Mixing E85 and Gas

They just got E85 at a local station at > 15%

than gas but I was told you had to have an

engine designed for both E85 and gas. The dealer said conventional gas lines might dry out and a mechanic said E85 will work in a carburetor aspirated engine -- fuel injection gas only systems simply will not work -- if you get larger jets.

I once had an old gas only carburetor vehicle with two fuel tanks and, at the time, I worked in a lab that had waste 190 proof EtOH. Without making any modifications I tried the grain in an empty fuel tank, started off on the gas tank, got up to 65 then switched to EtOH.

Very slowly it lost power. Each minute I'd lose maybe a mph with the pedal all the way down.

The E85 dealer says E85 mixes with gas. What would happen with a 50% gas - 50% E85 mixture?

Someone here might want to try various mixtures starting off with mostly gas in both gas only fuel injection and in an old unmodified carburetor then post the results.

There are a lot of things you can finagle. The E85 dealers should have more data to disclose to the general public.

Bret Cahill

They already disclosed enough by saying don't run E85 in an engine that's not specifically designed for it.

There are two problems:

- Elastomers that are suitable for gasoline are not necessarily resistant to ethanol. Hence the mechanic's advice that the gas lines will 'dry out', e.g. crack, and fail.

- Ethanol's specific energy content is much lower than that of gasoline. Your old car lost power on ethanol because it was running _way_ lean. Proper jets for straight alcohol need to be >half again bigger than those for gasoline. Bigger lines and pumps are also appropriate.

E85 will probably cause a carbureted engine to run lean enough to damage it, without causing enough of a power loss to cause the driver to stop the engine. Gas-only EFI computers are smarter than the average driver; they'll sense that there's something wrong with the fuel and stop the engine.

Someone here might want to be cautious about undertaking your proposed experiment. Foreseeable results include fuel leaks and subsequent fire, total replacement of all rubber parts in the fuel system, burned valves, melted pistons, etc.

-Mike-