20,000 miles running my non flex fuel car on E85 alcohol fuels

derry

20,000 miles running my non flex fuel car on E85 alcohol fuels

I know normal petrol fuel prices are going up a tad so I thought the extra info on how my non flex fuel car gets on with flex fuel combos of normal petrol and E85 mixed or 100% E85 alcohol fuel.

For most car users with small engines or low mileage the saving are limited
or most car users getting an approved flex fuel conversion kit made to the cr will ensure better results than not using kits .Not using kits can damage engines so be warned its experimental not to use a approved flex fuel conversion kit.

To understand the basics why to do this conversion kit or not do a conversion kit as I do I will cover the basics in BLUE


E85 fuel basics explained .Originally the model T Ford cars were made to run on petrol or Alcohol fuels or any combination of the fuels mixed. This was most farmers had their own stills to make 95% alcohol and petrol was costing in today's money some $3.50 a USA gallon ( 5 cents a USA gallon in 1918 ) and alcohol was often cheaper .As oil fuel prices dropped to tadays low of $2.25 a USA gallon alcohol became less interesting to use and phased out
To start engines the ignition was retarded. Once the engine was running the ignition was advanced manually to the correct setting for the type of fuel as in less advanced for petrol and more advanced for alcohol fuels and .mixed fuels would be somewhere in between . The process was difficult to learn and so most engines were run without enough advance on the ignition which merely results in loss of power and less MPG. Too far advanced could damage the engine with ping issues .
Also the engine demands more fuel when the engine uses Alcohol fuel ,on average 30% more than using Petrol..So the carburetor is often tuned to deliver 30% too much fuel when using petrol so as to be able to be flex fuel.
However this means that MPG is reduced. Tuning the car to only run on petrol and never using alcohol will allow the tuning to supply 30% less fuel and give better MPG but then the car cant operate as flex fuel car much as most cars are today are only for petrol.

Modern engines which are now made to be flex fuel use high tech solution. The injectors are connected to a oxygen sensor .When the fuel is high alcohol content the fuel burn emits to much oxygen .The sensor picks this up and makes the injectors open for a longer time to give more fuel so that less oxygen comes out the exhaust. Than can only be done with the use of rapid reaction computer chips. Also the spark plugs and timing are advanced or retarded from the information the oxygen sensor gets which depends on the fuel types.

All petrol cars with a suitable conversion kit typical costs ROI 600 euros can be made to run on alcohol fuel.

According to sites on the internet there exists the possibility that most petrol cars can be semi flex fuel cars and in some cases total flex fuel car without a suitable conversion kit.

The issues to be figured out are do you intend to run on on full E85 fuel all the time or be a flex fuel car

All petrol cars without injectors can be made to run E85 alcohol without a kit but then it probably wont run right on petrol fuel. Simply making the carburetor deliver 30% extra fuel will allow the engine to burn E85 with no major issues in summer time. However in winter the spark plugs may not be hot enough to ignite the alcohol. Also as the timing is not advanced the MPG will suffer. However the engine will still use petrol but 30% too much of it so MPG will suffer. If the ignition is advanced to burn the E85 properly and get better MPG it will mean changing back to running petrol will probably damage the engine. This is because the advanced timing will cause pre detonation and ping in the engine .

However as most modern cars are made to be able to operate with a huge range of different types and quality of petrol and various other factors it seems that most cars can tolerate using 30% to 50% alcohol added to the petrol fuel without requiring a flex fuel kit ,but that experimental info from the net that cannot be guaranteed and there are other issues for some older cars that the rubber pipe work might react chemically with the alcohol fuels and spring a leak or worse. So I personally don't recommend the non flex fuel convention kit route unless you really know your onions .




Any way I chose to try running my 1998 Suziki Swift 1000cc non flex fuel car on a E85 alcohol fuel. kept filling the tank with some extra E85 so that went from from 10% E85 until eventually I was running on 100% e85 .Originally the engine ran fine even up to 100% E85 except starting the engine in cold weather was slow. However after 5000 miles of doing this I sent the car in for service and I suspect they adjusted the engine tuning as after that the car was unhappy if I used more than 70% e85 in the fuel. Thats probably because they tuned the engine when the fuel was 10% e85 mix. The car will run on on 100% e85 but it acts like it is fuel staved and can cut out and has no real poke so I don't bother doing higher than 70% E85 .On average 50% to 60% E85 fuel is what I mostly use.
bear in mind that that 50% E85 85% alcohol 15% petrol mixxed with 50% 5 95% petrol 5% alcohol makes a approx 40% alcohol fuel


Anyway I frequently late at night on weekends go into the country average distance 125 miles .This allows me to chose the speed I can drive at as there isn't much traffic to effect the MPG reading .
Then in city traffic try as I might I cant get much difference max 45 MPG and down to 38MPG with 41 MPG as the average for high petrol fuels and 39 MPG as the average for high alcohol fuel types .now in simple maths when petrol went down to 1 euro a liter and the E85 fuel was 95 cents it was a no brainer that running on pure petrol was cheaper because the loss of MPG from E85 madeE85 more expensive to use . Equally when I first started using the E85 and petrol costs were 1.35 euros and more a liter and the e85 was 1 euro a liter it was a no brainner that using the E85 was cheaper even if the MPG from the e85 fuel was less

However when petrol fuel is 1.10 euros or 1.15 euros a liter which fuel is cheapest to use

So I built a Excell table where I can insert the numbers and get some idea where the saving are to found .I now supply the table to others to use but if you copy it you need to acknowledge the source Derry from Boards.ie will do


There are four tables for differt speeds for my car
the first table does 40mph and the last table does 70MPH but its approx 40MPH is more like low 40 eg 35 to 40mph
fivty is high 50 steady 50 to 55 mph
sixty is high sixty eg 60 to 65 mph
70 is actualy more like high 70 dont ask 120 on the kph reading is a ta over 70mph
but the car tops at at 85 and allowing for speedo drift that means less than 80MPH is top speed unless you got a bit of a down hill to help

The colored sections cells are generally where the changes of the numbers can be changed with the exception of the big blue band which high lights the less liky combos of fuel I use. So these are mostly estimations from some few samples where the car ran on high amounts of e85 fuel

For others with flex fuel cars they can change the numbers in the MPG sections to suit their cars. The price per liter can be changed .The estimation is needed for knowing is the tank 50% e85 and 50% e5 fuel so that's a fudge number which requires a bit of guess work

The speeds can be changed and compared >those who know how to do the graphs can graph the numbers and I hope to supply that tble version in few weeks when I figure it out .

The table is made using Open oOffice a free Excell type program and saved in microsoft compatable XP

I generally always use 20% e85 even if it costs a bit more as I like the extra poke it gives the engine .Also I figure with the better fuel burn it will keep the engine cleaner longer with less carbon build ups ..Also as the alcohol fuel burns cooler it should help the engine last longer between services. Also a little tip the more e85 in the fuel the less the CO reading tend to be when doing your NCT and my car was just on the limits that can be measured such as 0.01 for CO and the maximum limit to pass was as high as 0.50 . That was done with 25% e85 mix .

One guy on boards.ie with a broken CAT changed the car to run on pure E85 and the NCT reading were zero for CO . The guys at the NCT thought the machine was broken.This is because the E85 burns so cleanly there is nearly no need for for a CAT and any unburnt fuel is mostly only alcohol which cant harm nature much except maybe give a few fly's a hang over from flying through a alcohol exhaust WHEEE

Anyway now the Regime in ROI wants to give us carbon tax some sort of crap that the green slime party has dreamed up to punish even more so hopefully the e85 fuel stays a low price as it is sopposed to be less co issue . Anyway the Alcohol is made from cows milk leftover gunk that normally gets binned .It means that buying E85 fuel makes work for Irish workers so it helps the economy and might not get taxxed so much

If your doing high mileage a flex fuel conversion kit could take one year to pay back .For me it would take ten years as my annual mileage is low and the cars MPG of about 45MPG means the saving are not there to got for me to buy a conversion kit even a cheaper on e from the net from the USA

Using the tables could show how long or profitable the idea to e85 fuel would be

If the new tax comes in one can input the new figures and see the extra saving if the E85 stays at the lowwer price




Derry

ChristyCent

After reading all that i'm still very confused lol

Tails142

ok thanks

Bandara

I lost the will to live after the "20,000 miles" bit


:rolleyes:

3ps

Hi Derry,

Very interesting thanks. You will probably get a better response than the above over on octane.ie

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Are your saying that they are more sad and boring on Octane.ie .

derry

3ps wrote: »

Hi Derry,

Very interesting thanks. You will probably get a better response than the above over on octane.ie

Thanks for the heads up will post there in a few days or next week
What info I have put here is very condenced compared to the thousands of motoring sites world wide which contain thousands of pages on the E85 issues

For those on the know a quick scan will do and then just use the excell table to figure the saving possible


Derry