Well, I agree about these people obscessed with inefficient SUV's and whatnot.. But I do love V8's and V10's.. Only I hate the fuel mentality.. My Malibu which is a supercharged and high-horsepower V8 engine, can get 24+ MPG on the highway, and can run on alcohol with a retune and pully change.. I for one take pride in the fact that my cars can run clean, and also run on alternative fuels if necessary. My gripe is that like said before, most newer cars can run on E85 with not much more than a retune, and there are many cars on the road that can already run E85 with no changes at all.. But there is nowhere to BUY the fuel.. I live on Long Island, NY.. If there were ethanol pumps, I would absolutely be using them, not only that, I would have been using them regardless of the price of Gas since I believe strongly in this.. I was ready to pay $3 a gallon for Ethanol if I had better access to it. I have already run ethanol in my Honda Civic, in fact, all that was required on that car was upgrading the 330cc injectors, to 550cc injectors and of course, changing my fuel filter twice (it was down on power because it needed to be retuned for the timing and the compression needed a serious boost on a n/a engine), but it was just an experiment).. But Its completely impractical to run ethanol when there's nowhere to get it (I ordered a 5 gallon container of it to test it out)

The Evo (and any newer turbocharged vehicle) are great candidates for this.. Yet in most states, we aren't even given the option.

 

I cannot believe that you live in Cali and only paid $3.20 for 91... I just past a gas station here in Indiana and it was $3.29 for 87. I guess they are starting to gouge us.

 

Back on topic, I am wondering what the lining in the fuel tank is made of. To be 100% safe, we could just run stainless lines, approved injector O-rings, and an approved fuel pump right (Along with a tuned XEDE of course)? Is the fuel rail made out of aluminum?

 

What about a 87 Octane map to putt around town on. In Louisiana the gas prices are going to go through thte roof.

 

yeah its $3.40+ a gallon here in Indiana right now....ridiculous.

 

Your engine is only 8.8:1 compression, so if you get a boost controller and cut the boost all the way down to the lowest it will go with the WG controller spring (about 0.8 bar) I don't think you'll have any issues at all just putting around town. I've done a couple road trips w/ 87 octane & the lowest boost setting (in case I forget) because droning down the freeway at 55-65 mph doesn't exactly require high octane.

 

I live in Los Angeles and filled up with Chevron 91 octane at $2.97 a gallon yesterday. When I passed that same Chevron on my way to work this morning, it is now $3.19 a gallon.

 

i think malibu jack is correct
i wish everyone had access to E85 and used it so that we wouldnt have to pay 3+$ a gallon
and help out American workers.
im just glad more and more people are interested and want to use it

 

Yeah one can only hope that the current situation will result in some positive outcomes, one being a higher awareness and availability of alternative fuels..

And the question about our fuel tanks.. I'm not sure, I think our tanks are steel or stainless.. HOWEVER, most cars produced in the past 10 years should be compatible with Ethanol, its just the tuning that needs adjusting if the car isn't already flexible fuel capable. I think its well worth the effort if I could get E85 here.

 

Rumor is that it's going to climb to $5/gallon by the end of the month. If anyone wants to make an ethanol map of his XEDE, let me know. We'll do it

Shiv

 

That's the thing though. A lot of places E85 _is_ $3/gal. It's no cheaper than premium gasoline in my locale. It was a lot cheaper in chicago, but that was because there was corn in every direction.

I have serious doubts about the longterm availability of ethanol. Several recent studies (one by the DOE I believe) have shown that current proccesses require significantly more energy to produce it than is gained by burning it. This is without even considering the cost of growing the corn. If it continues to take 5J (or something slightly less rediculous) worth of petroluem to produce 1J of ethanol energy, E85 is not going to ever be viable on a large scale.

Another factor is that ethanol production is currently govt subsidized. That's all fine an dandy for present production values, but I doubt the economy could afford to subsidize the hundreds of millions of barrels per day that would be required to run a significant percentage of US cars on E85.

d

 

Well.. Its the economy of scale.. All of those statistics are a little biased against the production of Ethanol... We definitely produce enough "Wasteproduct" and raw materials in the USA to create more than enough ethanol. But distilling ethanol would need to be done at the state level, or even the county level. Also, your talking about the amount of fuel required to produce ethanol, at some point your fuel would be ethanol and other alternative fuels in the production. The heat required for the distilling could be done through solar power, the milling could be water power.

The problem is the entire economy is fixated on fossil fuels and essentially ignores alternatives that are available because of the "Costs involved" Guess what, the costs involved are no longer a huge difference and its a good opportunity to make changes to become more self-sufficient using our own energy resources.

Methane gas is produced at every one of our rediculously overutilized garbage dumps, 30% or more of the material in there can be used to produce energy or recycled to other purposes.

I'm very tired of the Nimby mentality everyone has.. Its the entire united states responsibility and obligation to find solutions to these problems... Live with the inconveniences for awhile and deal with it.. I don't mind paying $4 a gallon for a 100% domestically produced alternative.. I don't mind spending the money to install a gas-turbine generator or fuel cell using methane, or solar or wind power.. I don't mind living with an unsightly distillery or even producing my own in my back yard if thats what was asked of me.

I just wish more people were a little less selfish and fixated on themselves..

 

I agree 100%. American's seem to only be motivated financially. They could care less how stupid it is to drive an SUV to work with 1 person in the car for long distances. Oh, I need it to tow a boat twice a year. No you don't. Rent a boat and save money on both the SUV and the boat! Or rent a truck when you want to haul your boat. Society can't think like this until it hits their pocket book.

I for one don't mind the high gas prices. Keep it coming. Isn't it worth a few hundred more dollars a year to be environmentally pro-active.

This doesn't mean I wouldn't be interested in a E85 map. I'm all for it. There are dozens of E85 stations in the Milwaukee area alone. It is cheaper than 93 octane too.

Tim

 

Whoa tiger. I didn't say I was against ramping up ethanol production (and e85 use). I just expressed some doubts about the viability. I think it's only fair to weigh these since the first page or two of the thread is sorted themed along "this'll fix all our problems'.

Seriously, take a look at my signature. I ride a bicycle to/from work each day to avoid burning fuel. Those of you you've seen me in person realize I don't do it to lose weight. Those of you who've done 8-10 miles _uphill_ know it's not fun after a day of working. I'm as much in favor of alternative fuels as the next guy, I'm just really unsure that ethanol is a good solution.

In other news, I just finished the conversion to run my evo on old episodes of doctor who. I have a line that feeds BBC web broadcasts directly to the injectors.

d

 

LOL yah, I actually wasn't directly addressing your points with that portion of the reply.. I was just expressing that we all need to put ourselves through a bit of discomfort and facilitate the change and allow these changes to happen without complaining about its costs..

I would have agreed on the viability if gas was still $1.90 a gallon and E86 was $3 a gallon.. but the timing is ripe to make change less painful and get things going.