alternitive fuel thread

[baz-r]

what about using e85 as an alternitve fuel for your kitcar
its a bio fuel made from a blend of ethanol (85%) petrol (15%) that can be used in a number of new flex fuel cars like saab's vauxhall etc theres even a lotus tht runs it now.

pros: more bhp, cheaper and nicer gasses out the back
cons: fewer filling stations at the moment and less mpg

morrisons have a e85 filling station scheame here in the south west

i know a std petrol engine can be converted to use e85 and there are tuning guys converting std road going cars and motorbikes to be able to run on it as far as i know its only the fueling and ign timing that needs to be alterd so somthing like megasquirt could do it tho bigger injectors would be needed than petrol as more fuel is needed.
bigger tank to for a roadster

i dont know how it would effect the iva? i would love to know if a post 95 engine pass without a cat fitted

[Eternal]

would like to run e85 on my rb25det but would probably take loads of work to convert it. Anything to help me pass emissions would be ace as the engine is 97 lol so im kinda screwed

[twinturbo]

I seem to remember that it eats some form of rubber and seals/pipes need replacing..

Could be wrong though.

TT

[davidimurray]

We had some guys looking at E85 on one of our race engines a few years ago. We were using a CBR600 engine and they did some tests with fuel pumps, injector seals, hoses etc - dumped them in a bucket of e85 and left them for a week. Came back to find a rubber mess and no sign of some of the seals

We did change everything rubber, got it hooked up and working bu made no more power than petrol because the injectors ended up being wide open all the time as they couldn't supply enough fuel. With the amount of work reguired and other priorities at the time we gave up and went back to petrol.

Saab can get away with running E85 as obviously all their seals are compatible already. But they also have some amazing electronics. They actively vary the ignition timing in combination with measuring knock to get maximum power - hence they suit e85s resistance to knock out of the box. I was also told that Saabs don't use cam sensors as they measure the change in engine speed during cranking to detect the compression stroke (Aprilia do something similar on some of their bikes).

[baz-r]

if you where using some form of programable fuel inj ie. megasquirt you would need to program in fueling and ign timings any way. so apart from changing seals and hoses that you may have not fitted in your build and going for bigger injectors that you probably havent got in the first place
theres not that much modification to do
be no diffrent if you where using a post 95 motor as some form of closed loop fuel inj and a cat would ned to be used.
that was my idea anyway