Well with the colder weather coming in the next months, I was wondering if I should go back to 91 or stay with the E85? Since I'm in UT (elevation 4200 ft) I don't know the effects or quality of the E85 in the winter. I just want the better of the two fuels. What do you all think?

 

I am willing to bet they switch to E70 in the winter in UT. This in mostly for cold starts, which can be a minor issue running E85 or E70 when it is below 50 degrees.

 

I say stick with the E85 or E70. Easy for me to say from Arizona.

I don't think it will get cold enough at your elevation for starting issues. Warrtalon lives in Colorado (5,000 ft) and ran E85 (I think, or E70) last winter and had no starting issues.

 

Here in the western Chicago suburbs our elevation varies a bit, but it's around 750 ft. We've been hitting the occasional mid-50F morning lately, and cold starting requires at least a few tries; often, 5-10. That's with periphery0 bit 9 disabled, too. Yay winter.

As for what your mixture will be at a given time of year, the place to check is the Ethanol Guidebook; right now, the three of you (and myself) are in volatility class 2, which is a 74% mix. By mid-month, most of our stations will have switched over to volatility class 3, which is a 70% mixture (E70).

 

Wow, that does not sound right to me. Have you tried advancing the timing in the start and idle range?

Have you read MrFred's E85 tuning thread?

 

I had this problem for about a week. I found that adding fuel at cranking start using the Startup Enrichment IPW Adder table completely solved this issue.

Car starts up pretty much first crank now.

 

Bryan, is that the same as the Idle Stepper Look-up Table? If not, where is the Startup Enrichment IPW Adder table?

 

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=347668

 

Yep, and yep. After a fair bit of research, I'm no longer convinced that timing is what you need at cranking time, but more fuel.

You're going to make me spend more time trying to track that table down for 96530006, aren't you? Worst case, I can think of a couple of ways to force the behavior I want at idle.

 

I linked the thread with info for that table in post #8.

Idle fueling is not what you want if you are having starting problems. You want cranking fueling.

My disclaimer is that I live in Northern California and has only been tested so far in as cold as 50F. We'll see how it goes this winter in 40F, etc

I might try and be brave and use E85 up in Tahoe too as it will be a good test bed for really cold starting.

 

Ugh, on 91 octane my car takes a few cranks to start in the sub freezing temps/8000 ft. above sea level base elevation when i go skiing at Mammoth. I still have my old SAFC connected to my car so whenever i go to high altitude, i just add fuel in the low RPM range. I can't test E85 at Mammoth since there is none available.

 

Keep rocking E85. There are people running it year-round here in MN and it gets down to -40'. I'm sure if it gets cold you're gonna have some hard-starting issues (even with gasoline you will), but ultimately I don't think it's worth switching back, unless you really really have a hard time starting the car.

 

thanks for all the input! Looks like my car is out of commission til at least next spring. I believe I bent a 1st-2nd gear fork in the trans last weekend while doing some datalogging/spirited driving. I am completely locked out of 2nd even with the car turned off, which points the trans/gear itself.

 

Speaking of winter, has anyone tried mixing E70 with another fuel to boost it back up? There are some retailers of Rockett racing fuels that allegedly have their entire line available year-round. Rockett has a new-ish 112 octane E85 that I was looking into acquiring a bit of to add into the pump E70.

It'd probably be pretty hard to start, but I wonder what kind of performance gains you'd get with super cold winter air and proper amounts of timing.

 

I had the same question, but I'm thinking putting in some e-98 would boost up the ethanol content. Can anyone confirm this?