Cold start:

Ok, so i live in minnesota and it's been really cold last couple of weeks, highs in 20's lows around 0. The car has been sitting in my driveway for 2 weeks, accumulating snow on it I wanted to see if it would start 2 nights ago, but the battery died and i left it at that.
Yesterday it was snowing all day and last night some local guys were having what we call snow olympics And so i decided it was time to take my summer wheels off, throw the all seasons and go have some fun.

So i spend 10 minutes shoveling a foot of snow off of my Evo, get my civic next to it, hook up jumper cables, get in the Evo, turn the key - fired RIGHT UP!!! No hesitation, no cranking, i mean RIGHT UP! It was 13*F.

I'll report again when it's around 0 F.

 

I had similar results last winter with my car on E85. Never a problem starting other than the mini battery struggling a bit in the cold temperatures.

-Paul

 

That is very encouraging to hear!

 

I have to crank mine at least 4-5 times in 40-50 degree weather, whats your secret?

 

Mine starts right up too, same location as mplspilot

 

I honestly don't know, maybe we got better corn in minnesota

 

What kind of timing do you have at idle?

 

It's stock timing at idle, 5 to 11. I never had a problem with it, idle is set at 875. I do make sure that i idle at 14.7 afr in open loop (when cold, on start-up) and in order to do that i rescaled my MAF scaling table and changed values in lower loads.

You can listen to the way it idles with 280's on YouTube

 

What would be the correct heat range plugs to run with the Green/E85? I've tried 3 different types of plugs and it seems like I'm getting detonation even on 22psi. I don't know if it's because of the plugs or if the stations have switched over to E70, while I'm tuned for E85.

 

i'm considering e85 myself but am stuck in the middle....so my question is what would you guys choose 100 octane or e85 (this is strickly for race use only) on the streets i will be seeing 91 octane only?? any pros and cons on the two this will be the deciding factor on what i will use??? any tuners please chime in.........

 

Well I run BR8es which are 1.5 step colder than stock BPR7. I'm kinda lazy to detune my car to E70, so i'm still on the same timing and afr tables. The only thing I did is turn the boost down to 26-27. So now the car runs really lean, I was expecting it to stay the same or maybe even be richer with e70 but dense cold air together with probably some sort of ECU temp adjustment makes the afr in high 11's. I also get over 4 knock counts if I start a pull under 3000-3500 rpm's about 70% of the time. Not that I have to go fast anywhere, with this weather and my all season tires I'm taking it easy.

I'm obviousely biased but I think E85 might be a better solution if you have the supporting hardware and can tune it. 100 octane will be easier to tune. You get a lot more than just octane increase when you use E85.

 

If you are talking about anything other than drag racing with E85 you'll drink alot more fuel. In a normal 30 minute lapping session you can expect to kill nearly the entire tank of E85. Hope you have a source close by.

I run a 93/110 blend for lapping days. I never see any knock. Higher speeds tend to keep the FMIC cool as well. I bring 10 gallons of 110 with me to the track but most places have race fuel on site.

Just something to think about.

 

I've put in BPR8ES and am getting knock/detonation. I don't have a tactrix cable on hand so I can't log it. I think I'll just try running wastegate pressure until E85 comes back since I am not too familiar with tuning myself.

[Edit] - Actually after talking to my friend, I can just click my translator a two clicks richer and see how it does there. I forgot about adjusting it.

 

If you have a MBC or EBC, you can just reduce the boost to maybe 24psi. It should be fine at that level.. And yeah, make it richer a bit. Do you have a wideband?

 

I have it tuned on 22 and 26psi, both E85 tunes so it's knocking pretty bad on both. I may just run wastegate pressure which is around 19psi and turn the translator back one notch. It'll be slow, but it'll hold me until it starts getting warmer.

No wideband yet, atleast not one in the car.