E85 conversion

Millerad1651 · Mar 14, 2012

So instead of tacking on to the LP conversion thread, I figured I'd start a new one. When I had my last truck, I looked into converting it to E85. Living in Indiana, where a crap-ton of corn is produced, E85 is regularly cheaper than regular gas. Right now it's a good 80 - 90 cents cheaper, and this is the high season for it, it gets cheaper in the fall.
I've read that there are a small loss of mpgs, but there is a power gain. E85 runs cooler, and less carbon, so it can be better for your engine. These kits allow for use of E85, as well as regular gas. What do you guys think about them? Anyone have any experience? This is the site I got a lot of info from...they sell the conversion kit for 3.4s for $375. I'm not sure whether we use the Toyota or Nippo Denso Injectors, but the kits are the same price. Thats not too bad IMO.
E85 Conversion Kits Change2E85.com

Actual kit
http://www.change2e85.com/servlet/Detail?no=114

tbst · Mar 14, 2012

Interesting. Was doing some MPG and monetary analysis to post up and will soon to figure out how long it pays for itself in. What do we want to say the average mpg decrease is?

Is there a good website to find locations? Found some older ones, but I could swear there are more in Pittsburgh than what they list.

PitbullRescuer · Mar 14, 2012

Interesting topic and curious to see what the MPG decrease is in the 4Runner. My buddy and I drove out to Pittsburgh last summer for a wedding, 300 miles each way from Philly. We took his '08 Yukon which is a GM FlexFuel Vehicle. The MPG's with the E85 were terrible, I think we lost 100 miles from what he would normally get out of a tank. So it lost about 4 MPG. I'd be curious to see how the 3.4 responds to it.

RunninInGA · Mar 14, 2012

I've read the mpg loss is approx 4-5 miles on the average v6, but can't remember the source offhand. I have never heard there was a power gain however.

Millerad1651 · Mar 14, 2012

Ya I think I read 5-10% decrease is common. I had a rental last year for a month that was flex...I drove the piss out of it and didn't notice that big a difference, maybe a mile or two. My guess it's more severe in bigger engines.

hugo2go · Mar 14, 2012

5-10% decrease in MPG is about right.
I've been running a 50/50 Mix of E85 and 87 Octance (Cali crap gasoline) and get about a 10% decrease in mileage.
I haven't done anything crazy to it to run E85. I also run pure E85 in my Honda Accord with no issues.
Only significant notice is the performance, once you step on the gas the damn thing wants to fly. Its like your running 100 octane in the thing.

IanB · Mar 14, 2012

RunninInGA said:
I've read the mpg loss is approx 4-5 miles on the average v6, but can't remember the source offhand. I have never heard there was a power gain however.

There will be a fuel economy loss for sure (ethanol has less power potential that gasoline), and there is a power gain POTENTIAL due to the higher octane rating of ethanol, but you'd need more fuel, and boost to ever achieve a power gain. A naturally aspirated engine won't see a power gain on E85, just the decrease in fuel economy.

Ethanol as a fuel is unsustainable, it is the work of the corn lobby pure and simple. The fact that it is now law that ethanol has to be in our fuel is ridiculous.

tbst · Mar 14, 2012

Yeah, there are some interesting articles on ethanol usage and the direct effect on corn prices and world food prices. Distributing.

Someone somewhere has done a conversion. Need to find it. Haven't tried searching yet. On my phone...

Millerad1651 · Mar 14, 2012

Whether the corn lobby is screwing us, or the oil companies are screwing us, someone is going to be screwing us. Its just the way it is. If I can save some money on fuel, I will. I know E85 is popular around here, and there is definitely no shortage of it. E85 is actually 105 octane, so like Hugo said, there could be a power gain, although probably minimal. Here is another site I got info from, they have a decent FAQ section.

Flex Fuel Conversion Kits - E85 Conversion Kits - Drive Flex Fuel - FAQ

hugo2go · Mar 14, 2012

I've heard many mixed reviews here in Socal from different tuners.
But my take on this is that if prices dont fall below $4.25 a gallon in California, i'm going to upgrade the rig to run E85 all day log.
Which from what I have been told is just different injectors and a piggyback or standalone system.

So we'll see.......

IanB · Mar 14, 2012

Millerad1651 said:
Whether the corn lobby is screwing us, or the oil companies are screwing us, someone is going to be screwing us. Its just the way it is. If I can save some money on fuel, I will. I know E85 is popular around here, and there is definitely no shortage of it. E85 is actually 105 octane, so like Hugo said, there could be a power gain, although probably minimal. Here is another site I got info from, they have a decent FAQ section.

Flex Fuel Conversion Kits - E85 Conversion Kits - Drive Flex Fuel - FAQ

You don't gain power from higher octane fuel, if the engine doesn't require higher octane. Octane rating is simply a measurment of the fuel's resistance to detonation. If the ethanol content is the reason for the higher octane, it actually contains LESS power potential than straight gasoline of all grades, even 87 octane gasoline.

Dbl. E · Mar 14, 2012

I didn't know these conversions were available at all. Somebody get one and report back. In my area E85 is about $1.30 per gallon cheaper. For my driving habits I would have the kit paid for in around four months.

Millerad1651 · Mar 14, 2012

The power gain comes from the fact that higher ethanol count takes longer to burn, so instead of one quick burst to push the piston down with gasoline, the E85 burns the whole length of piston travel, which CAN lead to higher performance. Also burns cooler and releases less carbon, leading to a cleaner burn/engine.

"It is true that a vehicle does require more E85 than regular gas since the amount of energy per unit of ethanol is less than that of gas. Ethanol has a lower ignition temperature so the engine overall will run cooler increasing power. It also burns slower so instead of just burning out in one violent explosion forcing the piston down, it continues to burn the entire length of the piston stroke expanding gases more evenly and smoothly. So running E85 will give any engine more power over any pump gas. Also E85 is 105 octane. Gas comes in 87, 89 and 91 octane. The 105 octane of E85 will help to eliminate knocks and pings. All of these benefits will make an engine run smoother and quieter."

CaliCal · Mar 14, 2012

IanB is right. on natural aspirated engine there is no gains. on a turbo is where it shines. horse power records have been broken cause of the E85. Rotary engine also benefits from it since its burns cleaner and cooler.

super charged?

Millerad1651 · Mar 14, 2012

I can be! Im far from being an expert on this, just reiterating what ive read and heard. I'm just looking at this as an option. Right now it is significantly cheaper per gallon, and it'll only get cheaper through the year. I don't see gas going down anytime soon either. Oh well, I may or may not do it, just thought I'd get a convo started.

JayRolla · Mar 14, 2012

There is some good info and some bad info in here. Ive been running and tuning 400+whp cars on e85 for over 5 years now. All my friends run e85 in there high HP cars.

1. There is a loss of 10-20% in MPG if running straight e85. At WOT the air/fuel misture will need 30% more fuel than gasoline to get a good air/fuel mix. So if running pure e85, if your ECU cant compensate up too 30% fuel/air change than you will run lean at WOT and start to eat up valves. Yes it may take a long time since we dont run 4runners at WOT that much but on my talon it could eat up a valve or piston in a madder of a few WOT runs. So if switching over too pure e85 you want to have something to control the fuel/air mixture.

2. You dont make power just switching too e85. I have dyno tested this and so has lots of other people. If you car was running real low octane causing detonation and your timing was being retarted then yes you will gain power but that would happen only if running too low of octane for the car to begin with. You only gain power when you add timing, compression or boost to the motor and e85 allows lots of all those things. It never detonates/knocks and you can actually lose power from adding too much timing since it never detonates.

3. You dont need to upgrade fuel lines as long as the car is made past 1989. Thats when they started adding 10% ethonal to gasoline and asked all car manufactures to make stock rubber lines e85 safe.

To run e85 safe

1. You need some time of fuel management and a WBo2 so you can watch your AFR's and make sure your running safe.

2. If running boost you will need to upgrade fuel injectors and fuel pump to handle the added fuel at WOT. Usually around 30% more fuel at WOT and 20-30% more fuel at cruise and mid fuel trims.

3. You will need to pull injectors every 10k miles to have them cleaned. E85 has some type of addative that gums up the fuel injector tips. It can get so bad that the injector can fail and in our high HP cars its usually very bad at WOT on the track. You can either clean them or run gasoline sometimes to get the goo out but you will need to retune too do that.

If anyone has questions running e85 send me a PM. I dont have knowledge running it on our motors but I have extensive knowledge tuning and running it on other vehicles making lots of power. My talon was running 32psi on an holset HX35, 12.0 AFR (lean for that much boost) and over 24* timing with zero detonation on a stock Mitsubishi 4 cylinder block. E85 is awesome stuff!

Millerad1651 · Mar 15, 2012

Thanks for the info Jay. Like I said, I'm far from an expert. I've just read a bunch. I still may add the kit, which will allow me to run both E85 and regular gas...even just mixing will save some money. And for $375, it's not the most expensive mod I've done to the truck!

IanB · Mar 15, 2012

If you can get the fuel substantially cheaper, then it may be worth it, but you need to consider that you will get 10-20% worse fuel economy than funning E10 fuel, so the E85 needs to be cheap enough that it still makes sense after the cost of the conversion kit.

You will also make less power running E85, it's a lot like a LPG conversion in this way.

Martinjmpr · Mar 15, 2012

Interesting - it's sort of the flip side of the diesel conversion. Small diesels typically get 30-40% better MPG than an equivalent gasoline engine, but the fuel is also typically quite a bit more expensive (I've seen stations around here where Diesel is as much as $0.90/gallon more than regular unleaded.)

I actually owned an E-85 capable vehicle, my 1999 Ford Ranger with the Flex-Fuel 3.0 V6. Unfortunately, that was before the big corn lobby subsidies so at that time (1999 through 2003) E-85 was actually 10 to 20 cents/gallon more than premium unleaded, and therefore there was no incentive to run it.

I did pump a tank full of E-85 a couple of times just to see how it worked. I could not tell any difference performance-wise but MPG dropped by about 10%.

Back in 2008, last time gas prices spiked, I looked into this briefly for my Tacoma. Ultimately I decided it wasn't worth it. However, I'd be interested in seeing how this plays out.