I plan on tuning on E85 on a IX turbo in a few weeks. I will be doing some HPDE days this summer and it gets pretty hot some times, maybe 85 degrees. It will be dyno tuned at AMS some time next month. How much will i have to leave on the table to have a safe tune for road racing on E85? I would like to tune for peak power for messing around town and drag racing. Then could i take a few degrees of timing out when i do the track day?

 

Possibly.

However, I think a safer (and far easier) method would be to simply turn the boost down when road racing. Say, 28psi on the street and 24psi on the track. I'd suggest that regardless of the fuel used, so I don't really see this as an E85 matter. The difference is that on a track you will may (will) be in extended boost for longer periods of time and certainly much more often than when street driving.

E85 makes a perfect race fuel. All the benefits of race gas, without the extreme cost. In fact, several tuners on this forum have stated they can usually run more timing on E85 than on race gas. Plus, E85 burns cooler so your motor is more resistant to overheating.

The only downsides: no track I know of sell E85, and, you will burn 20% more fuel on E85.

If you really want to be cautious, while you are at AMS, after the big E85 power tune at 28psi, simply turn the boost down to 24psi and do a few pulls in very rapid succession and check the logs. If needed, the tuner could simply run a bit less timing at 24psi as that will be different load cells than at 28 psi.

 

Cool, thanks for all the tips! I did one track day last year and did the same thing. I turned the boost down to around 20-21 lbs and put in 5 gal of 110 just to be safe. That does sound like a good idea to turn it down and put some heat into the motor, then see what happens. I guess i will have to load up my trunk with gas cans for the track day, oh well, haha.

 

What would be safer for road course track days, 91 octane at 24psi, or E85 at 29psi? I'm getting tuned next month and am changing out my MBC for a 3-Port so turning down the boost with E85 won't be an option....right?

 

You can probably create a 2nd dual map with a E85 map with lower boost. However, you'll have to use your own laptop to upload it to your car. Might as well create a lower boost 91 map while you're at it just in case you run out of E85 at the track.

 

Thanks for the feedback! I ended up speaking with a tuner a couple days ago and plan to do what you suggest. Aside from a laptop and the loaded tune, what else is needed? I have seen the Tactrix Openport 2.0. Is this the correct device?