This was true on my IX when I went E85. Only needed 26psi to reach the limits of my setup, in a very hot dyno bay (115F) and could not hit the high loads due to the heat. We ended up at 380hp/364tq and figured would be closer to 390-400hp in the higher loads in a cooler atmosphere.
This was with a full TBE (O2&TP) ETS Intake and a ETS IC kit (short UICP) 255fp and RC1000cc. Not to bad for a stock IX for the most part.

 

Had to take a short hiatus from tuning E85, but back to it now. I've been pushing up the boost slowly. I have been setting very conservative AFR values in the fuel map for high loads, and as I creep up into these higher load cells with each tweak of the boost settings, the car is running richer during WOT runs (hitting about 11.3-11.5 AFR in the mid rpms). What I'm finding interesting is that the car appears to have a greater tendency to knock with the richer AFR. The knock is very low level (1-3 counts) and sustains from about 3000 rpm out to 6000 rpm. The last time I saw this kind of knock response was when the car on gasoline and inadvertently lowered the AFR down to around 10:1.

 

yea, I found the same thing. Car knocks slightly (1-5 counts) when run richer. As soon as I moved the AFR north of 11.7 everything cleaned up and it actually refuses to knock, even beyond MBT.

 

I've been tuning for HP this past week, but have also been watching my mileage. Just finished up my first tank of gas doing daily driving with my closed loop programmable AFR patch. I got just shy of 17 mpg, and with the current E85 and 92 oct gas prices in town, I've reached the break-even cost point for daily driving with E85. What sucks though is that my road trip mileage is hardly any better than my daily driving mileage even when using my closed loop programmable AFR patch. I get 18 mpg on the highway. I think the reason is that I cruise at about 73-75 mph. If I dropped down to 60-65, I might get closer to 20 mpg, but I can't stand driving that slowly when I'm trying to get somewhere. I don't know how JB is getting 23 mpg on the highway. That's amazing.

I'll have some interesting data on my power tuning tomorrow. Quick summary though is that I've reached 350 whp with my Excel spreadsheet that calculates HP/TQ from EvoScan data. That's a solid 50-60 whp over my 92 octane tune. I think there is room for at least another 30 whp with an open air filter and perhaps turning down the wastegate rod linkage one turn to get a bit more boost. (I'm only at about 23 psi at peak HP.)

 

mrfred, all good stuff to hear!

mrfred, what are you running for your plug gap?? I had major misfire issues, I gaped my plugs down to about 23 and problem solved...... Are you having any issues with that?

Im on tank #3, and I have nothing but good things to say about it!
I dont have any HP numbers now, the tactrix cable finaly wore out.... I should have a new one monday and I can post up what I have done so far... I was at about 25psi of boost when the cable died and 97.5% duty cycle on my 660cc injectors, but I have a set of 1000cc going in when i get my new cable. The car feels very fast, and very strong. I am having cold start issues but I havnt worked on that at all, and its nothing majo, its just doesnt start the on the first time.....

 

Appreciate the constant updates.

Bryan had some news on our local forum as he tuned a car w/ a PT6262 on e85 and from the looks of it.........more hp w/ less boost but with the compromise of needing to supply more fuel to the motor.

I'm really itching to get my hands on this stuff and for enough time to get my car tuned for it

 

No misfires with the stock Evo IX plugs.

I think there a few things that can be done now to help with cold start:

1) Try increasing the startup enrichment values.

2) Try disabling the warmup ignition retard routine (set periphery0 bit9 = 0, or if you do not have the new periphery bit definitions for ECUFlash, change periphery0 from 0x56DA to 0x54DA).

 

I think I've maxed out the stock BCS or my DV is not holding boost. I've been able to reach 25 psi out to 5000 rpm no problem, but now as I push for 26 psi, no amount of WGDC increase seems to be making a difference. Time to get the Dejon Stop Leak and a better BCS.

 

You can't go beyond 26psi peak?

Sounds pretty much like your BOV.

 

The ceiling is definitely looking like 26 psi, maybe even just 25.5 psi. I ordered a Dejon Stop Leak kit this afternoon. I've got a Prodrive BCS on order as well.

 

I think I've reached a pretty good spot with the high power tuning. I'm hitting ~350 whp and around 325 tq on my HP/TQ calculator. These values are a solid 50 whp and 30 tq over my 92 octane tune. Its not as much of an increase as most people are getting, but I'm running a cat and a nearly stock airbox. If anyone one has any suggestions on a cold air setup that flows better than stock, but isn't any louder than stock, I'm all ears. I'd like to do a Titek O2 housing as well, but no time to get into something like that.

HP/TQ and some EvoScan data are below. The timing table is shown below as well. One thing I've found with the timing is that I don't need to pull back much timing at the highest loads. What works at 260 load also works fine at 280 load. No knock, and not past MBT. I suspect that similar values will work fine at 300 load as well. I'm still a bit chickensh*t about pushing up the timing at 3000-4000 rpm though. Even though I'm pretty well convinced that E85 is knock proof with a good AFR, my car is a DD, and I don't have the time to deal with breaking something in search of the last few hp and tq.

One last tidbit is that I took some baro measurements on some of my recent road dyno runs. I'm seeing a consistent 0.7-0.8 psi of vacuum at the MAF at the highest airflow values. I'd be curious to see what baro values people get with a good open element intake.

Selected data


whp/tq


Current timing map

 

nice stuff. I've found that 3-4500 doesn't like alot of timing on E85.

I still need to do those logs for you mrfred, sorry it's taking so long. I haven't been driving the evo much in the last week or so. I am interested in the MAF vac though.

 

The Data.xml file I sent to you is set up for the MAF vac reading, so it will be very interesting to compare your airfilter setup (disco potato airfilter in a stock airbox with bottom cutout?) to my nearly stock airfilter setup.

EDIT: BTW, how are you determining the timing at 3-4.5K, knock or MBT?

 

Knock actually, get a little 1-3 count noise that goes away with less timing.

I've only done a handful of E85 evos so far though so...

 

Here is some baro data from the Ebay filter test I did a while back: https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...=277802&page=5

At 20psi boost, with the stock airbox/filter I saw .95 psi pressure drop and with the Ebay filter I saw .37psi pressure drop.


Eric