I've been keeping a E85 tester in my car faithfully for 2yrs now. It is very wise to keep one because the differences from pump to pump can be very significant. Before the they ran out of fuel in November the spot I get my E85 from tested 93% ethonal ! 93% from March thru November. I only use this station and last tested winter blend was E87. But that one time they ran out the nearest station tested E70. E93 to E70 !! That's not a good look.

 

Where you getting E93 from?

 

I'm pretty sure that an AEM EMS can run closed loop AFR at any load (i.e., O2 feedback from a wideband).

One thing I've been thinking of trying with the stock ECU, both to deal with the usual AFR swings with weather as well as in anticipation of an E85 conversion, is to have two tunes that are about 0.5 AFR apart at WOT. I have a Zeitronix ZT-2 that can switch the maps on my stock ECU depending on conditions that it reads from sensors, whether that be AFR, EGT, boost or ethanol content. It seems to me that I could set it up so that if, say, it reads above 11.8 AFR when boost is above 25 psi, that it would autoswitch to the richer tune. The alt map could also be configured with lower boost (I'm running a 3-port) and timing. I think this approach also might work well to address AFR shifts in an E85/70 application. Not nearly as cool as 3d maps from a standalone adjusting for ethanol content, but a lot better than nothing and I already have all the hardware from when I was running a meth failsafe.

 

ya that sounds pretty promising but on a lot of cars e85 makes max power with 12.0 AFR+. i think a lot of the swing in the summer time is due to the turbo not boosting as high when its super hot outside and then when it cools off during the end of the day you get alittle more boost + denser air and those 2 will swing the afr quite a bit.

pro efi thing is cool and i seen shep runs it, but i am stuck on the stock ecu and have no interest at all in changing to something else.

Last summer I was using the TPS map switching using my one map during the day and the other alt map at night - i only run e85 so it was fine.. but for now on i will have a 91 or (crap fuel map) for when i take the car on long trips.

Tephra needs to give us 8 alt maps like hes doing on the evo X.. the evo X is getting a crapload of stuff we wont get on 8/9. If someone bought him another 8 or 9 im sure he would give us that stuff, but since he has a X now i think he lost interest.

 

Can't release that info, just yet . But do understand I am not lying. All last year even thru the winter it was E90. Early this year it went up to E93 and this November it went down to E87. I keep two testers. One always in the talon and the other in my daily. When I know i'll be driving frequently around a certain area I test the E85 as I fuel the daily. All it takes is 8cents of E85. Why not? That's how I found a few spots. Isn't a couple a minutes of your time worth knowing you're going from E70/E85 to E93? Or vice versa?

This is what i use.

http://www.quickfueltechnology.com/s...test-tube.html

 

Sorry guys, I was busy all weekend on home projects.

So many questions and comments, going to be hard to answer them all off the top of my head, if I miss yours, ask me again.

Yes, Josh's car is the car this was done on.

I have not spent much time testing ethanol based fuels. I ask that the guys I tune bring fuel from their local stations to be safe. I personally run E98 and have tested it, when it's E98 it's hard to even distinguish it on the tester.

I had another car here we tuned on E70, slorice's car. He brought the fuel here. I don't remember the exact details but I think I was at around 670 whp. He wasn't happy. He went and got some true E85 from Sunrise. We then gained another 15 or so whp. Still not happy we put E98 in the car and ended up just over 700 whp.

As a tuner the last thing I want to see is a pistons melted, head gasket blown or other failure from pushing the car too hard. I simply can not risk that type of BS and have been careful enough to have it not happen unless there's been a mechanical failure.

I have not used the flex fuel sensors. I'd assume there's a 0-5v output on them? If so I'd think you could set up just about any stand alone to work with them to trim fuel and timing.

The AEM EMS you can used 02 feedback on at all times, from idle to red line and from -14 vacuum to 60+ psi of boost. It works very well. I personally do not want the 02 feedback working and making corrections at WOT and I generally have it shut off at a moderately low boost level. This is personal preference. You could easily use the feedback throughout the entire operating range and let the 02 control take care of variances in ethanol content, the Haltech and other stand alone's all do this too.

Making power on ethanol. I don't talk about tuning much, I see no reason to educate anyone on it, right or wrong it's how I feel. I will say this. Tuning on gasoline is tough to blow up an engine. Tuning on ethanol must be a lot easier as I've seen quite a few guys mess up their engines. The window that ethanol makes power and DOESN'T show knock is very wide. Actually knock counts many times don't show up at all and then you eat an engine with no signs of it coming.

It's rare I push an engine right to it's edge, as I mentioned it's not worth the risk as most guys want a fast car but it also has to last for a LONG LONG time. There are very few guys willing to push to the edge to set a record and even those guys get tired of it at some point, turn into douche bags and end up blaming the world for how much it cost them to set the records.......

I'd say leave yourself a .5 point of safeness in the AFR's. E85 is about the best fuel you are going to find, if someone actually found E93, I find it hard to believe and not posting where you got it seems retarded, what's the big deal? I'd also leave yourself a few extra degrees of timing if you are tuning on E85 and expecting to find some E70, 2 degrees of safety should be enough.



**ALSO!!!!! AVOID VALERO FUEL AT ALL COSTS, IT IS CONSISTENTLY THE ABSOLUTE WORST GAS I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. JUNK, TRASH AND SHOULD BE ILLEGAL TO SELL.

 

Does that include Valero E85? I ask because Valero is the only fuel provider in my area of San Antonio that carries the corn juice.

I only use 93 Shell otherwise.

 

Here in California, the E85 is piggybacked onto established gas stations so the distributor is totally different.

Example: Valero in Roseville, CA has E85 but it is by Propel, which has nothing to do with Valero.

Not sure if it is the same where you live, but I would look into it.

This is an interesting thread, and not surprised it blew up like it did considering the misinformation, ignorance and just general confusion on this fuel.

Here in Northern California we have E8X all year round which is a nice luxury, but we also have alot less stations. (for now)

Davids post above is a good one. Read it 2x.

 

Interesting on the Valero fuel and the E85 not being made by them, I don't know if it would be any good then either. I do know for sure that generally all these "bad gas" problems don't really exist. I heard so many stories of bad fuel and I've spent my share of time draining gas tanks and putting new fuel in to try to find problems. CONSISTENTLY EVERY TIME and I mean EVERY TIME, I get a car here that has Valero fuel in it, the car absolutely knocks every single time and swapping the fuel out for Shell or Sunoco fixes the problem.

There is a lot of misinformation on the fuel, that's for sure. I've been tuning on it for a long time, actually may have been one of the first guys thanks to Keith McDonnel (fourdoor, here on EVOm, use to be a moderator). He busted my ***** until I finally gave in and tuned him on it. First time I ever tuned a car with the fuel I think we made 500 whp on the stock shortblock here.

It's really fantastic fuel but you have to be careful tuning on it, it's forgiving and then instantly pissed off.

 

I was actually just about to post this up.

We made 680whp on E70 I brought with me. Then went straight to E98 and made 702whp.

This coming year, I'm just going to stick with the local ethanol and not worry about the E98. Its not worth the additional cost and headache to get it for an extra 20whp. I have my tester and I'll make sure I know exactly what % of ethanol i'm running.......oh and I'll pay a little closer attention to my air/fuel gauge this year too.....

 

slorice, we didn't put E85 in there between the E70 and E98 tunes? I thought for sure we did, if not, sorry for the incorrect information.

 

Zeitronix ECA is the best way to do it. On the fly readings. Over here in CA it's a consistent E83 for the past year.

 

Nope....started out on 93 octane, then went to E70 and finally E98.

 

Dave whats the lowest ethanol content you've ever had someone come in on that you tuned with? I noticed your tester went pretty low, which is one thing that makes it better then the ones currently out of the same style.. just curious?

Also nice write up, i agree 100% with everything you said. 91-93 etc, all show knock.. not hard to tune when you have warnings unlike e85, which wont warn you sometimes.

 

The lowest I've seen is E70.

That must be what I was remembering Tim, I knew we changed fuel three times, I thought we tried E85 in there. Thanks for the correction.

I can't wait to up run my first batch of ethanol! I'll have to do a thread on it with pictures when I do.