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E85 General info

Mike Litherous

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hey chaps.

Just had my first experiment with e85 to “cure” a rich running car. Had to swap an airflow meter in an old car and was way too rich even after playing with the spring. It ran really sweet on a 50/50 mix so I wanna play abit further

Just a few Qs

1/ Any issues with running E85 in an “older” car with a metal fuel tank?

2/ Does straight E85 or a blend read same on the wideband with air fuel gauge in terms of lambda. Stoic for petrol being 14.7:1 and for e85 being 9.8:1. On the gauge it reads as it’s petrol so do u think in terms of lambda (ie 0.85ish @ wot for NA and 0.8ish for FI) so 8.3:1 actual in e85 reads as 12.8:1?

3/ Do u setup the same in terms of A/F ratio (read on the gauge) or slighly leaner than petroleum based fuel.

4/ providing u have the fuel capacity in the pump, is it as simple as adjusting fuel pressure and/or injector size to run e85. (ie I run 60lb/hr injectors on one car and dialed the fuel pressure back from 3.5 bar to 2.5 bar to run nice on Ron98. Increasing back to 3.5 bar should get me close to ideal for e85? - correct thinking or not?).

5/ do u run same spark plug gap?


Sorry for all the questions. Run an estimated amount but will fit wideband with A/F gauge tomorrow as I don’t want to run dangerously lean
 

07GTS

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1. shouldnt be a worry in older tanks my mate runs ethanol in a mid 90's S2000 and many years later now no issues just swap any older rubber piping with newer stuff
2. the AFR will always shift with ethanol content, its best to tune using lambda then its much easier (lambda is lambda), u can just use the same PE EQ as petrol
3. keep it at lambda (stoich 9.7 for e85) and EQratio same as petrol is fine, if its a changing ethanol percent then u will have a shifting afr without a flex sensor
4. do not adjust fuel pressure to change AFR it should be fixed or boost/vac referenced and thats it the fueling is done within the ecu, if u change pressure u change all the injector offsets/flowrate and more accuracy and will make it a bad tune, keep fueling true and change the stoich to suit e85 and that changes all fueling to suit or if u have a flex sensor it will do that for u, if u dont have enough fuel then get bigger pump or injectors so its right, if fueling is off mechanically u will never get it right tune wise
5. same plug gap is fine or u can go .8 for boost
 

Mike Litherous

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Cheers.
Wideband installing as we speak. Will setup to lambda mode.

Appreciate the help. Lots of internet info but hard to sort good from bad info.

I have a haltech due to be wired in shortly and will use a flex fuel sensor so I don’t have to manually chase the a/f ratio. When touring e85 is not that available so having ability to “flex fuel” is desirable. Poor old Bosch motronic 1.0 has its work cut out
 

Mike Litherous

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Wacked the wideband on it yesterday.

A/F is good except had to adjust idle as was high 16’s. Still idled ok so the e85 must be pretty resilient. Full throttle in high 12’s and part throttle in 13’s. Not too bad for a temporary fix. Sometimes host off idle it dips into the 9’s and stumbles a little but not all the time.


Thanks for your help
 

07GTS

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yea there is a bit of a broader range of AFR with ethanol when tuning, ethanol is very resilient no point tuning to knock (which isn't good anyway) cos u won't see any unless u have big issues so u will need a dyno to find best torque
 

monstar

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Meh dyno is rather clinical, I think (after buying half a dozen dyno days) and daily log and tuning over a few years, getting collaborative advice from peers on the net, really it isn’t the ideal solution for overall tune.
But yeah it gets results quicker!
 

07GTS

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yea ive only used a dyno to check output gains and see where hp/torque is the other 99% is all road tuning, u cant beat road tuning since the vehicle is going to be driving on it all the time
 

Mike Litherous

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The only advantage of the dyno as opposed to road tuning is u can put the car under load in the taller gears.

Friend of mine was road tuning my 540i with the vortech and to get accurate full throttle numbers u have to load up in 3rd due to 600bhp being too much for first and 2nd. Had the police pay me a visit a few nights ago as unfortunately he has clocked thru a speed camera at 64kmh over the limit. Ouch.
 

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The only advantage of the dyno as opposed to road tuning is u can put the car under load in the taller gears.

Friend of mine was road tuning my 540i with the vortech and to get accurate full throttle numbers u have to load up in 3rd due to 600bhp being too much for first and 2nd. Had the police pay me a visit a few nights ago as unfortunately he has clocked thru a speed camera at 64kmh over the limit. Ouch.
Unless you are specifically investigating an anomaly in the trans tune (torque, tps and load), you can log load under different baro, different spark, different fuel composition, tps, etc., within reasonable legal limits on known roads in lower gears as well, rarely need more than five or six seconds at target for clean sample in log I’ve found.
I think in terms of combustion dynamics like charge composition (egr / scavenging), spark attack and fuel transitions from low intake valve / injector tip temp at cruise to tits screaming WOT, there’s a lot in the detail like hesitation, backfire, burst knock, cat health, wasted fuel, pop / farts etc., that are also important considerations.
The devil is in the detail not the dyno chart, can’t believe the amount of crammed V8s idling badly around 1000 rpm some with holes in the throttle plate others barely surviving hunting for rpm all smell like a petrol refinery... but yeah man, it’s dyno-tuned!
 
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