Shoot, the inside of my carbs with E10 look pretty nasty if you let it sit for three days. Gas will be completely evaporated and it’s like sand in the fuel bowls.
I’d agree, but only second hand experience. Without getting past HAMB guidelines, a fella at work had two tunes out into his car, one for pump gas, one for E85. He was happy, but… I asked him if he had to run the tank empty to “flip the switch “ for one to the other. Sorta had this look on his face like “oh, I didn’t think about that “.
For just about anything since the late 80's the lambda probe should be able to handle minor corrections just fine - it's always adjusting anyway, as long as the required adjustment is withing what the programming allows. Unfortunately, with carburetors we have no such shortcuts, we'll be turning screws, swapping jets and so on any time we want to change something. Which probably is part of the reason why so many engines with carbs aren't properly adjusted most of the time.
At the risk of going horribly off topic, we could likewise move from a monocultural agricultural paradigm, in which the first principle of, say, turnip farming is to kill anything which isn't a turnip, and the earth is no more than a mechanical substrate which prevents the Br***ica rapa from falling over, to a far healthier model in which useful crops are the literal outgrowth of cultivated, complex, living soil communities: which necessarily implies mixed farming. In the former, species are rivalrous; in the latter, species in great numbers are mutually beneficial, and many of them may be viable fuel feedstocks. We could move from "food, not fuel" to "food, therefore fuel (etc. etc. etc.), therefore food, therefore ..." That does, of course, imply a set ratio of fuel yields to other produce in any given climatic scenario, which is likely to favour a degrowth approach with vastly reduced structural mobility demand — again, to our overall benefit. I've long been aware that E100 (or hydrous E90) optimizes economically at far smaller scales than drilling expensive holes in precariously hostile territories could possibly do. That means smaller fuel production volumes, hence smaller production organization units, hence more small business and less concentrated political influence, hence a flatter distribution of wealth, and so on. It also means a less severe requirement for fuel efficiency which, together with the more forgiving nature of ethanol as a fuel, makes the bulk of the rarefied technology from which the present motor industry derives its command of radical monopoly redundant. It all works into positive spirals which could be extremely far-reaching.
When I decided to go after the ECTA 200 MPH club with my Studebaker, I built the thing to run exclusively on E85 (carbureted). The car has aluminum fuel lines, dedicated pump, carbs, filters, EGT sensor for each bank and an Autometer wideband Air/Fuel ratio monitor. The car has a 14-71 Littlefield blower and license plates. I also bought a Quickfuel test beaker to evaluate what comes from the the local station at every fill up. The car made huge power, ran cool and was easy to start. I put about 1000 miles on it going to cruises and shows, and a LOT of test drives near my home. After 2 years of use I removed a 2 foot section of aluminum fuel line and sliced it in half with my band saw; it looked new inside. One problem I did encounter was the black residue build up in the induction system caused by E85 evaporating. The 2 main stations I used change their mix seasonally to aid start up, from 85% to about 70%. I don't run it on 70%, but I have, just not under load. When I parked the car for extended periods, I drained the E85 and put pure gasoline in it, run it a bit, shut down. It runs fine on gas, just way fat. E85 has it's place, it makes huge power in blown or high compression apps, because the detonation point is high. It is not the same as Methanol. Many people have little or no experience with it, or since they knew a guy with a sprint car they think they know all about it. Methanol is not Ethanol. Just dumping it into your old carbureted low compression engine will probably not benefit you in any way. Oh yeah, BTW, I got my 2 club hat!
I wouldn't plan for E85 unless it was a specific high compression build, even then you don't know exactly what you're getting at the pump, and likely buying race fuel anyway. Same here, late model truck is around 30% less mileage on E85. The price of E85 is rarely 1/3 less than 87 octane. I do run a 1/2 tank of E85 at least twice a year to make sure the computer controls keep working.
2nd attempt at this comment! I'm still learning how to manipulate these new fangled computer things...So here we go again. If you want to know the true percentage of ethanol in E85, you can get it by breaking the azeotrope between the alcohol and gasoline. Using an accurately measured quan***y (we used 100 ml in our lab), add the same amount of water mixed with food coloring. This causes the alcohol and gasoline to separate from each other and the alcohol/water mixture will be the color of the food coloring. There will be a distinct separation between the 2 liquids and the resulting amounts will be the percentage of gasoline in the base fuel, and the percentage of ethanol plus the water in the mixture. Here's the 2 graduated cylinders I used, 1000 ml and 500 ml. You can use gallons, quarts, pints, cups, whatever works for you. An example: pump E85 winter fuel blend is usually not even close to 85 percent ethanol. Starting with 100 ml E85, add 100 ml water/food coloring, to get 200 ml of stuff. The separation happens almost immediately so no waiting. The result shows 160 ml colored fluid, and 40 ml of another color, just not the food coloring. This is the gasoline in the mixture, or 40 percent. And the other stuff is 100 ml of water/food coloring and 60 ml of ethanol, or 60 percent of the base fuel.
You will sooner see monkeys fly from my posterior than you will witness any alterations to the extant dominant economic paradigms.
The Jalopy Journal
