E85 Conversion - Anyone done it?

BlackWizard

I'm considering getting my 2ltr Petrol X-trail converted to run E85.

Has anyone heard of any real world stories about this or done it themselves? I keep reading about the marketing stuff on websites, but very little is coming about my car running E85 and if it would affect my fuel economy or if it would destroy my engine or fuel lines etc.

I'm mostly worried that it will break my engine somehow.

R.O.R

Originally posted in another thread.

The price difference versus the fuel economy difference doesn't seem to make it worth while filling with E85, yet alone paying to convert first.

Berty wrote: »

I'd Also like to know where the incentives for using Bio-Fuel is.

I have a bio-ethanol car and the fuel costs €0.98c per litre and does around 24mpg. Diesel is €1.11c per litre and does around 40mpg.

Why should I keep using bio-ethanol when I can get petrol for €1.24 and get 30mpg?

MetzgerMeister

Also it will take nearly 3 years to start seeing the savings because of the cost of conversion.

BlackWizard

His MPG really dropped a lot there.

But from all the reading I'm doing online it seems to differ from car to car. Plus there is a bit more power from E85?

It costs about 300 to get it done for my car.

MetzgerMeister

Hmm yes, my mistake! I was thinking of an LPG conversion

Matt Simis

BlackWizard wrote: »

His MPG really dropped a lot there.

But from all the reading I'm doing online it seems to differ from car to car. Plus there is a bit more power from E85?

It costs about 300 to get it done for my car.

Cars with lesser MPG hit tend to be very high compression engines, mostly Turbos.

BlackWizard

Matt Simis wrote: »

Cars with lesser MPG hit tend to be very high compression engines, mostly Turbos.

So cars with turbos can run this safely?

My car is just a 4 cylinder petrol engine. So it should be safe from massive MPG drops.

I'm really interested now in getting this. I just wish more people had it so I could feel safer getting it.

ytareh

Ive started using about 30% E85(Fiat 1.4 Petrol)and have seen mpg drop from about 38 to 35 which cancels out any cash savings...Will probably stop soon as I reckon theres a slight LOSS of power .Only advantage thus , cleaner running?

alias no.9

High compression engines (turbos) benefit can get a power benefit from E85. A normally aspirated engine won't see any performance benefits but will see the efficiency loss.

ytareh

BLACKWIZARD you definitely CANT run completely on E85 you can only use a fraction of it per tank.So first off you probably need to tell the check out person (certainly in the smaller rural stations) or they will think youre trying to pull a fast one or going to wreck your car!Depending on who you listen to you can use anything from 10-35% approx safely...But definitely not 100%

Matt Simis

BlackWizard wrote: »

So cars with turbos can run this safely?

My car is just a 4 cylinder petrol engine. So it should be safe from massive MPG drops.

I'm really interested now in getting this. I just wish more people had it so I could feel safer getting it.

Think you are interpreting what I said backwards! See what alias no.9 said above for more clarification, but basically 4pot NA petrol is not a good candidate for E85 running. A 4pot with a fat turbo would be or a NA 4pot with a massively high RPM tuned engine possibly.

The "danger" from running large E85 concentrations isnt the "its corrosive" issue you see thrown around, its that your engine's O2 Sensor will freak out (CEL time on the dash) and your fuel injectors will max out (run at "over" 100% IDC) trying to inject enough fuel to prevent a lean condition. Most Injectors are good for +15% over stock fuelling, not the +30-40% (peak) you might need on straight E85. There is also the matter E85 will put more strain on your fuel pump as it struggles to keep up the pressure to the fuel lines (as the fuel flow is so much greater, depends on how good your stock pump is) and the fact E85 doesn't lubricate like Petrol will (you can add stuff to the fuel to help this).

I tried 35% E85 on a 6pot e39 BMW (530i) and it generated a CEL. I could put in 55% into an Audi Allroad (2.7 BiTurbo) and it was still within tolerances (no CEL, though not good for the stock Injectors). The Turbo Allroad MPG wasnt too much of a MPG hit from stock, the NA BMW wasnt happy at all on it.


Myself and JHMEG wrote detailed running threads on different tests here already, did you try a search?

alias no.9 wrote: »

A normally aspirated engine won't see any performance benefits but will see the efficiency loss.

Did you see the tests on the Camry and Prius that showed rather large Torque and some BHP increases on 30% E85? Both NA Cars and not performance orientated

R.O.R

ytareh wrote: »

BLACKWIZARD you definitely CANT run completely on E85 you can only use a fraction of it per tank.So first off you probably need to tell the check out person (certainly in the smaller rural stations) or they will think youre trying to pull a fast one or going to wreck your car!Depending on who you listen to you can use anything from 10-35% approx safely...But definitely not 100%

There is a conversion kit available to allow you to run 100% on E85.

Matt Simis

R.O.R wrote: »

There is a conversion kit available to allow you to run 100% on E85.

IMO a true conversion from one fuel to another would entail (at least) changing Fuel Injectors, Fuel Pumps and Engine Map. The "kits" available simply force the injectors open for longer and are in no way tuned to a particular cars setup. Therefore I would seriously question their effect on performance and reliability.

Your stock fuel injectors were not designed for long term +30% operation, if they were, the manufacturer would have put in larger fuel injectors..

BlackWizard

Matt Simis wrote: »

The "danger" from running large E85 concentrations isnt the "its corrosive" issue you see thrown around, its that your engine's O2 Sensor will freak out (CEL time on the dash) and your fuel injectors will max out (run at "over" 100% IDC) trying to inject enough fuel to prevent a lean condition. Most Injectors are good for +15% over stock fuelling, not the +30-40% (peak) you might need on straight E85. There is also the matter E85 will put more strain on your fuel pump as it struggles to keep up the pressure to the fuel lines (as the fuel flow is so much greater, depends on how good your stock pump is) and the fact E85 doesn't lubricate like Petrol will (you can add stuff to the fuel to help this).

Myself and JHMEG wrote detailed running threads on different tests here already, did you try a search?

Okay well that just definitely put me off doing this. I was worried about the fuel pump and I never thought of the O2 sense going mad. Then surely these conversion kits are a load of rubbish if this is what they do to cars?

I tried searching boards.ie but I really came up with nothing. Can you remember the thread name or some keywords to use to search?

BlackWizard

Matt Simis wrote: »

IMO a true conversion from one fuel to another would entail (at least) changing Fuel Injectors, Fuel Pumps and Engine Map. The "kits" available simply force the injectors open for longer and are in no way tuned to a particular cars setup. Therefore I would seriously question their effect on performance and reliability.

Your stock fuel injectors were not designed for long term +30% operation, if they were, the manufacturer would have put in larger fuel injectors..

Yeah I know what you mean. That's why I'd like to see more people out there that have done this. I'm not convinced that these conversion kits do any damage or even improve the car. But when I think about it in detail as to what they are doing.. I do worry which is why I'm posting here about it.

I got my old car remapped and I had a similar amount of worries. But that worked out fine. But I did have the reassurance of many people that had done it before me.

alias no.9

Matt Simis wrote: »

Did you see the tests on the Camry and Prius that showed rather large Torque and some BHP increases on 30% E85? Both NA Cars and not performance orientated

No I haven't seen that. Was it the normal cooking version of the Camry or a Hybrid? I know the Prius (and I presume the Camry Hybrid) uses an Atkinson Cycle engine rather than the conventional Otto Cycle and AFAIK the Atkinson Cycle usually uses higher compression than the Otto in a normally aspirated engine, so it does make sense.

Matt Simis

BlackWizard wrote: »

Okay well that just definitely put me off doing this. I was worried about the fuel pump and I never thought of the O2 sense going mad. Then surely these conversion kits are a load of rubbish if this is what they do to cars?

I tried searching boards.ie but I really came up with nothing. Can you remember the thread name or some keywords to use to search?

I wouldnt totally discount it, its a good idea to check things out though as you are doing. The conversion kits take care of the O2 Sensor reading out of range by injecting more fuel. The O2 Sensor merely detects Oxygen in the exhaust stream, its not really a very sophisticated sensor in isolation. You generally wont/shouldnt get a CEL using the conversion kits, I would just fundamentally question how they achieve the conversion.

For the search:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/search.php?searchid=10774485
e85* in the Motoring subsection only. :pac:

alias no.9 wrote: »

No I haven't seen that. Was it the normal cooking version of the Camry or a Hybrid? I know the Prius (and I presume the Camry Hybrid) uses an Atkinson Cycle engine rather than the conventional Otto Cycle and AFAIK the Atkinson Cycle usually uses higher compression than the Otto in a normally aspirated engine, so it does make sense.

Actually now that I checked the Camry test (regular 2.4litre petrol model AFAIK) didnt have a Dyno, but showed a MPG improvement at 30% e85:
http://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmgmt/ACE_Optimal_Ethanol_Blend_Level_Study_final_12507.pdf (from JHMEG in Search results above)

The Prius test (seperate test) showed the following on an unmodified 2003 model:
Gasoline- 64bhp @4500rpm * 80lb-ft @4200rpm
E-85 - 77bhp @4700rpm * 106lb-ft @4250rpm
http://www.greenenergynetwork.com/media/studies/prius-e85.PDF

The numbers may not look large in isolation, but they show huge percentage improvements, as noted on an unmodified car.

JHMEG

BlackWizard wrote: »

Okay well that just definitely put me off doing this.

I wouldn't have a problem with the kits Matt refers to, for the same reasons as Matt. In that they should be reliable as there are no moving parts. However just opening the injectors longer is very simplistic and on the face of it seems too simplistic. I would imagine this suits some cars but not others. Other than that I can't comment on them.

ninty9er on here is running with such a kit in his Astra.

alias no.9

Matt Simis wrote: »

I wouldnt totally discount it, its a good idea to check things out though as you are doing. The conversion kits take care of the O2 Sensor reading out of range by injecting more fuel. The O2 Sensor merely detects Oxygen in the exhaust stream, its not really a very sophisticated sensor in isolation. You generally wont/shouldnt get a CEL using the conversion kits, I would just fundamentally question how they achieve the conversion.

I'd have to agree with Matt on this one. The most that these units do is increase the duty cycle of the injectors and potentially mask some out of spec sensor signals to prevent a CEL. It will be the worst of both worlds, completely unoptimised for E85 with all the efficiency losses.

BlackWizard

JHMEG wrote: »

ninty9er on here is running with such a kit in his Astra.

I read that thread after I went searching on boards.ie for E85.

I think it is a 1.6 petrol. He got on fine but I got the impression that his family/mates were correct in saying it's a waste of time in that he didn't save much money.

But there was no apparent harm done to the car which is what I'm most concerned with.

When reading the document Matt provided I found this set of data. That's some drop in MPG! 24mpg to 17mpg on the Impala when using E85.

I would probably get around 24mpg myself. So dropping to 17mpg wouldn't make any sense to get this conversion.

Edit: Turns out this is WRONG. This is the calculated results.

The graph is attached below.

Matt Simis

Woops, you have shown the graph of "calculated" (aka estimated) fuel economy, not measured fuel economy. The measured is the real world result, the Camry got a MPG boost (over petrol) at e30 and the Impala almost reached petrol MPG at e40. However the link I provided is really aimed at Ethanol blends in un-modified vehicles, not full on e85. You can blend Ethanol at the pump here if you want, the pump will count both nozzles (filled one after another of course) and you can do it all in one "sitting" so to speak.

You may want to edit your post, that will confuse the hell out of anyone else that reads it!

BlackWizard

I did sort of notice it was the calculated results because it was after they explained the equation. But the measured results were not too far off this.

But what I didn't notice is that this test was done by just dropping different fuel mixtures into the tank. So there is no conversion done to the car? Would a conversion of made these results better?

E30 seems to hit a sweet spot on some of the cars tested. But putting these on E85 would just make no apparent sense.

JHMEG

Keep records and try your own blends up to 30-40% E85 and see how you get on. It won't cost you anything.

My own inconclusive testing has shown the same mpg if not slightly more at 30%.

Matt Simis

BlackWizard wrote: »

I did sort of notice it was the calculated results because it was after they explained the equation. But the measured results were not too far off this.

I dunno, I would say the measured results were way off the theory craft at the sweet spots (which as JHMEG mentions are discovered via realworld trial and error).

Conversion wouldnt "improve" MPG, but would allow running on full concentrations, not just blends. Most conversion kits have metrics installed to help cold starts, though at anything upto 50% blending this likely wouldnt be apparent in our climate regardless. Bear in mind a 50% E85 blend with 50% petrol isnt 50:50 ethanol to petrol:

E85 - 50%
Petrol 95oct - 50%
=
Ethanol Content - 42.50%
Petrol Content - 57.50%

---

If you put in 50% e85 and 50% E5 (ie regular Maxol/others "petrol" ) it skews the numbers a bit more:
Ethanol Content 45.00%
Petrol Content 55.00%


Im still strangely attracted to running my old V12 on E85 with a conversion kit however..