazine articles comparing the performance of high octane gas, ethanol, and methanol blends. None of them have used objective controls in testing these fuels. In every test they are using a car designed to run gasoline, and for one reason or another, the ethanol blend is reduced well below 85%. They never have the fuel system and engine management upgrades necessary to test these fuels equally, ie larger injectors flex fuel sensor and properly tuned ECU.  At some point you have to assume they are looking for conditions to support a desired outcome. Inevitably the shortcomings of ethanol are accentuated, but the funny thing is, ethanol always produces more power. 

 

A perfect example is this dragzine.com article below. They call it "E85" Versus All, but admit the actual blend they used was only 40% ethanol. At first they claim it was the actual blend at the pump, with a BS blurb about how inconsistent the ratio is. BS because federal regulation allows a range of 65-85% ratio depending on seasonal climate changes. Shortly after they finally admit they weren't able to test a higher ratio of ethanol due to the limited injector size of the car they used. It there's one thing in this article I agree with, it's that you need a flex fuel sensor, Wide Band 02 sensor, and an ECU map designed adjust for any blend on the fly.

 

 

http://www.dragzine.com/tech-stories/fuel-cooling-ignition-tech/feeding-a-starving-1200-hp-street-engine-big-power-means-big-fuel/

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HEADS UP

 

I just learned from this article that in July of 2016 the government changed regulations on seasonal ratio variation in E85. It's now allowing for an ethanol content swing of as low as 51 percent ethanol during winters in colder climates. 

 

Also found out that "water contamination" is utter fossil fuel BS anti ethanol propaganda. It is the natural water content in ethanol that gives it it's vaporization cooling properties.

 

“It may also be of interest to the scientists amongst your readers that it is in part the water content in the E85 that makes it the ‘poor man’s race gas,'” states Jilg. “Since what drives the engine’s intake temperature down, and allows for the extra timing advance that is associated with making more power, is the high latent heat of vaporization needed to evaporate the water [2257 kJ/kg)] component in the fuel, as well as the higher latent heat of vaporization of ethanol [around 900 kJ/kg], compared to that of gasoline [roughly 350 kJ/kg].” 

 

There are bio contaminants that can effect ethanol in exactly the same way it effects gasoline.

 

http://www.enginelabs.com/engine-tech/fuel-cooling/clearing-air-ethanol-motorsports/

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. At the retail level, you and I will pay $35.30 for a 50lb. bag of grain corn. Using a small pellet furnace there is enough energy in that bag to heat a small home for 2 months.

Are you saying that if you burned the 50 lb of corn you could heat a home for two months???? Do you realize just how impossibly XXXXXXXX this statement sounds???? One pound of corn contains less than 8,500 BTUs of energy. 50 pounds = 450,000 BTUs. Home heating oil is 138,000 BTUs. So a bag of corn = 3.26 gallons and I'm guessing that this wouldn't last more than a few days.

 

 

 

HEADS UP

 

 

 

Also found out that "water contamination" is utter fossil fuel BS anti ethanol propaganda. It is the natural water content in ethanol that gives it it's vaporization cooling properties.

While water will absorb heat when vaporizing it is NOT near what does the job when alcohol evaporates.  Water needs 2.7 times the energy to evaporate than alcohol. If you have 27% water and 73% ethanol they would both absorb an equal amount of heat in order to evaporate. I doubt the 85% alcohol in E85 is 27% water. So far and away the alcohol and the 15% gasoline do all the heat absorption.

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Are you saying that if you burned the 50 lb of corn you could heat a home for two months???? Do you realize just how impossibly XXXXXXXX this statement sounds???? One pound of corn contains less than 8,500 BTUs of energy. 50 pounds = 450,000 BTUs. Home heating oil is 138,000 BTUs. So a bag of corn = 3.26 gallons and I'm guessing that this wouldn't last more than a few days.

 

 

 

While water will absorb heat when vaporizing it is NOT near what does the job when alcohol evaporates.  Water needs 2.7 times the energy to evaporate than alcohol. If you have 27% water and 73% ethanol they would both absorb an equal amount of heat in order to evaporate. I doubt the 85% alcohol in E85 is 27% water. So far and away the alcohol and the 15% gasoline do all the heat absorption.

 

 

I didn't say average size home in the antarctic circle. I'm talking from direct experience staying in a friend's single room 350 sq ft "small house" in Pescadero for the past 20 years. The bed is in a loft up in the rafters so it takes very little to heat. My wife and I stay there in the winter (high 30s at night) and we use less than a 2 lb. 1/4 gallon scoop of corn per night. It's a tiny stove with gravity feed hopper and literally looks like R2D2. It's on a thermostat that turns it on and off as needed and uses even less when burning wood pellets.

 

You and I both made mistakes in our figures though. I used 17.5 gal per bushel vs. your 3.26 gal. I got the correct reference from Oxford dictionary. A bushel of shelled corn per bag weighs 56 Pounds and in dry volume there are 9.4 gallons per bushel. So in reality it would be closer to 4 X 9.4 = 37.6 days or a month and a 1/4.

 

Mike as always I respect your eye for detail, and that is a contribution to this thread, but did you even read the article I posted? I thought it was pretty damn impressive, informative, and well supported. The quote I used from the article didn't say water is why ethanol runs cooler. It states "it is in part the water content in the E85"

 

The point I wanted to make was regarding water aiding cooling rather than the myth that ethanol suffers from "water contamination", but I think you know that. I agree what I said in the second sentence of the second paragraph was less than perfectly accurate, but it was clearly stated in the quote I pasted. In paraphrasing it, I should have stated "It is the natural water content in ethanol that helps give it it's vaporization cooling properties." If there is 5% water, the added help would change ethanol's latent heat of vaporization to 1025kJ/kg, close to 3X that of gas. As per the thread subject, for performance minded applications that is a very significant difference.

 

 

For those interested in this thread topic, please forgive the inaccuracies, but I hope you get the general idea.

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So you were talking a glorified dog house........

No problem with the mis-information, just like the water content thing....

When I run strait methanol in something, the more water it absorbs from the air, the less power the engine makes.

When a barrel has been opened a few too many times, it is dumped.

(works great for killing fire ant hills)

 

I try to buy only enough to get through race day.

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Are you saying that if you burned the 50 lb of corn you could heat a home for two months???? Do you realize just how impossibly XXXXXXXX this statement sounds???? One pound of corn contains less than 8,500 BTUs of energy. 50 pounds = 450,000 BTUs. Home heating oil is 138,000 BTUs. So a bag of corn = 3.26 gallons and I'm guessing that this wouldn't last more than a few days.

 

I was going on total BTUs. One pound corn = 8,000- 8,500 BTUs so 56 lb is 476,000 BTUs

 

Home heating oil is 139,000 a gallon so 56 lb of corn is equal to just under 3.5 gallons of heating oil. 

 

Lets say for the argument that all the heat is available from the corn and the oil furnace is only 50% efficient. Now it's 7 gallons of oil to 56 pounds. Call me crazy but I don't think 8 gallons of home heating oil will keep a doghouse warm for two months nor does it make sense that 56 pounds of corn will. Well unless only running for 4 hours a night.

 

2 pounds per night would only last 28 days.

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First off guys, this is a very cute and cozy glorified dog house we're talking about here.  :lol:

 

Well done Mike, you trolled me into arguing about how much F'n corn it takes to heat my buddy's little house. Bravo, so can we get back to the thread topic now, or do you want to dick around some more?

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So you were talking a glorified dog house........

No problem with the mis-information, just like the water content thing....

When I run strait methanol in something, the more water it absorbs from the air, the less power the engine makes.

When a barrel has been opened a few too many times, it is dumped.

(works great for killing fire ant hills)

 

I try to buy only enough to get through race day.

 

Is methanol effected by water content the same way ethanol is? I have a tank of ethanol that's been in my car for months. I add Sta-Bil, have a silica filter on the fuel cell air vent, and I live in a dry climate, so hopefully it's good. I start and idle it for a while every week and it always fires up like it's eager to run.

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I've been asked many times about what advance Bryan used for tuning my car for e85, but instead of giving the quick but safe answer of "use a dyno", I'll try to elaborate. 

 

As a kid I've seised my share of 2stroke engines and learned that lesson the hard way... more than once actually, so I think it should be noted: Topping the list of most dangerous things when tuning for any fuel is running too lean, and e85 is no exception. Monitoring 02 through the exhaust is how you safely optimize the air fuel mixture from idle to redline. If your static tune was done using 85% ethanol and the ratio drops to 60% in the winter, your mixture is way off in seise country. An ethanol sensor is worth the investment.

 

Detonation/knock is the next danger. The octane rating of E85 is between 105-107, but when combined with its cooling properties when converting from vapor to gas, it's actual knock resistance is much higher than the octane rating suggests. The aim of optimizing the ignition timing is finding max torque, not max HP. Often when tuning mild boost engines on pump gas, you'd reach it's knock threshold long before you'd reach max torque. This is where e85 can offer more power than race gas, because it's relatively immune to knock. In fact it's possible to over advance the timing and actually make LESS power before you hear any detonation. Without a very sensitive knock sensor I wouldn't bank on detonation as a nonissue though. Advancing until you hear knock the backing off a bit is not getting you the most power posable. This is why I suggest a power load dyno is best for safely optimizing a tune. 

 

Finally, unless the engine is in absolute stock trim, with the stock cold air intake and stock exhaust, there is no quick and easy e85 timing map. Optimum timing is effected by ethanol gas ratio, amount of boost/relative compression ratio, heat, the power and duration of ignition spark, flow or restriction in cam lift, duration, and timing, the size and flow/restriction of the exhaust manifold, turbine, pipe diameter and bends, etc. 

 

Interesting to note: besides the amount of boost and spool times, here's another trade off between a small vs big turbos. Smaller turbos run hotter and are more prone to heatsink. Again, e85 is a perfect solution.

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I got into an argument on FB of all places about when Venezuela is causing the oil barrel prices to rise, and we will see gas prices above $5 in Cali..... I said the alternative available is the E85 or EV if you dont want to rely on OPEC and barrels of oil to consume in your vehicle.

 

E85 is pure Ethanol (200-proof) but they have to add 15% or more gas to escape the additional fees imposed on Liquor and to stop human consumption, lol.

 

When gas/diesel hit $10/gal what fuel will you use in your vehicle? I gotta get to work in a timely manner, take a bike....  but when gas/diesel prices go up, so does the secondary market transportation and food prices too.

 

Makes sense to fund an alternate fuel that does not rely on barrels of crude black stuff.

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