Originally Posted by hotrod

Part 1
Introduction to my experiment with E85 circa 2004
This is a summary of past posts from various forum discussions
I have been running a high ethanol fuel blend in my WRX for nearly 2 years now, with no problems traceable to the fuel. The car really likes the high alcohol blend, with an obvious improvement in performance comparable to high octane so called "race fuels".
The Stock WRX ECU can handle up to approximately 33% E-85, by volume before you get a check engine light for "too lean" due to the fuel trims being pushed to the max rich settings. Add just a bit of pump premium and the CEL will clear.
I recently shifted to STi 550 injectors without any special changes in the engine management. Due to the cars larger injectors the car now prefers a higher blend. I am now running about 95% E-85, but have run the car on blends as low as about 30% E-85 without any serious problems. At lower blends the car has some surging due to the over size injectors at higher throttle settings, but can be easily driven as a daily driver if you stay out of the >60% throttle position transition to open loop.
The one problem is that currently E-85 sites are a little difficult to find, but the more of it we use the more available it will become.
The folks backing E-85 production are pushing as hard as they can to get stations to make it available, but its a slow process. They need customers to start asking station owners if they plan on carrying it to motivate stations to add a pump/tank.
There are currently dozens of FFV's out there that are designed to run on the stuff if folks can find a place to buy it. Simple way to drastically reduce oil demand as well, and put money in our economy instead of some other countries coffers.
I currently drive 20 miles each way to get to the nearest E-85 stations, but it is still a good deal as I am paying $1.59.9 / gal for the E-85, vs about $2.05.9 / gal for premium. ( some E-85 vendors charge at a premium fuel rate of about $2.00/gal)
With the added octane of the E-85 you can actually splash blend it with mid grade gasoline with out problems.
When I suspect it will be difficult to locate E-85 from the pump I just make a point of topping off the tank before it drops below 3/4 full. This keeps the ethanol blend up to a high enough level to avoid any drivability issues with my oversize injectors.
Is the WRX warranteed to run on E85 ?
NO it is not, but my experience shows its not a major issue either.
I think it is important to note that they don't recommend greater than 10% ethanol, ie they warrantee the car will run fine with up to 10% ethanol but greater than that your on your own. But they do not say you should avoid higher blends of ethanol and other tests have shown modern cars can run on upto about 30% blends with no problem.
They do specifically mention that methanol is not to be used over 5% concentration, and that is due to corrosion issues with methanol, which is Much Much more prone to corrosion than ethanol.
So far I have seen no "real" problems with the E-85. There are two minor CEL issues.
1 If your running over 35% on a stock ECU and fuel injectors you will push the fuel trims to full rich and get a "too lean" CEL.
2 If you run up rated injectors like I am now, at around 65% - 75% alcohol fraction the evaporative emissions system gets confused due to the higher vapor pressure of the high alcohol fuel blend and throws a CEL because it thinks your gas cap is loose. (edit 10/02/2005 --- this CEL has not re-appeared in quite a long time. I am beginning to suspect it was due to a loose vacuum hose resulting from the injector upgrade that got fixed as I was working on other things )
I will have to figure out how to "spoof" the evaporative emissions CEL here in the future, but at the moment I'm more interested in seeing how the car runs on near 100% E-85 for a while.
As mentioned above any "damage" should be easily remedied, ie replacing a hose, or some O rings, possibly changing to a different fuel pump. It is very difficult to predict long term corrosion, or materials compatibility so I've decided to bite the bullet and be the test dummy and see what if anything breaks.
Based on my tests, the short term conclusion is you can run concentrations of >10% fuel ethanol for periods in execess of 1 year with no detectable damage. We'll just have to see how things go in another year or so.
Hopefully this winter I'll get the time to pull the fuel pump and look over the interior of the fuel tank to see how its doing.
What is the history of large scale conversions to high ethanol fuels
When Brazil began making a wholesale conversion to high ethanol fuels back in the late 70's following the energy crisis, they made several studies on the ability of normal cars to run ethanol blends. They found that the cars of that period could run up to about 22% blends on the stock system with no problems, which is why they settled on a 20% blend as one of the fuels available. The issue was one of control authority of the ECU to compensate for the leaner mixture. Some could handle more than others. As I stated, it appears the stock ECU on the 2002 WRX is good up till about a 33% - 35% blend.
During the 70's and 80's when oxygenated fuels and "gasahol" first saw wide use here in the U.S. there WERE fuel component compatibility problems. My 1969 VW fuel lines really didn't like the ethanol and began to leak like a sieve, some carburator needle valves softened, some carburator floats would soak up the ethanol and get too heavy to function as a float. There were lots of problems with clogged fuel filters on cars that had been running on gasoline only for decades and had lots of varnish build up in the fuel system. The ethanol in gasohol was a very effecient fuel system cleaner and all that crud got carried to the fuel filters. Once the fuel filters were replaced those problems disappeared.
At that time All the auto manufactures moved to ethanol compatible fuel line components, ie. o rings, rubber hose etc. They warrantee that they are good to 10% but my experience shows they are satisfactory to much higher concentrations. The VW showed its compatibility problem in a matter of months after we went to ethanol blended oxygenated fuel here in Denver. Engineers typically don't solve a compatibility problem by making the new component "sorta compatible" they change compounds to materials that are not effected by the chemical in question.
The Denver area has been using ethanol oxygenated fuels (ranging from 5% - 10%) concentration for over 30 years. Every modern car works just fine with these low ethanol blended fuels. Rubber hoses and O rings last for the life of the car.

The electrical conductivity issue is not significant in the case of ethanol. It is detectable with a dialectic constant tester. It DOES become a significant issue with methanol blends which is why methanol blended fuel is so agressively corrosive. The main issue with methanol is it agressively attacks certain metals like magnesium and zinc. One of the reasons everyone is looking at ethanol is the 30+ years of successful use of high ethanol fuel blends in Brazil and low ethanol blends here in the U.S. with essentially zero problems after they changed fuel line and O ring and seal materials in the fuel system.
Dialectic Constants
Gasoline 2.2
Ethanol 24
Methanol 33.6
Water 48 - 88
Keep in mind that absolutely pure water is a good enough insulator it is used to cool electronic components. It does not become an effective conductor until is dissolves minerals that act as charge carriers (electrolytes).

Will my O2 sensor work with E85 and high ethanol blends?
The O2 sensor is not an issue, all it cares about is if your at stoich combustion at low throttle settings, it doesn't much care how you get there, so no need to change it.

What about the evaporative emissions system in my car
The higher vapor pressure of ethanol gasoline blends is not ideal for the evaporative emissions system and the vapor recovery canister. For full emissions compliance these will need to be modified. Currently there are no kits available to upgrade this part of the emissions system. At very high ethanol blends you may see CEL warnings because the evaporative emissions system is not happy with some of its sensor readings. This does not appear to effect the cars performance, or fuel milage in any way and is mostly a nusince CEL.
As I mentioned above the only -- real -- problem so far is simply some nusince CELs.
"too lean" if your over 30%+ on the stock injectors, and an evaporative emissions CEL if your running >65% or so on upgraded injectors.
If your emissions test requires no CELs present, you simply need to go to a lower ethanol fuel blend for a while to allow that nusince CEL to clear, and the dash warning light to go off.

what would be needed for a complete conversion kit to run 100% ethanol fuel

For full conversion to alcohol fuels the change list typically looks something like:

1. Go to an compatable fuel pump (non-sparking if intank design).
2. Replace fuel lines with alcohol compatable lines.
3. Possibly replace filter (???).
4. Replace injectors with large enough ones to feed proper fueling.
5. Replace injector/FPR o-rings with compatible o-rings... viton maybe?
6. Add a spark/flash suppressor to the fuel tank inlet tube.
7. Ensure the fuel tank material is completely compatable with alcohol.
8. Stop the stock ECU from freaking out due to changes in various emissions sensor readings.
With ethanol on the WRX, you only need (according to my current experience base) is numbers 4, and 8.
I would love to see if one of the ECU reflash vendors can get into the part of the ECU code to solve the evaporative emissions issue. I'm pretty sure the Evap emissions problem can be spoofed mechanically but just have not had time to look at it. If not the simple solution is to drop to a 60% blend. That would reduce consumption of oil by nearly 2/3's give you probably 1/2 the emissions you get with gasoline, and some where between 5% - 10% more power.
What about fuel system corrosion?
Corrosion does not appear to be an issue with modern OBDII cars. They are all certified by the manufactures to be safe to use on 10% ethanol fuel blends, and industry insiders say they are safe for much higher percentages. You don't install components that are "sorta safe" with a chemical, you put in a fuel hose etc. that is ethanol safe for concentrations well above what you expect to use. Not to mention that folks have been talking for years about raising the ethanol level to 20% or more.
Occasional use would be no problem at all based on my experience. I have never cut open the fuel filter (still have the OEM filter in place) I'll open it when I replace it. I want to put enough time on it to have conclusive evidence if there are problems.
The engine is not an issue with either, WI using a water alcohol mix or straight alcohol injection. In those systems alcohol and water are not used in significant quantity or for long duration. The Buick GN folks and lots of folks in the DSM crowd have done it for literally decades with no problems for the engine.
Many years ago there were studies that indicated engines that ran on alcohol ALONE as a fuel, had issues with lubrication and valve seat wear. Keep in mind, those studies were done a long time ago, when engine oils were much less sophisticated than they are now, and some engine manufactures in the 1940's,1950' and 1960's made stupid engineering decisions and did not use hard valve seat inserts like stellite in the cylinder heads. This resulted in valve seat recession problems if you did not have lead additives in the fuel to protect the valve seats.
What about oil contamination?
Modern lubricants, especially the synthetic oils are much much different than the oils used during those studies, and modern engines run at higher temperatures today which will quickly boil any traces of alcohol out of the oil.
In cold weather I run an 180 deg thermostat to assist quick warmup I have left it in during this past summer and so far the engine has no heating issues with the 180 thermostat on the E85 fuel.
Is Ethanol less corrosive than Methanol?
Methanol is much more corrosive than ethanol. It attacks certain soft metals that are not much used in modern fuel systems. Years ago, the carburators were made of un-anodized aluminum and if methanol fuel was used, you had major problems with electrolytic corrosion between the aluminum and copper components used in the fuel system, since they were in continous contact.
That sort of corrosion only occurs when you have a current path between the dissimilar metals AND, a conductive path through the fluid in the system.
In Brazil where they have run high ethanol fuels since 1939, they found that to convert older cars designed for gasoline, long before ethanol blends were common, needed several changes to convert the cars over. This led to changes in valve materials, piston rings choices, nickle plating of the fuel tanks etc.
Modern cars in the U.S. are designed for use with ethanol up to 10% concentration in the fuel. That has led to several changes in component materials over the last 30 years that the U.S. has used ethanol enhanced fuels. All modern fuel lines and such are designed with the expectation that some ethanol will be in the fuel.

My experiment is an intentional effort to push the envelope and see what happens. Over the last 2 years I have run high ethanol fuels ( normal pump fuel here in Colorado contains up to 10% ethanol anyway) for months at a time.
At mixtures below 33% by volume of alcohol ( about 39% E-85 by volume) I had absolutely no problems of any kind. At higher mixtures > 33% alcohol, I got a nuisance CEL for too lean which could be eliminated by added gasoline to the mix or as I have recently increased the injector size. (Increasing fuel pressure would also increase the effective size of the injectors).
At mixtures near 65% in my current setup I got a nuisance CEL for the evaporative emissions system, but the car runs very well on the high alcohol blend. The only issue with near 100% E-85, is the car starts a little harder in cold weather. When it gets very cold I drop the mixture to about 80% or so to solve that by adding about 2 gallons of gasoline to the tank of E-85.
I have done no oil analysis at this point, walbro 255l/h fuel pump and 550 injectors show no signs of problems to date.
Larry

Originally Posted by hotrod

Part 2
Where can I buy E85?

Distribution is currently a problem, it is most available in the mid western states, but there is a concerted effort to get an ethanol fueling infrastructure built, it just takes time, and recognition by the gasoline vendors that there is a market. Marathon oil has already added E85 to their formal product line so things are moving in that direction.

Current high fuel prices can only help that process, as will lots of people calling up gas stations and asking them when they plan on pumping E85 for FFV's.

E85 already contains inhibitors and such to minimize corrosion, and most of the problems with ethanol usage were solved 20 years ago when most of the country moved to ethanol addition to gasoline following the oil crisis in 1973 and high oil prices that continued up until 1981.

Where can I buy E85
For information on distribution points check out:
http://www.e85fuel.com/


How about fuel mixtures for E85 what is needed ?

The one interesting thing to note is that the stock pig rich mixtures at WOT on the stock ECU of the WRX are very close to max power mixtures on E85 blends. If you play with the blending ratio to find your magic number you can take advantage of this by giving the car a fuel blend that is max power rich at stock ECU WOT mixtures. *** just take your time and work up the blend slowly ***

After a few folks have dyno runs on various blends we can probably pick out a "best starting point" blend that will get you very close. We could also work out the other supporting mods to make best use of E85 for minimum cost.

It basically takes about a +30% increase in fuel flow to get the same equivalent mixture with E85 that you had with gasoline.

For example an adjustable fuel pressure regulator can increase your effective injector flow to partially compensate for the fuel changes.

As mentioned above, lean is still a bad thing, and with alcohol fuels due to the higher power levels a serious leanout is more lethal. With conservative mixtures alcohol actually burns so cool that on E85 FFV there is some concern about getting the cat to light off.

If you sneak up on a fuel blend slowly you should be just fine. I would venture to say for the near stock folks, up to 30% is probably safe as long as you give the ECU a few miles to make the major part of the fuel trim accomodation before you start beating on the car. You'll know when the ECU starts to get happy as the midrange torque is noticably better.

I also strongly suspect that a well tuned car with no cats can probably pass the emissions sniff test on high E85 blends.


How does ignition timing change on E85 ?

Timing on ethanol blends will not change very much. MBT timing for both gasoline and E85 are very nearly the same at light to moderate engine loads. At high engine load the E85 will want just slightly more advance. The big difference will be fuel/air mixture. The E85 will give improved torque with much richer mixtures than gasoline. Both gasoline and E85 will give best thermal effeciency at about 15% rich of stoich, so the equivalent of 12.78:1 on gasoline would be about 8.5:1 on E85, but E85 will continue to give better torque numbers up to about +40% rich of stoich or 7:1 mixtures, so on a utec you would want to richen up your WOT high load cells and add a tweak of timing to get the most out of E85 from what I've read.

Quote:
Are you sure you don't mean that E85 will allow more advance?

Just passing on what I've found in the various sources. Logically you are correct, but one source says simply that MBT timing is the same for E85 and gasoline, and another report says at low loads the E85 and gasoline like the same MBT timing but at high loads MBT timing for the E85 is slightly more advance.

I suspect this is due to them not running ideal max power mixtures but cannot confirm it. Burn speed for E85 changes quite a bit with mixture, so if they were just a little bit lean or rich of ideal the burn rate would be lower.

Lots and lots of variables not well covered in some of the sources and in general they are focusing on emissions issues not max power torque so that would incline them to use less than best power timing advance. In a couple of the reports they also had limited control authority over timing and may not have explored the extremes very thoroughly.

what data is available on combustion speed for E85?
Just about a year ago (2003), I was finding conflicting information on alcohol fuel burn speeds and contacted The National Renewable Energy Lab here in Denver, they did a search and could only find a couple of references on it, one that showed ethanol fuels burn faster, so the literature is not very rich in data on the subject. Most reports are not entirely applicable to our needs like tests on lawnmower engines and alcohol fuels have some significant limitations

Still digging for info but that is my best information at the present time.

The report that mentioned the slight increased advance requirement on heavy load E85 fuels was :

"Final Report Control of Exhaust Emissions from Small Engines Using E-10 and E-85 Fuels"
http://www.michigan.gov/cis/0,1607,7...0064--,00.html
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/CI...E-_87915_7.pdf


On page 12 it says :
"Tests were conducted to assess the impact of MBT ignition timing on fuel economy and exhaust emissions. The spark timing was varied until the least advanced timing was achieved for the maximum torque for a given setting of the engine throttle. The A/F ratio was adjusted to achieve near stoichiometric operation. ... " The MBT timing for E-85 fuel was a few crank angle degrees advances compared to E-0 fuel when the engine was delivering high loads, typically 100 - 75%. Not much difference was observed at lower engine loads."

I'm assuming that this explains the timing change as they were using what would be closed loop fuel mixtures on the WRX. So in load cells that would continue to use closed loop fueling you would want to have slightly more ignition timing than you would with gasoline. In the case of WOT open loop fueling where your running a max power rich fuel mixture, I very strongly suspect the fuel burn speed would be noticably faster, and you would use less ignition advance than on gasoline and reap the benefit of less negative work on the late stages of the compression / early period of combustion prior to TDC.

In a power point presentation presented by the EPA at the SAE Government and Industry Meeting in Washington D.C. on May 13, 2003 titled:

"Ethanol-Gasoline Blends: Fuel Economy and Emissions Benefits"

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/presentation...mjb-051303.pdf

On page 9 of the presentation is a nice chart comparing laminar burn speeds of gasoline and Ethanol.

It shows the following burn speeds:

Mixture fuel/air---- 1:1 ------------ 1.1:1

Gasoline --------- 26 cm/sec ------- 30 cm/sec (max about 31 cm/sec)
Ethanol ---------- 41 cm/sec ------- 45 cm/sec (max value)

Clearly at +10% - +15% rich mixtures where ethanol shows max thermal effeciency it burns significantly faster than gasoline. Which could be quite important to a very over square bore engine like ours!!


what is the ideal fuel air mixture for E85

If you are tuning with a wideband O2 sensor you will want to switch it to Lamda mode to get valid fuel air mixtures with blended fuels. If you can only get gasoline AFR's, simply divide the gasoline AFR's by 1.5 to get the true AFR for 100% E85. If running a partial mixture you can make proportional changes based on the percentage of E85 in the mix.

Here are some comparisions of stoichmetric fuel mixtures for different fuel blends:
======== stoichmetric AFR ===== max power rich AFR
Gasoline ---------- 14.7:1 -------------------12.5
100% E-85 ------- 9.73-9.8:1 ------------- ~ 9:1 - 8:1
100% fuel ethanol - 9:1 ------------------- ~ 7.2:1

One source specifies that the proper fuel tune (stoich) for a VW Golf running 22% ethanol was 12.7:1 (this reference was probably from the Brazil tests)

Ethanol reaches max torque at richer mixtures than gasoline will.
Using a 99% ethanol mixture MEP increases with mixtures up to 40% excess fuel where with gasoline MEP is reached near 20% excess fuel. Over all thermal effeciency for both gasoline and ethanol is reached near 15% excess fuel.

E85 burns faster than gasoline at best mixtures so it is an inherently more effecient fuel. It also produces more exhaust gas for a give weight of fuel air mix giving higher average cylinder pressures inspite of lower EGT's. With streight E85 in a properly tuned car its good for about +5% power / torque increase. I suspect on a turbocharged car the benefit is larger.

My source lists stoich for E85 as 9.8:1 ( "Burn rates and emissions from ethanol gasoline blends" )
http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/resea...5-2004.doc.pdf

Here's a little reference chart I whipped up when I was working out my dyno numbers.

Originally Posted by hotrod

Part 3


What is your test history to date (6/2005) with E85 ?

I just tallied up my usage over the last 2 years, (the first year I was very cautious and did not use very much). I've put about 500 gallons of E85 and 100% fuel grade ethanol through the cars tank --- that's some where around 40 fill ups, or around 9,000 miles or so on high ethanol (ie greater than 10%) blend fuels.


I am intentionally running the E85 with no special fuel system modifications. In a few years or when ever problems crop up, I'll pull things apart and see what has happened. So far I have absolutely no evidence of ANY kind of degradation on my 2002 WRX. The only non-stock component I'm running in the fuel system at the current time is a walbro 255 L/hr pump, so I cannot absolutely tell you how the stock pump likes the stuff.

Why is E85 a better fuel ?

Ethanol and is a very turbo friendly fuel for many reasons.
1. It has a much higher evaporative cooling power than gasoline so the intake air charge in the cylinder is significantly cooler that it is with a comparable mixture of gasoline --- that means higher VE.

2. Its octane as blended in E85 is about 100, its blending octane when added to gasoline is rated at 118, so it is a very cost effective octane booster.

3. Ethanol burns faster than gasoline but has a slightly longer ignition delay during the slow burn phase of combustion so the engine does not do as much negative work fighting rising cylinder pressures due to large ignition advances. The total ignition advance for E85 is almost identical to the ideal advance for gasoline so it does not cause the ECU problems when you mix them.

4. At proper mixture you actually are releasing more energy in the cylinder due to the higher quantity of fuel you can burn. ( Ethanol can burn effeciently at much richer mixtures than gasoline can) That means about a 5% increase in energy release all by itself.

5. Peak combustion pressures are actually lower for ethanol than for gasoline but the cylinder pressures stay higher longer, so you have more (longer) crank angle that is usable by the engine. This lower peak cylinder pressure also helps with detonaton control.

6. It will, at proper mixtures lower EGT's by around 200 deg F, but due to the higher quantity of exhaust gas products it produces you do not lose any spool up (in fact I would wager spool up is better).

7. It is much cheaper ( if you go to a station that is not trying to price gouge).


How much will my miles per gallon of fuel drop with E85?

The only negative to E85 is that it gives a lower fuel milage on a gallon for gallon basis to gasoline. The actual difference in energy content between straight gasoline and E85 is about 27%.

The drop in milage is not as significant as you would think based on that difference due to the higher effeciency of the ethanol as a high performance fuel. This winter I was getting about 92% of the fuel milage I would get on gasoline on 100% E85.

The lower milage is not really a big deal, ethanol has lower energy per gallon but your reduction in milage is not nearly as large as that difference would imply. Due to the higher torque,you use slightly smaller throttle openings to get the same level of preformance, and due to the greater quantity of combustion products (more moles of gas) per lb of fuel the engine effeciency actually goes up slightly. My long term fuel milage average is in the vicinity of 24.5 mpg, with pump gas, and with 75% ethanol blend, I was getting just over 23 mpg driven normally. Recently I have been flogging the crap out of the car to sort out new boost controller settings for my new turbo (went from a 13T to a 16G). Given I now have a larger turbo and all that is hardly a noticable fuel milage drop. I have gotten around 300 -345 miles/tank on straight gasoline when I was bone stock, and I expect to get from 280 - 310 miles per tank on the E-85 based on my notes of fuel consumption and accounting for the unusually hard driving I have been doing the last week working on the boost controller settings.

In very cold weather <20deg F I don't go above about 90% E85 to improve cold starting and speed up engine warm up a bit. Other than that the car loves E85 and so does my wallet ---- $1.89/gallon (6/2005) for 100 octane fuel is hard to argue with. It only drops my fuel milage a small amount. I get 93.76% of my gasoline milage when driving conservatively in my WRX with the larger injectors and high ethanol fuel blends.


will a wide band O2 sensor accurately read fuel air mixtures with E85 blends ?

To get an accurate AFR reading you need to switch the meter to Lambda or equivalence ratio setting rather than AFR. Most O2 sensors assume you are running gasoline and will report a stoichimetric mixture as 14.7:1 which is the proper value for gasoline. E85 has a Stoichemetric mixture of between 9.7 - 10:1 and a max power mixture of about 6.98-8.5:1 or so, where with gasoline it is 12.5:1-to 13.1.

If you must use an O2 sensor that only reports gasoline AFR information simply divide the numbers it reports by 1.47 - 1.50.

On gasoline, my ECU is supposed to give a mixture of 11.5:1 and on 100% E85 the dyno's wide band reported an AFR of 11.6:1. That means that my true AFR on the E85 was about 7.8:1 which is right in the middle of max power mixtures for E85.

Larry

Originally Posted by fixem2

MJ,
Hypothetically, if someone had access to E85 and increased there injector size to 680's or 720's they could try to use E85 at 100% or with a mixture of 93 octane? This is all hypothetical, of course. Curious if this type of fuel could be used with Alky injection or if that would become to much of an alcohol type mixture.

Originally Posted by fixem2

That is my thought too, but figured I would ask the question to verify my assumption. This assumption is based on some running ethanol injection instead of alky.