Convert petrol car to run on biofuel(E85)?

is_that_so

I've been thinking about this especially with the mad rise in petrol prices. I know there was a thread that mentioned it but I can't find now. So a few questions. Appreciate any thoughts on it.

Is it easy to get done?
How much does it cost?
Is it cost-effective?
Is there any point or is it better to buy a new green car like the Focus or Volvo

Blitzkrieger

is_that_so wrote: »

Is it cost-effective?

No. I looked into it before.

JHMEG

Search. ninety9er has had the conversion kit installed in his Astra.

Del2005

is_that_so wrote: »

Is there any point or is it better to buy a new green car like the Focus or Volvo

So you'll willingly spend several thousand Euro to save a few Euro on a full tank

Guy:Incognito

Del2005 wrote: »

So you'll willingly spend several thousand Euro to save a few Euro on a full tank

ninetyniner posted the leaflet, it was in or around €600 iirc.

JHMEG

Stekelly wrote: »

ninetyniner posted the leaflet, it was in or around €600 iirc.

That's correct, and E85 is about 30c cheaper a litre.

Del2005

Stekelly wrote: »

ninetyniner posted the leaflet, it was in or around €600 iirc.

I was responding to the OP asking about buying a new green Ford or Volvo, not the price of the conversion.

ninty9er

JHMEG wrote: »

That's correct, and E85 is about 30c cheaper a litre.

97.5c the other day compared to 133.9c for petrol.

Leaflet posted again. Trying to find the damn thing, my desktop is like a virtual bomb hit it.

Matt Simis

Im looking into doing this the DIY route:

Larger injectors, uprated fuel pump, fuel pressure regulator and a performance tune. Basically a considerably beefed up fuel system which costs less (minus tuning/remapping, but still close) than the E85 "conversions" floating around, which do nothing (afaik) other then work your stock injectors harder, which may indeed be ok for some appications..

derry

Here is thread on my progress so far 50% E85 and 50% E5 =~E40

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=57248225#post57248225


Derry

ninty9er

I've been running full E85 since about 4 months and 4,000 miles now. Changed the spark plugs last weekend and the fuel filter yesterday.

The car is running fine after the spark changing. They were quite dirty, but that's to be expected after 10-12k.

The price is going up though. Now 99.9 although it was 101.9 on the Cork Road in Waterford a few weeks ago, so obviously it depends on where you're getting it.

No regrets here!

derry

ninty9er wrote: »

I've been running full E85 since about 4 months and 4,000 miles now. Changed the spark plugs last weekend and the fuel filter yesterday.

The car is running fine after the spark changing. They were quite dirty, but that's to be expected after 10-12k.

The price is going up though. Now 99.9 although it was 101.9 on the Cork Road in Waterford a few weeks ago, so obviously it depends on where you're getting it.

No regrets here!

good to see a few trend setters

What make of car is yours and age
Is it electonic ignition or petrol injected engine with or without turbo


what MPG L/100Kl etc were you getting on E5 and what are you getting on E85
Any noticable power boost or less rattle out of the engine etc

how long did the convertion take and do you have to twiddle any buttons when you fuel up to tell car the fuel mixxes or is it automatic fuel sensor senscing the type of fuel

Will you probably go back to E25 blends for better economy

can you easily whip off the kit and fit to another new car you buy so converting the old car back to E5 and making the new car E85

At ~600 a E85 kit convertion I don't think you can get your money back when selling the car as a useful extra and so keeping the kit chugging along fro ten years would make the kit convertion more interesting for many folks

Do you know any others just using E85 or E85and E5 mixes in non flex fuel cars which have no mods done to them

Derry

ninty9er

derry wrote: »

What make of car is yours and age

In my sig;)

derry wrote: »

Is it electonic ignition or petrol injected engine with or without turbo

Electronic non turbo

derry wrote: »

what MPG L/100Kl etc were you getting on E5 and what are you getting on E85
Any noticable power boost or less rattle out of the engine etc

Around 10-12l/100km

Nothing seriously noticeable on the performance side

derry wrote: »

how long did the convertion take

Took a morning with the guy, though had to have a replacement unit fitted after a few weeks.....dodgy batch.

derry wrote: »

and do you have to twiddle any buttons when you fuel up to tell car the fuel mixxes or is it automatic fuel sensor sensing the type of fuel

Wholly automatic, which is why I see the UK move towards LPG rather than E85 as foolhardy, considering LPG is also fossil:rolleyes:

derry wrote: »

Will you probably go back to E25 blends for better economy

No, I throw €20 of petrol in every few fills. I don't use E5, never have.

derry wrote: »

can you easily whip off the kit and fit to another new car you buy so converting the old car back to E5 and making the new car E85

It can be done, but I don't have the expertise. I'd prefer to sell it on with the conversion attached.

derry wrote: »

At ~600 a E85 kit convertion I don't think you can get your money back when selling the car as a useful extra and so keeping the kit chugging along fro ten years would make the kit convertion more interesting for many folks

Don't quite get you there....but no I don't reckon I'll get my €570 back, it might make the car move quicker though, the same as €4k spent on leather upholstery.

derry wrote: »

Do you know any others just using E85 or E85and E5 mixes in non flex fuel cars which have no mods done to them

A few people have been curious and the guy who fitted it had done about 70 or 80 conversions.

derry

ninty9er wrote:

Wholly automatic, which is why I see the UK move towards LPG rather than E85 as foolhardy, considering LPG is also fossil

The way the stations Maxol are selling out to Topaz who dont do E85 and the determination of the oil Giants to eradicate E85 from ROI its something to think about

Spend ~600 converting to LPG which is cheaper than petrol but is still fossil or risk ~600 converting to do E85 and find next year that there is no Maxol stations and no sources of E85

Every fuel crisis we get the rise of alternitives which are cheaper than oil and then after the oil companies make petrol cheaper and KILL OFF alternitives and then we get enslaved yet again to oil solutions

Unless we get a government that will make home grown Bio fuels the main fuel for the ROI nad tax petrol out of the piture we will fall slap bbang for the ooil comapnies entrapment trick

Been ther e1974 and 1979 and other times now here we go again 2008

The difference is now we know and have proof from tribunals it all done using brown mana which invents the laws to protect the rich enslavers


Derry

ninty9er

derry wrote: »

The way the stations Maxol are selling out to Topaz who dont do E85 and the determination of the oil Giants to eradicate E85 from ROI its something to think about

Spend ~600 converting to LPG which is cheaper than petrol but is still fossil or risk ~600 converting to do E85 and find next year that there is no Maxol stations and no sources of E85

Every fuel crisis we get the rise of alternitives which are cheaper than oil and then after the oil companies make petrol cheaper and KILL OFF alternitives and then we get enslaved yet again to oil solutions

Unless we get a government that will make home grown Bio fuels the main fuel for the ROI nad tax petrol out of the piture we will fall slap bbang for the ooil comapnies entrapment trick

Been ther e1974 and 1979 and other times now here we go again 2008

The difference is now we know and have proof from tribunals it all done using brown mana which invents the laws to protect the rich enslavers


Derry

I don't buy into the Roswell/X-Files conspiracy theories. If it's economical to provide E85 then it will continue to be provided. Independents will pick up the slack where the giants fail.

L1011

derry wrote: »

The way the stations Maxol are selling out to Topaz who dont do E85 and the determination of the oil Giants to eradicate E85 from ROI its something to think about

Conspiracy theories forum for you matey.

Firstly, Maxol aren't 'selling out' to Topaz. There is not a hope in hell that any merger you've imagined there would ever be allowed by the Competition Authority. Indeed, as the Topaz chain was built over the years (Jet + BP to make Statoil, then Statoil + Shell to make Topaz) they had to dispose of stations; most of which Maxol bought!

Secondly, Topaz aren't an oil company, they're a retailer and nothing more. They don't import their own fuel, don't do home heating oil, don't do anything other than forecourt sales.

VH

MYOB wrote: »

There is not a hope in hell that any merger you've imagined there would ever be allowed by the Competition Authority.

thats what they said last time

derry

ninty9er wrote: »

I don't buy into the Roswell/X-Files conspiracy theories. If it's economical to provide E85 then it will continue to be provided. Independents will pick up the slack where the giants fail.

I think you find that this entry

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=57250474&postcount=28

ART6 wrote:

derry wrote:

Originally Posted by derry View Post
Ethanol works very welll in Brazil a so called backward country and yet they try to say it wont work here

They are not part of the EU, so they can make sensible decisions and carry them out. The EU wants every member state to increase their use of biofuels, but pays farmers not to grow anything under the Set Aside policy, and then prohibits selection of sources for imports under its competition policy. That suggests to me that some countries that should be growing food rather than biofuels are encouraged to do the latter. Then, under various waste directives a material that has been deliberately discarded remains a waste, and technically, if burned, becomes subject to the highly restrictive Waste Incineration Directive. It's typical of the joined up thinking of the EU Commission.

The other argument about who should be growing biofuels is, perhaps, that some very poor countries can't grow enough food to feed their people due to poor land, but might be able to grow biofuel crops that they can then sell for the money to buy food.

Either way, since to PC brigade has now decided that biofuels are bad, we aren't going to see a major availability of cheaper alternatives to petrol or diesel for a long time yet. I suspect that as usual the policy will be let's wait until it's too late and then announce a few irrelevant initiatives.

to the descussion on
"Minister abandons biofuel target as doubts grow about benefits"

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055343626

this response shows a strong method to eradicatre E85 from these shore


been there seen LPG come and go the way of the dodo and And my money isnt going into some E85 convertion kit until I can be sure thaere will always be eneogh of the fuel to make it worth my while

In the mean time I will play with just using the fuel direct into my car and see how far a mix of E85 and E5 mixxes I can get away with on a non flex car so if Etanol E85 no longer exosts I wont be any the worse off

so far E40 no issues hope to reach E85 100% within a few weeks

testing in 5% increments

why do I think you are selling a E85 convertion kit ??? and don't want to see the facts as they come from on high to kill of E85



Derry

L1011

VH wrote: »

thats what they said last time

The Shell/Statoil merger required disposal of a number of sites - mostly to Maxol (some to Petrogas). As a result that merger would NEVER be allowed.

But he's only imagining it anyway.

ninty9er

MYOB wrote: »

The Shell/Statoil merger required disposal of a number of sites - mostly to Maxol (some to Petrogas). As a result that merger would NEVER be allowed.

But he's only imagining it anyway.

Indeed.

derry

MYOB wrote: »

Conspiracy theories forum for you matey.

Firstly, Maxol aren't 'selling out' to Topaz. There is not a hope in hell that any merger you've imagined there would ever be allowed by the Competition Authority. Indeed, as the Topaz chain was built over the years (Jet + BP to make Statoil, then Statoil + Shell to make Topaz) they had to dispose of stations; most of which Maxol bought!

Secondly, Topaz aren't an oil company, they're a retailer and nothing more. They don't import their own fuel, don't do home heating oil, don't do anything other than forecourt sales.

The local station to me Maxol in Sallynoggin which did E85 is now a blinking Topaz station with no E85

So now I got to trek to sandyford to get E85 fuel

The maxol in harolds cross is a small station and seeems to have decided not to do E85 or at least when I looked for E85 pup i couldnt find it

So ltes see if enogh swaps of stations are made and maxol gat lots of small stations where they wont supply E85 and Topaz gets all the big stations hwere they wont supply E85 where will you be able to buy E85???

and E85 will go the way of the DoDo thanks to some very clever gbuying ansd selling or rather swopping methods to kill of E85

The difference is most folk think a lot of things just happen but if you study the ability of the big coperations to make things happen the way the wnat to and still look like its nothing to do with them then you see the pattern and you have a half a chance to stop the process going the way they want

Fact are independence from oil imorts with home grown fuels is good for ROI

Facts enslavement of the ROI energy users to only one type fossil fuels is best for oil and gas companies (often the same ) so death of any and preferably all alternitives is manditory to gaining enslavement of the ROI

Now the mission if you wish to accept it is to device a stratergy that will ensure this series of events will happen by 2012 bearing in mind the oil companies are sitting on probably 1000 years of known supplies of oil ( they have the true data on reserves we don't )which they don't tell us plebs about
Then they can get rid of all alternitives with cheap prices if they need tobut the preference is slowly and descretly with lots of little incremental moves like close down forecourts for maintinace or proerty developers or sell of outlets to non E85 suppliers and swop outlets out for unsuitable forecourts where its not suitable to sell E85 whatever

The LPG movement was killed off and the E85 will be killed off if enough people let the so called free market forces which wil be warped to suit decide the future fuels

So I think i would be very foolish to consider to invest ~E600 in a converton kit if there is such a severe risk to the supply of that fuel

Now if the the sellers of E85 kits would wake up and lobby to protect E85 fuel sources and the greens made eneogh noise that E85 fuel supplies must be supplied by at least 50% of the garage chains Topez Texeco the lot then pushing E85 will be a lot more likely to happen as there would be some commitment to the fuel type beyond just price
Then we also need the comitment that ROI will make at least 80% of the ethanol in ROI and start ramping tax up on E5 and using that increased tax to pay for reducing tax on E25 or E85 fuels

Then we will start employing unemployed farmers and using land that is presently not used like Carlow region where sugar beet is gone
We will help reduce our CO2 emmision and then pay less of a fine in exceeding our kyotoo agreements

If we allow the oil companies to have their way and kil off E85 we will yet again be enslaved to oil
We will pick up a hefty bill from exceeding CO2 limits and we the tax payers and high tax petrol users will get a double whamy a hike in tax to pay for not planning a good future for E85

Derry

VH

MYOB wrote: »

The Shell/Statoil merger required disposal of a number of sites - mostly to Maxol (some to Petrogas). As a result that merger would NEVER be allowed.

But he's only imagining it anyway.

that merger was allowed by accident

Irish Independent wrote:

Cock-up on Statoil sale to Topaz by Authority

By Samantha McCaughren

Wednesday October 11 2006
A MIX-UP at the Competition Authority has resulted in the unconditional sale of Statoil to Topaz Oil going ahead without any ruling from the watchdog.

The Authority said last night that the deadline for the €285m deal passed this week without a determination being made. The Irish Independent has learned that this is due to a technicality, which resulted in the Authority missing out on making its decision by one day.

One of the country's largest motor fuel companies will be formed as a result of the sale. Statoil agreed to sell the business to a private consortium Topaz in June, and its backers include businessman Denis O'Brien and Galway property developer Gerry Barrett.

Topaz last year bought Shell Ireland's service station network for around €200m, and there had been some speculation that Shell or Statoil stations might have to be sold off to comply with competition law.

The competition watchdog recently extended the phase one of its investigation of the Statoil sale earlier this year, and was in talks with lawyers from Topaz regarding proposals relating to competition concerns.

This week the Competition Authority had to make a decision to either clear the deal with or without conditions, or opt for a more extensive Phase 2 probe.

It is understood that confusion about the deadline for the Phase 1 stage surrounded the 15-day extension to this part of the investigation.

A miscalculation of dates resulted in the Authority believing that they had to make a determination by October 10 (yesterday). However, this deadline was in fact October 9.

The lawyers representing Topaz are still discussing the merger with the Authority in a gesture of good faith, although no conditions will attach to the sale.

In a statement, the Competition Authority said last night: "The date on which the Phase 1 determination in this matter could have been made passed yesterday, October 9, without any determination having been made. As a result, the parties are now free to put the merger into effect.

"Topaz will enter into discussions with the Competition Authority concerning certain ancillary elements of its merged business."

The business being bought includes 69 retail service stations and the Shell business had 55 stations. Topaz was formed by Dublin venture capital boutique Ion Equity.

- Samantha McCaughren

derry

VH wrote: »

that merger was allowed by accident

independent newspaper wrote:

snip...
Wednesday October 11 2006
A MIX-UP at the Competition Authority has resulted in the unconditional sale of Statoil to Topaz Oil going ahead without any ruling from the watchdog.

The Authority said last night that the deadline for the €285m deal passed this week without a determination being made. The Irish Independent has learned that this is due to a technicality, which resulted in the Authority missing out on making its decision by one day.

Brown envelopes

E85 RIP

Derry

ninty9er

Can someone put this deluded soul out of his misery:rolleyes:

L1011

One single local franchiser decides to change franchise and that constitutes an entire chain being taken over?

Right so. You're clearly insane, sorry.

JimmyCrackCorn!

E85 wont go away as its cheaper to produce than Petrol. The plant is already in place and the tooling up costs have already been spent.

Maxol set the price of E85 in line with petrol also so it does not reflect the price it actually costs to produce booze from waste cheese bits.

E85 is great if you have a high powered petrol car with a turbo attached the reason for this is you can artificially raise the compression ratio. The goal with doing that is not efficiency or higher MPG its more power and torque. Ethanol blends were also once used as race fuel but now methanol is used more commonly used.

The issue with dual fuel vehicles is they are a fudge/compromise, petrol cant handle the compression ratios needed to get the best out of e85 (up to 19:1).

Another issue is the conversion kits currently in the market are piggy-back devices and they arnt that smart. All they do is ensure that 30pc more fuel is injected and they do not adjust the timing of the engine to take advantage of the higher octane rating of the fuel. (Saftey issues, cost issues and complexity issues).
Manufacturers have the major advantages by being able to software update an ECU to convert a car to take the full advantage of the fuel at that compression ratio. They don't do this as for older vehicals as it wouldn't make economic sense or marketing sense either,

There is another option you could get your car re-mapped to run on E85 only. It is a better option in terms of efficiency but its expensive and im not even going to attempt to explain the long list of positives and negatives.

So to what you actually asked the cost benefit of a conversion. I don't honestly know. It is true that E85 requires 30% more fuel when driving at full chat. It can though be run that little bit leaner under part throttle conditions. So if you a lead footed driver you will negate any saving your going to make by converting.

So by now youll see the issues. Theres no clear cut answer and any saving you make will be very dependent on how you drive and the car you drive.

derry

This Thread has started out to infer saving from E85

My knowelge is concurrent with yours about the need to have ~30% more E85 fuel to do the same work

I personaly have no expection that E85 will save me money when E85 cost E0.99 euro and petrol around dublin is costing average E1.25 euros

Now if petrol costs were like germany some E1.70 Euros a liter then E85 is a no brainer it cheaper buy alrge amount even with add on jit convertors

Presently with the costs of fuel as they are running a mix of ~ 25% E85 and ~75% E5 making a E 20 fuel mix my own car a NON FLEX FUEL car with NO ADD ON KITS returns similar MPG and saves some 10% in running costs


However as the Modern Myths out there infer to use any or some or all E85 on most NON FLEX CARS will break them will deter most persons mixxing fuels without a bona fida kit ( which as JimmyCrackCorn! say above is a fudge job wont break the engine but doesnt solve the all the issues )


However the issues of the benifits from using E85 exceed the minor debates about economy of fuel

Ireland Imports 92% of its fuel from somewhere else
We live in unstable world where most of that fuel is is somewhere not good like middle east and Russia all of which could explode into war or fuel embargos whatever

Then when it comes to dividing out the remaining fuel we in Ireland can expect sqaut nada nothing as the bigger countries in EU which control the pipe line will ensure they get rump of this fuel and we will be lucky to get anything

Then if you have been clever eneogh to have tested your car for suitabilty for E85 or fitted some suitable kit then you can at least have access to another fuel

But if every car in Ireland could use E85 and there was a suffient supply to drive all cars in Irealnd and the money remained in Ireland and the economy was less affected from a oil embargo the results would not suit the oil companies when oil would come back on stream

Brazil a so called backward country ran the oil companies in 1979 after getting thier faces ripped and by 1989 were able to tell the oil companies to get lost they were not needed surplus to requirement s

If you think oil companies are going to let pip squek little Ireland dictate terms to them then expect a serious responce and big guns rolled out to shoot E85 dead before it gets a grip on big sectro of the market


Funny the Maxol station in Sandyford had run out of E85 today when a friend of mine went to get it and they said next delivery will be wensday

So has two customers me and my friend used the whole stock of it or is the next trick delay deliveries and annoy the users the next trick

When or if the big guns decide to kill E85 the chances for it to continue are very slim as WE IN ROI DONT SEEM TO HAVE OR EVEN WANT TO HAVE THE ABILTY OF THE BRAZILIANS TO DICTAE TERM TO THE OIL COMPANIES

Derry

L1011

Do you think the oil companies give two ****es what fuel retailers do here considering they're leaving this country in their droves?

Statoil, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhilips, BP (twice, as BP and BurmahCastrol) have all closed their retail operations here in the past decade. I'd suspect Chevron (Texaco) might be on their way out too with prime sites closed recently.

We're customers. TINY customers. If 10% of people here moved to E85 they'd not even noticed it.

VH

MYOB wrote: »

Do you think the oil companies give two ****es what fuel retailers do here considering they're leaving this country in their droves?

Statoil, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhilips, BP (twice, as BP and BurmahCastrol) have all closed their retail operations here in the past decade. I'd suspect Chevron (Texaco) might be on their way out too with prime sites closed recently.

We're customers. TINY customers. If 10% of people here moved to E85 they'd not even noticed it.

it would be very cool if we all switched to E85 and the E bit was all produced here

my understanding behind the 15% petrol is to render it poisonous and that is the only reason its not E100

L1011

No, theres definately another reaon to use E85 over E100 - the ethanol in E85 is denatured to make it undrinkable long before the 15% petrol is added.

However, its been such a long time since I did chemistry in school I can't remember what precisely it is... think it may have to do with fire suppresion or similar.

JimmyCrackCorn!

derry wrote: »

However as the Modern Myths out there infer to use any or some or all E85 on most NON FLEX CARS will break them will deter most persons mixxing fuels without a bona fida kit ( which as JimmyCrackCorn! say above is a fudge job wont break the engine but doesnt solve the all the issues )

Not quite true. Unless you know exactly what your doing do not do this to a turbo car as they are very sensitive to fueling and if you make a mistake you will turn it into scrap (it has happened).

Im not saying it cant be done im just saying its really not a good idea.

derry

In Brazil they sell E25 E85 and E100

MYOB wrote:

No, theres definately another reaon to use E85 over E100 - the ethanol in E85 is denatured to make it undrinkable long before the 15% petrol is added.

I suspect with the price of beer so cheap with little or no tax on drink like ROI only the alcoholics drink from the car fuel tanks :eek:

Ethanol is the drinkable alcohol but normaly is 4% in a beer 10% in a wine and 30% in whisky with the rest of the drinks mostly water and a few % hops or tannin whatever gives the taste


E100 one small glass of it would equal something like 10 pints and would kill most people taken neat
Mixxed with water should be drinkable unless it is made Denatured

If you ever been to any nurses party where the punch bowl is medical Ethanol alcohol those parties go with a bang :D;)

but the hangover is awful:eek:


Denatured methalated spirts is 15% Methanol ( highly toxic Alcohol) with 85%Ethanol

It can I am sure it can be possible to make E100 fuel undrinkable with a few additives like arsnic or similar to poisin the fuel for humans to drink

Putting the fuel E100 into a fuel tank that ever held any petrol would make E100 taste crap as a petrol taste takes a lot of cleaning out to get rid of from a fuel tank

To run cars with Methanol or a methanol Ethanol mix would require a major change to engines as methanol attacks most rubber fitting in a car and would wreck most Flex fuel cars plumbing systems not made for methanol or non flex cars not made for Methanol

Mixxing E100 with 15% petrol to make E85 means the petrol will poison the fuel for sure


The Brazilians sales blurb seem to recommend a lot to use ~10% E5 with ~90% E85 which makes a ~E75 fuel as the best for non flex fuel cars converted to run on e85

To run a car on pure E100 Ethanol properly would really require car not to have ability to run on E5 fuels and best I can tell only Brazil has those cars


For most practical reasons the E85 is the best compromise fuel for Europe engine systems rather than issues of head bangers drinking the fuel tanks

Its probably only ROI and UK that would run a risk of guys drinking the fuel tanks

Logically methanol is the superior fuel as bulk production made from natural gas costs something like
~E1.00c Euros per gallon UK ( E 0.45c per liter )( BULK)
compared to make Ethanol ~E1.50c Euros per gallon UK ( E 0.68c per liter )( BULK)

However that fact for ROI methanol is swopping one fossil fuel for another and not interesting for ROI where Ethanol makes more sense made from crops that grow easy in our climates

Most countries haven't chosen methanol even though it makes more sense for lots of countries to do so compared to petrol

Compression ratio issues make flex fuel cars a tall order

Low compression makes cheaper engineering costs and lowwer power and possible good MPG and makes engine easy to start

High compression makes expensive engineering cost and higher power and can be detrimental to MPG figures and worse make engine difficult to start

Way too high a compression and pre detonation can result

Way too low a compression ratio will make fuel reluctant to ignite and give less power and risk to make less MPG

petrol compression ratios go from ~7:1 to ~12:1 with 8:1 the norm
Ethanol compression ratios go from ~8:1 to ~16:1 with 9:1 the norm
Methanol compression ratios go from ~9:1 to ~20:1 with 10:1 the norm


Most flex fuel cars will compromise with a 8.5:1 compression ratio

Most petrol converted flex fuel cars will have lowwer compression and may sometimes not use the Ethanol fuel so well in terms of power and MPG returns

Petrol is a high explosive fuel low vapour temperature with a quick burn fast flame front which can easily cause knock ( predetonation ) without some few % of ethanol added to stop knock effects
As petrol contains a lot of napha this makes petrol a very hot fuel with less fuel to help the engine with cooling making cooling systems have issues in hot climates
rapid burn often forms more toxic nitros oxides which create more polution smog

Ethanol is a less high explosive fuel than petrol and has high vapour temperature with a slow burn slow flame front which does not easily cause knock ( predetonation ) knock effects
However in cold climate Etanol is very difficult to ignite so adding 15% petrol resolves these winter start issues ( combined with extra hot spark plugs )
Ethanol is a less hot burning fuel and as there is more fuel to help with cooling often means less wear and tear for engines from overheating issues
Slow burn often forms less toxic nitros oxides which create less polution smog
(and high E85 mixxes can help cars pass the NCT emmisions tests )

On line convert to E85 sites list Many other factors to consider
But the general theme is the average 1993 to 1999 car non fuel injected types can probably do 50/50 mix of E5 and e85 without mods and a lot of them can even do E85 in the summer with no mods or kits and have no bad effect on the cars

But touse E85 in non flex fuel cars often its suck and see unless the internet sites for E85 throws up useful info on your make and model of car

Or you bottle out and play careful and buy the kits for ~600 or more

Those with E85 kit mods will prefer everybody does the kit mod much like the Bio diesel crowd want every body to go down the methanol brew bio diesel route to make bio diesel rather than the 50/50 solution of throwing olive oil into 1/2 full tanks of Diesel which most joe soaps prefer as cheaper easier solution

My non Flex fuel 1000cc 1998 Suziki swift with no kits or mods so far loves the E40 mix and hopefully I will find it can do E85 as well as E5 to E40 fuels

A video with info on non flex fuel cars with no kit or mods using e85 mixes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuOs1yap8mU


Derry

derry

Figure I am close to 100% E85 ratio and so far no issues

Worst case I am E75 ratio

As most fuels are not exactly correct generaly E5 is actualy E6 or E7 and E85 is probably E86 to E89 ratios I am fairly certain that the fuel ion the tank is at least E80

In a few weeks I will empty the tank with a long run and only put in E85 to confirm that E85 straight works pefectly

Only very minor issues is sometimes a minor small bit of uneven surging on accelerating hard in 1st or second gear (one time in twenty times more liklely after sitting a long time at the lights or in heavy traffic )

This problem could be sorted easily with a mechanic for ~200 euros of work

For me the simpler solution is to stay on E60% fuel ratios as that returns the best saving some ~10% compared to E5 fuels


keep you posted

Derry

henrykipson

I am thinking about to convert petrol with biofuel with the mad rise in petrol prices. Please suggest me .

kit ethanol

colm_mcm

The incentives for buying e85 ended the end of last year. If you're in ireland there's no point doing an ethanol conversion.

Seth Brundle

Please don't resurrect old threads