Stay away from E85 and Cargil for that matter too! CROOKED Mother F-in CRIMINALS!!!! Corn and Switch Grass ain't the answer. Hosein Shapouri is mentally challenged or should I say governmentally motivated. Dr. david Pimentel and Prof. Tad Patzek have shown with modern techniques that youu only get a +6% net energy balance!! Your a FOOL if you believe this E85 HYPE!!
Just say NO! IT is like building a $100,000.00 Honda tuner that can run with a small block chevy for $2,000.00. It just doesnt make any sense.
Both of you guys seem like you have no clue. Probably never run a real engine on alcohol or a mixture of. If it's built for it gas can't touch the power. 106 octane is your friend if you like high compression high horsepower engines. Ethanol can be made from all sorts of organic matter, trash even... it's not the whoel puzzle but it sure is a nice piece....
fuel pump, as the fng here i really did not mean to hijack the thread or start a pissin' match but i would like to make one point about that $860 fuel pump, if you are nearing 1000 hp with either gasoline or methanol or E85 or whatever....your fuel delivery system will require a similar high-end fuel pump.
Doc, I have been a HUGe proponent of E85. My 2000 Ranger is Flex-fuel, it is also sitting in the shop with 3 fried valves and at least one burnt piston. It could have been many things but I will theororize that the E85 did such a good job cleaning the crap outta the tank and messing up the filter that it made the car run way lean and do the nasty. It isnt just E85 though, my 54 sat over the winter and damnit this new fuel is nasty! I have to drop the tank and check the pickup because it isnt sucking fuel but air! I dont like fuel right now if you can tell?
Maybe the right or wrong place to get off on this tangent. But what about all of us with open fuel systems? With E85, or even all of the 10% Ethanol by blend thats at the pumps you guys getting the evaporation that I'm seeing? I swear I'm losing the better part of a gallon a day just to evaporation from my open system. That alcohol evaps and is gone. For what, me helping the enviroment? I'm now buying more gallons of gas just to cover losses. Anyone figured out how to run Strombergs on a closed system? That fact is E85 can be great for modern cars, and has some benefits to old cars from an operational perspective. But the supply of feedstock is hurting the feed for our cattle, swine, and poultry industry running up the prices at the meat counter. You chose. Pay more at the pump or more at the grocer? And someone please tell me I'm halucinating this evaporation thing. If any of my cars sit for a couple weeks they end up damn near empty. (and no I'm not getting my gas syphoned, they are in locked garages.)
Weird? I ran the stuff for two years and didnt notice a difference. Even in a system like you speak there are enough roadblocks that it shouldnt evap away? Just ideas, anyone?
sooo, anybody wanna guess why it's "85%" alky and not 100%? and something else to consider is if you have 1/2 a tank of gas and want to fill it with E85, how ya gonna tune for it without the 'puterized stuff?
Alcohol evaporates faster than most liquids. It evaporates in hot air and cold air. It also absorbs water. Your cars shouldn't be empty, there should be some water in the tank. If you run alcohol, you should install a petcock, or one of those fancy ones used on airplanes, to drain off the water out of the tank. Just a guess, but you probably need to vent your garage better. It's too hot or too cold.
you can do the same thing with regular gas if you figure the energy required to drill, pump, haul, refine, etc. they also did the same thing with hybrids and the energy required to mine the nickle and build the batteries hurt their figures as well mostly due to cold start issues really. cars converted or set to run on 100% alcohol usually require being primed with a bit of regulsr gas or something to help kick them off.
"Ethanol has a high latent heat of vaporization, about 3 times that of gasoline. The difference between the ratio of heat of vaporization to the heat of combustion is even higher, due to the lower heat of combustion of ethanol relative to gasoline." http://www.ethanolboost.com/LFEE-2006-01.pdf I guess I will believe the guys from MIT on this one. Ethanol requires more energy than gasoline to evaporate, so is likely not the cause of the missing gas. This is also the reason for E85, in Minnesota when it gets to be really cold like below zero (F) the amount of energy required to burn pure ethanol is too great. "you only get a +6% net energy balance!!" "IT is like building a $100,000.00 Honda tuner that can run with a small block chevy for $2,000.00." So am I reading these quotes right, are you saying that it take 20-50 times as much energy to make ethanol than it does to make gas? I really am unsure of what you are saying here so I apologize if I read that wrong. Here is the reality. In Minnesota gas is selling for $2.80 per gallon. E85 is selling for $2.40 per gallon. If you subtract from the gas the direct subsidies that the gov gives ethanol($0.40) you get basically the same cost for gas or E85. Say there is no profit in E85 and 100% of the cost to make it is energy (no farmer labor etc), what you would be saying is that only 5-12 cents worth of energy goes into making a gallon of gas. That means we are getting horribly ripped off at the pump! Another way to think about the 20-50 time thing, if it took $1 of energy to make a gallon of gas, you are saying that it would take $20-$50 worth of energy to make a gallon of ethanol? Again that cannot make sense, no one is going to lose that much per gallon. The reality is that the proportion of energy to labor is probably very similar between the gas and the E85 meaning that it takes the same amount of energy to make 1 gallon of each. Here is where you win the argument though, E85 is only 85% ethanol and then if you factor a 10% lower fuel economy for E85 you are at 75% of a gallon of gas. To get an equal footing with gas you have to add another 25% (75%+25%=100% of gas) and that is 33% of the energy cost of ethanol (25 is 33% of 75). So the ratio of energy cost is 33% higher for ethanol. I think I saw a number like the 33% in one of the posts above. Can all the nay sayers agree then on the 33% higher energy cost for ethanol and quit making up numbers like 20-50 times? If you will I will also accept the fact that it takes 33% more energy input to make the same energy content of ethanol to gasoline. So ethanol bad, gasoline good
You're joking right? I know it evaporates, hence why I am talking about open systems where the evap can evacuate. In a closed system like modern pressurized systems there is still the evap, but not the evacuate. Agreed if it all evap'd, I'm just saying I'm taking losses on a tank, not losing the entire tank, I have not run E*%, but now all the gas in the midwest is at least a 10% blend, I'm saying that in my open system rods, I'm definately losing that 10%. So would you like to be paying for 10% more fuel that you are getting/using? That is my arguement. Has anyone else noticed evap? I have a garage and a shop. My garage is fully A/C'd and I do not notice the lose so much on what all I have parked there. My shop is not A/C'd and I've learned to just never leave gasoline sitting in it, unless its in a closed environment (sealed gas can) BTW your weather this summer in OKC isn't much different than here in Houston, just hotter than hell and way too humid. I'm just raising the observation, and I have asked a ton of the guys that I hang out with down here and we have all noticed it.
well boys,they tell me that the reason for the 15% gas is so you can see it burn in the daylite.... at least that's what ford said...
I live in Illinois and just moved from Indiana. I cant find E85 anywhere. Ive filled up my new truck a few times, the few times Ive found it. Im surrounded by corn and cant find E85.
E85 is not available in all states. The only pump in Florida is in the state capital of Tallahassee. As an example, you'd never get to Miami and back on one tank. E85 will limit where you can drive. As for the enviroment, it takes as much crude oil to make E85 as it does gasoline. It may run cleaner, but you are burning more of it, so it evens out. The price here is only .20 cents less than regular. Considering the mileage is worse, it'll cost you more in the long run to keep fuel in the tank. Most of our oil comes from Venezuela, not the Middle East. My Ranger is a flex fuel vehicle. Every piece of the fuel system is made from stainless because the alcohol absorbs moisture (my EFI pump is over $900 new from Ford vs $140 for a gasoline only pump). E85, over time will rust out the fuel lines and any other steel part it flows thru.
When it became available at Meijer's in Wyoming last fall, I mixed up a 21% mix of alcohol and 79% regular gas for my Model A woodie with 2.0 liter 71 Pinto mill... Ran great...just making it run better was worthit, but I doubt that it's worthwhile in the long run withthe poor mileage compared to regular gasoline...back in '78 South Bend, IN they sold gasoline/alcohol that was 20% if I remember right. My cousin ran it in his Chevy malibu with 307 v8 and he liked it...
Wow, I cant belive the responce i got with this topic. i did not mean for it to become a political thing but alot of it is. i dont mean to be an ass or anything but just wanted hear from people who have or are runing it in there hot rods. i dont care how much energy it takes to make the shit i just wanted to know how it runns in hot rods. the only reason i am thinking about it is cause in minnesota we have it all over the twin cities and it is cheaper than regular gas and i like the fact that i can run more comp. with it.
The price here is only .20 cents less than regular. Considering the mileage is worse, it'll cost you more in the long run to keep fuel in the tank. The price difference here is almost $.60 vs 87octain
when i ran my hillclimb bike on methanol it used twice as much as running it on gas, but had lots of balls. i want e85 up here in canada.
That's a good point. We make that flex fuel pump for Ford. We don't sell many replacement pumps to Ford because most people put a gas pump back in because of the price difference. Maintaining a vehicle that runs E85 is going to cost you a lot more money in the long run. Unless you need 105+ octane I just don'r see the advantage.
don't be too sure, ever seen alky burn in broad daylite? me either....only the heat waves...but MY question is, isn't there something else they could put in there to make it visible? btw, there's a 50 cent diff in price between E85 and reg unleaded...
Im in utah from michigan on vacation ive got a 2006 pontiac g/p with 36 or 37k on it the 10% ethanol is definately cheaper and there is a lot of it out west compared to michigan ohio and indiana. Im getting good mileage although i havent really checked it and it seems to run fine and it was 102F today here ... So im not prolly not a lot of help but it works for me....... So far the cheapest gas ive seen was like 2.5? and that was in way western wyoming. Ethanol will typically run cooler than gasoline if i remember right. but because of the cooler combustion to really benefit you need more compression. 10% really shouldnt do shit although it makes a nice dry gas additive Dave
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