Running your car on Bioethanol

breanoh

My dad and I have been experimenting recently with older cars and Bioethanol. we have been running our 1986 Renault 11 on it, and with a slight timing and Carb adjustment it is running perfectly on it. Seen as Maxol have put a national distribution network in place for Bioethanol I am wondering is anyone else running on the stuff? And what are the long term implications of running on the bio fuel?
Any suggestions and comments are welcome!

Captain Slow IRL

that's a pretty good idea - if it does shag the car up, you won't have lost a lot!
how did you adjust the timing and the carb? are there any other mods done to it to take the bioethanol?

alias no.9

It's something I'd like to experiment with. It's obviously much easier to do with a carb by increasing the jet sizes or simply replacing them with a bigger jet and on an older car, spark timing can be easily adjusted at the distributor. The problem is that I don't have space to keep an older car while I tinker with it.

breanoh

TBH it's still in the experiment stage. We have adjusted the card to give a richer mix to the engine, and I just messed at the distrib until it ran right. I am waiting till this weekend to put it in my own car and adjust that. I was just wondering had anyone else tried it.

DukeDredd

I was reading that bioethanol burns at a higher temperature than petrol - the Ford Focus FFV that was in the media recently has reinforced valves because of this. Other than that it's a pretty much standard 1.8 Ford engine. It's the higher burning temperature would worry me in an ordinary petrol engine. Also the fuel economy is around 30% less with bioethanol. Cheaper fuel but alot of your savings are lost with poor mpg.

breanoh

Yea, I heard that about the Focus FFV, but I have been informed that the older cars have the harder valve seats than the newer cars, It wouldn't worry me in the old '86. I have looked into the fuel economy, and I haven't noticed a massive difference in the car that has been running on it. I would know better if it was my daily driver. The bioethanol has a higher octane rating than petrol, and I can adjust the compression ratio should needs be. But I'll give it a go!

spacetweek

DukeDredd wrote:

Also the fuel economy is around 30% less with bioethanol. Cheaper fuel but alot of your savings are lost with poor mpg.

Gah, I thought the whole point of biofuels wasn't that it was cheaper (though that's a side benefit), but that there was less pollution? I'm assuming that with higher LPH fuel consumption you prolly end up polluting as much or the same???

Gerry

breanoh - congrats on taking the plunge. I think your engine will be ok, but I'd check the fuel lines periodically, if they are rubber rather than plastic, the bioethanol may react with them.

breanoh

They're rubber from tank to floor, and then steel under the body and rubber again once they enter the engine bay. Well, it's only an 86, so it's not exactly gonna be a big loss or cost should it damage the engine. The car itself is a 1986 Renault 9 Broadway Automatic. I'll post back on monday to let you all know how I get on with it over the weekend.
B

netman

I read an article in a recent New Scientist that people in Wales have been running their diesel cars on a biofuel mixture of vegetable oil and ethanol.

Basically the article says that people are using Asda's cooking oil, available in large quantities and cheap, filtering it (I'm assuming a simple DIY job) and adding a portion of ethanol. They are doing this in unmodified diesel cars and the claim was that it's perfectly safe.

The article ends with a story about the UK police now doing routine checks on diesel cars in Wales because apparently this is illegal, as no fuel tax is paid on the cooking oil, so the government is losing money. Guess the queen needs a new pair of shoes. And I guess it's ok to pollute as long as you pay your taxes.

I didn't know you could run a petrol engine on biofuel though.

Henry Ford III

breanoh wrote:

Yea, I heard that about the Focus FFV, but I have been informed that the older cars have the harder valve seats than the newer cars, It wouldn't worry me in the old '86. I have looked into the fuel economy, and I haven't noticed a massive difference in the car that has been running on it. I would know better if it was my daily driver. The bioethanol has a higher octane rating than petrol, and I can adjust the compression ratio should needs be. But I'll give it a go!

I think that's actually the other way around.

Older "leaded" engines needed to be remachined with hardened valve seats to prevent VSR (valve seat recession) caused by the higher running temperatures of u/l fuel. The lead prevented VSR.

Bio fuel burns hotter again, so the problem will be compounded.

rodoconnor

We have converted four cars to run on ethanol so far including a Nissan Almera and a Toyota Altezza. They have been running on E85 ethanol since september and we have had no problems. The mpg does decrease slightly, roughly from 380miles to 340 miles per tank. Ethanol produces 70% less green house gas emmissions from well to wheel when compared to unleaded. The conversions were done using an engine management system designed specifiacally for the purpose from Go On Green, visit www.fullflex.ie for all the details. I hope this clears things up for some people.

Gerry

Currently trying to phase it in on my car, a 91 saab 900 turbo. Running about 60% e85 at the moment. The fuel system does have headroom, of about 40%, so I should be able to run full e85. If it was not able to cope, it would throw a check engine light due to running lean. I am still trying to find the best timing, I have found that it can run 3 degrees more timing advance under boost with e40 - e50. It does run fine under all conditions, no check engine light. I will try a full tank of e85 shortly.
The advantages won't be really seen until I change to a fully mapped standalone engine management system.

Gregor Samsa

rodoconnor wrote:

visit www.fullflex.ie for all the details.

I don't know if you have anything to do with that site, but the link on the redirect page is broken. The meta refersh works, but ".com" is missing from the link on the redirect page.

jamjar

Hi there,

Have been very interested in this for a while now but worried about damaging car etc..

I have a 1988 Mercedes SEC500. Would the 'Full Flex' system run on this? If not, what would I need to do to run safely on bioethanol?

Thanks,

JJ

alias no.9

rodoconnor wrote:

We have converted four cars to run on ethanol so far including a Nissan Almera and a Toyota Altezza. They have been running on E85 ethanol since september and we have had no problems. The mpg does decrease slightly, roughly from 380miles to 340 miles per tank. Ethanol produces 70% less green house gas emmissions from well to wheel when compared to unleaded. The conversions were done using an engine management system designed specifiacally for the purpose from Go On Green, visit www.fullflex.ie for all the details. I hope this clears things up for some people.

I've just been looking at the installation section on your website. It seems your product just plugs in, inline with the connectors to the injectors with no other input, so it is in effect just a signal processor which lengthens the pulse width to the injectors, opening them for longer to compensate for the higher fuel:air mix required to run on ethanol.

It also states that on first startup, you mix 50% E85 and 50% Unleaded for the system to 'calibrate'. I'm dubious about any calibration the system can do when the only input is the feed signal to the injectors, at most it can monitor the the range through which the ECU adjusts fueling to try and compensate for what it sees as a lean mix.

The 50:50 mix also tells me that the controller optimises fueling for a 50:50 mix, meaning that it is never optimised when running any other mix of E85 and Unleaded, because it simply can't tell what fuel mix is being burned (or how rich or lean it may be running) since it has no feedback from the lamda sensor, it can only tell that the fueling signal is changing which could just as easily be in response to the accelerator as a change in the Unleaded/E85 mix.

You're likely to see engine management light come on when you change the fuel mix or are running at the extremes (close to 100% E85 or Unleaded) The real risk here is when you cant get E85 and have to use unleaded, when you start up, the engine will run rich and unburnt fuel will pass through the exhaust into your catalytic converter, potentially distroying the catalyst.

Another problem with this system is that it doesn't adjust the spark timing relying simply on the ECU to do this based on the signal from the knock sensor.

I'm all for renewable fuels, this product just isn't quite what it claims to be. It's not developed enough to be on public sale. It claims to be 'fully automatic' by which I can only assume they mean no user adjustment required. The problem is that the system doesn't do much either, it simply has one setting, not quite automatic I think you'll agree. Proper flex fuel vehicles control fueling and spark timing over a much greater range than petrol cars, this simply trys to expand the range of the fuelling and does nothing for spark timing.

Biro

spacetweek wrote:

Gah, I thought the whole point of biofuels wasn't that it was cheaper (though that's a side benefit), but that there was less pollution? I'm assuming that with higher LPH fuel consumption you prolly end up polluting as much or the same???

So far as I know, the advantage of them is that while growing they produce as much oxygen from carbon dioxide as they do carbon dioxide while burning, so they're more or less carbon neutral.

Gerry

alias no.9 wrote:

I've just been looking at the installation section on your website. It seems your product just plugs in, inline with the connectors to the injectors with no other input, so it is in effect just a signal processor which lengthens the pulse width to the injectors, opening them for longer to compensate for the higher fuel:air mix required to run on ethanol.

It also states that on first startup, you mix 50% E85 and 50% Unleaded for the system to 'calibrate'. I'm dubious about any calibration the system can do when the only input is the feed signal to the injectors, at most it can monitor the the range through which the ECU adjusts fueling to try and compensate for what it sees as a lean mix.

The 50:50 mix also tells me that the controller optimises fueling for a 50:50 mix, meaning that it is never optimised when running any other mix of E85 and Unleaded, because it simply can't tell what fuel mix is being burned (or how rich or lean it may be running) since it has no feedback from the lamda sensor, it can only tell that the fueling signal is changing which could just as easily be in response to the accelerator as a change in the Unleaded/E85 mix.

You're likely to see engine management light come on when you change the fuel mix or are running at the extremes (close to 100% E85 or Unleaded) The real risk here is when you cant get E85 and have to use unleaded, when you start up, the engine will run rich and unburnt fuel will pass through the exhaust into your catalytic converter, potentially distroying the catalyst.

Another problem with this system is that it doesn't adjust the spark timing relying simply on the ECU to do this based on the signal from the knock sensor.

I'm all for renewable fuels, this product just isn't quite what it claims to be. It's not developed enough to be on public sale. It claims to be 'fully automatic' by which I can only assume they mean no user adjustment required. The problem is that the system doesn't do much either, it simply has one setting, not quite automatic I think you'll agree. Proper flex fuel vehicles control fueling and spark timing over a much greater range than petrol cars, this simply trys to expand the range of the fuelling and does nothing for spark timing.

Great post..
I've done a tiny bit of digging on the web, and it looks like there are settings on the unit itself to set the petrol/ethanol blend. This isn't mentioned on fullflex.ie , which is fairly poorly put together, seeming to be just a cut and paste from fullflexint.com
Like yourself, I was looking at the diagrams to see if there was any feedback. But there seems to be no connection from the o2 sensor? Its also interesting to note that fullflex claim the system is obd 2 compliant.

Its very difficult to find out much about the unit and the assumptions it makes. It must assume that the ecu will correct the timing. This is only true on more modern cars, presumably it comes with instructions on what to do with the timing on older cars.
For the money, it seems like poor value, as it seems like it costs around 400 euro.

ninty9er

Was listening to Noel Dempsey on the radio on this^^^^^....does that mean that I can half fill the car with unleaded and then top it up with E85???

alias no.9

ninty9er wrote:

Was listening to Noel Dempsey on the radio on this^^^^^....does that mean that I can half fill the car with unleaded and then top it up with E85???

You could experiment with mixes until you get an emissions or engine management light telling you the car is running lean. There are other risks, such as the dislodging of dirt/gum in the fuel system and the degradation of rubber parts in the fuel system by the alcohol. The first you can deal with by using an off the shelf injector cleaner, and starting off with very low blends (5 to 10%) for a few tanks and then changinging the fuel filter but the second is a case of suck it and see.

ninty9er

Cheers. migth drop a fiver of it in the tank today so...I've had 3 bottles of fuel injector cleaner (the STP stuff is what you're talking about??) through my engine in the last 6000 miles that's done absolutely nothing to it or for it

Thanks for the advice

Dilbert75

rodoconnor wrote:

The mpg does decrease slightly, roughly from 380miles to 340 miles per tank.

This is a direct contradiction to Benefit no. 1 on the "Advantages & Benefits" page on your site which states

Advantages
1. Better fuel management (ethanol / unleaded / mixture).
2. Ultrafine adjustment with increased fuel economy.
3. It receives information from the module and its software processes new calculations for the system, recognizing the fuel or mixture needed.
4. The installation is quick and simple.
5. It is compatible with all multipoint and monopoint vehicles.
6. It is not a conversion chip.
7. It does not alter the vehicle originality.
8. It can be removed at any time, without damages.

Benefits
1. More economy per miles run.
2. More flexibility in refueling.
3. It increases the engines useful life.
4. The ethanol does not contaminate the oil and acts as an engine lubricant.
5. It improves the performance of the Flex car system management.

Seth Brundle

ninty9er wrote:

Was listening to Noel Dempsey on the radio on this^^^^^....does that mean that I can half fill the car with unleaded and then top it up with E85???

he clearly did not understand it all. he claimed that they could run on biofuel and shortly backtracked to say that they could if it was up to 5% mix.
His claims that there would be no work required to the engine to run of biofuel is also incorrect.
Still a politician talking out of their arse coming up to an election isn't anything new!

Mahatma coat

The thing that interest me most is production, is it possible to produce enough Ethanol at home safely for it to be a practical solution to fueling your car, like Biodiesel is.

oh yeah, to the poster who mentioned the welsh people with the cooking oil & Ethanol, you dont put it directly into the tank, you mix it with Lye and let it sit for a while, you can then wash if you wish and this can be put into any diesel engine without modifications

ninty9er

Dilbert75 wrote:

This is a direct contradiction to Benefit no. 1 on the "Advantages & Benefits" page on your site which states

Even though MPG decreases, the stuff is 15c a litre cheaper than unleaded, making it more economical overall

quarryman

what are the performance gains/losses?