Ethanol (1 Viewer)

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

Joined
Jan 2, 2005
Threads
276
Messages
2,060
Location
CouleeDamWA, BoiseID
Well Im running my first tank of E100 Ethanol. Ive added a top end lube being its such a dry fuel. This is race quality at 117 octane and $1.54 per gallon. Will let everyone know how it works out. I am going to be replacing items soon anyway so it will burn E100 even though I intend on using a 50/50 blend rather then pure ethanol. So far things look good.
 
I run about 6-8.5% myself, for a final ethanol level of 0.08-1.3% BAC. Primarily I use Mendocino Whithhawk/Eye of the Hawk, with an occasional booster of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot... Oh, s*#T, this isn't chat...

Sorry

I've never heard of 100% EtOH fuel... any performance differences?

nial (damn beer...)
 
My intentions for now are to run a few gallons pure ethanol. Then mix it to about a 50/50 blend. I just mixed the fuels a few minutes ago. My carb isnt jetted for alcohol so I had to use the choke to get the air/fuel mixture for start up and idle. Driving around it doesnt care and runs great.

Ive already replaced some of the rubber fuel lines with FI line which should be made to work with ethanol blends.

I do need some help.... the screw that goes into the side of the choke to hold the cable fell and ?I lost it.,... anyone know what the size and thread pitch is?
 
Went out to check on my spare carb, but I'm not going to be much help... don't have a thread guage. Do you have a pile of nuts/screws you can rummage through? Kinda looks like about 4mm x .75, but it's pretty much a wild-ass guess on my part. Fine thread, anyway... good luck.

funny, where I work, our Mass Spectrometers use all metric hardware, almost entirely stainless steel, I'm always finding cool stuff in the scrap pile to stick on my LC...

nial
 
Mini,

How is this going?

I am very interested in this...

I did a project w/ the folks up in Torrington a while back. They race down at Bandemeier and do pretty well running E98.

You have a terminal right there in Cheyenne?

Are you going to rebuild the carb to take this blend?
 
We have an E100 filling station here for semitrucks. They come in and take it to be mixed with gas. I can buy it there because my brother knows one of the people. We get a good rate. We dont have any E85 stations around here yet. They have one down in Greely where Ben lives.

I inspected the carb. I dont think it really needs a rebuild to run the Ethanol. Two things come into play with E100. The "E" stands for Ethanol ofcourse and any number there after is the percentage of Ethanol being used. So E100 is 100% Ethanol. The two things you have to worrry about when running anything over E15 is it will break down rubber, some plastics, corks, and some metals. I did an experment with an old electric fuel pump. We filled it with E100 and last night we happened to hit the 3rd week. The rubber inside was melted and fell apart when you touched it.
The other issue is air fuel ratio. You have to run bigger jets to allow more fuel into the engine. Im not going to get into this part of it because all I need to do is pull my choke out and it runs fine.

Ok... my current carb has all paper gaskets so no need to worry about it breaking down the gaskets. Only thing I worry about is the accel-pump. I have all metal lines going up to the carb and back to the tank. I replaced most of the fuel lines with lines that should be safe running E100. I am going to replace things as they fail. I just hope if it does fail its in town so I can get help.

Im using 200proof Ethanol. Most places run 190proof. Thing is if you dont keep it sealed then the Ethanol will take in the moister from the air like an evil sponge and bring you down to 190proof. So we have a poly blue 55 gallon drum that is sealed. Ethanol will store forever without breaking down and seperating. so it is ready to use when you need it. I know I could write a book on this so Im just going to skip all the talk and go into how the pig is doing.

I started off with E100. It ran ok on the road but as soon as you hit a stop sign or a stop light it would idle down and die. This is because it wasnt getting enough full. I didnt have the choke attached. Next morning. Its colded then hell outside and the pig didnt want to start. Another negative trait with E100. It doesnt like to start in really cold weather. And yes I procrastinated again and didnt attach the choke. Next morning same thing and my wife isnt very happy because I yet put off attaching the choke and yes we had a difficult cold start. That day I drive around to get the fuel to half a tank. Then I fill her up with petrol. Now I'm at about an E50 rating. I leave the fuel station and within a few blocks the pig starts to become more civil. No more issues with cold starts. I now have the choke hooked up and when I run a higher percentage of ethanol I just pull the chock out a bit. Ethanol burns clean .
Overall I am happy at between E60 and E50 mix. The pig really likes it too. It has a hell of a lot more pull. At 200proof the octane rating is somewhere between 115 and 117. Mix that with regular unlead you have to be at least over a 100 octane. It pulls really nice. Zero hesitation like I was getting at times when you would accelerate from a stop. Pulls goo up hills and in traffic. Fuel economy isnt being measured at this time because I havent fixed my speedo gear yet. I still have to buy one. So I dont know how far I am going on a tank yet. But it seems to last about the same. Plus it feels good going to the gas station as asking for only 20 bucks. I then matching the gallons received with E100. So we end up paying about 2 bucks a gallon.

My brother has a ford exploider with a ton of miles. We have been running about an E40 blend in his and it has cleaned it out and the engine doesnt rattle like it used to. He is very pleased (so far) with the gains he has been getting with the ethanol blend. The first couple days we went with a higher percentage. Something closer to an E80 to E90. It ran fine at that. But to be safe we cut it down to around an E40. Because ethanol is used on a regular basis to bring higher octane levels to gas as well as burn cleaner the auto makers have replaced many problem areas that ethanol would distroy. You now have more of an issue with the vehicles programing. there are some groups working on a programmed chip to handle high percentages of ethanol.
 
Ok for the past two days we have been running E100 (100% ethanol). Since I attached the choke it will run fine. Drives normal except when I come to a stop to fast or just randomly at stops. Then the engine dies from fuel starvation. Im not going to jet for ethanol but I wanted to see if I could just run it straight... also it doesnt like to start in the morning after it is really cold. I have to pull the choke out all the way and then it will start. I let it run for a minute and then push the choke in a little and drive. Other then that it drives normal on the highway and around town (minus the dieing when you come to a stop to fast, or the random die with stops)

This weekend I plan on swapping out the rest of my rubber fuel lines and then start looking for other items that need to be converted over to run more then 20% ethanol. Feels real good to burn 1.54 per gallon then 2.60+ per gallon.

Other then that the best mix seems to be around E60. Im going to mix up some E75 and run that for a few days and see how it does.
 
I need to install a new speedo gear before I can figure out mileage. I just havent bought one yet.

I havent adjusted the timing as of yet because Im not sure what I am going to do with the fuel mixture. I can burn E100 fine but then I have to pull the choke out a little more then half way. As soon as I place a few gallons of gasoline in the tank then I have to push the choke in otherwise the engine races. Right now Im kind of happy with the way its been running on the E100. But I will feel a ton more comfortable after I finish converting the rest of the fuel system to handle E100.

Other then that I think it would work out very well to burn a little E50 in your rig. You can either buy fuel grade E100 and mix it or you can find a station that sales the E85 and burn that. Just so you can get a feel for it. Our old rigs can handle it. Fuel grade E100 that we buy is 200 proof alcohol. Something like 115-117 octane. It does give the Pig a nice boost.
 
Any new info on this e85 ? I saw an ad showing several GM cars that will be running on it.
 
Beast II said:
Any new info on this e85 ? I saw an ad showing several GM cars that will be running on it.


I dont have any new info other then what is posted on the websites. You can also find out the nearest E85 stations.

http://www.e85fuel.com/database/search.php

We dont have anything local in cheyenne... but we do have an E100 hub so I have been splitting the cost of a 55gallon barrel with my brother. I just mix my own and have been happy with an E40 blend.
 
PabloCruise said:
I have heard around the campfire that Fort Collins may soon have a business that retrofits vehicles to run E85

And yes, GM and Ford have had "flex fuel" vehicles out for a couple of years that run E85...

Whats weird is they started the Flexfuel vehicles back in the early 1990's. Which seems par for the course.... I remember when E10 came out.... took forever to sink into the general public and cost more... same with the E85... although stations carrying E85 are growing... we are now getting one here in Cheyenne.
 
Ok... well I think I am going to convert the Pig over to E100 and just burn pure ethanol from now on. Which means I am going to need to bring fuel with me on trips. I might be able to get away with E85 on those trips where I use up all my fuel which means Im going to have to find stations that carry E85 before hand.

Anyway I have been burning higher precentages of ethanol for some time now and have not seen any issues (except the cold starting issue and fuel starvation at levels between E80-E100).

So I am going to need to jet the carb so might as well rebuild it, and make the other needed adjustments.

But the Pig is going to be Corn Fed from now on. :cool:
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom