E-85 in a non-E-85 engine?

Feb 08, 2009 29 Replies

If I HAD to do it, would say, 2 or 3 gallons, 50/50 gas/E-85 be destructive if tank was refilled with gas ASAP?



Effects on power, drivability, emissions?



BTW, what techical/mechanical/electronic changes are made to a Flex-Fuel vehicle to deserve that badge?


thanks



gary


NOT a good idea. However it would run, not well however. Without the proper timing and injector controls the engine runs at less than half power and will be running VERY lean so you create a lot of extra pollution.

The E-85 engines use a composition sensor in the fuel line to tell the computer to use a different program table for the injectors and timing to allow E-85 to work.

I wouldn't get to worried about E-85 though. So far 1/3 of the plants that are making the ethanol have gone bankrupt, and more drop every day.

In fact, so lean one would have to be VERY careful not to burn pistons and valves. If it DID run one shouldn't drive it very far, and one should drive it VERY easy- don't pull much power from it.

One night I had to snowblow at work and we were out of gasoline. We had some E85 test fuel so I used it. Snowblower ran well enough to get the job done.

Assuming a modern vehical, there are 02 sensors which should notice the lean condition and richen up the mixture somewhat.

Beats walking.

Wes

Ive heard that adding isopropanol to gas will decrease emissions, i.e. just before a smog test.

Would E-85 have a similar effect in, say,

1 gal E-86 to 4-5 gal of gasoline?

But there's a limit to how far it can compensate -- the injector might not be able to flow enough, or the computer might just decide the O2 sensor was lying and go into a limp-home mode.

Unless it means you end up walking from further away.

50/50 E0 and E85 would still be E 42.5, which would cause a non-flex-fuel engine to run VERY lean. Lean enough that driveability would be, at best, tenuous. Power would definitely be lacking, and NOX emissions as well as hydrocarbons would both be high. HC for sure due to lean missfire - and NOX if you actually got it to run with enough power to cause high combustion temps due to the lean mixture.

As for the changes, they have a sensor system to "close guess" the ethanol content, as well as a reprogrammed ECU with wider adaptive capacity to adjust the pulse width over a wider range to adjust the mixture, as well as more sophisticated timing algarithms

That's too much. WAY too much. The emission cheaters put something like 6 oz of hooch in 15 gallons of gasoline.

That is a posibility. The mix he was talking of equates to E47.5. Cars are already dealing with E10 and E15.

I hope he heads to a gas station to fill the tank with E10 or E15.

Wes

I've never heard of this, but then we've never needed to have emissions tests around here.

I don't know if you meant isopropyl alcohol or not, but the common grocery/drug store rubbing alcohol is isopropyl, and was often available in more than one concentration. Lately, all I've been able to find is 50%, but for many years, 90-92% was readily available too.

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I don't put it in fuel, but it's a fairly decent cleaning solvent for lightly soiled parts, and also a good additive to a water & liquid detergent/soap mixture, to make a very effective general purpose cleaner. I use a potion of about 66% water, 34% alcohol and very little liquid soap (maybe 10 drops per pint) in a trigger spray bottle, for most things.. from my glasses lenses to plastic or painted equipment cabinets, and most other things that don't require anything harsher.

Ask your pharmacist. Where I live, we can get 98% by asking for it (I use it for cleaning old photographic film), but it's not out on the aisles.

-- Ed Huntress

I've used semiconductor-grate isopropanol to clean circuit boards. It works reasonably well, but we couldn't pour any down the drain because rubbing alcohol is a dangerous pollutant.

97% out on the rack at the local Wally World. It gets added to the blend we use to clean our air packs and gear. I ran out one time and used some Ever Clear I had "on hand". The crew all smelled like they just hit a brewery fire after that!.

(Ever Clear is basically a 98% alcohol Vodka, one shot is enough to put a normal human into alcohol poisoning range)

Wow. That claim seemed so ridiculous that I worked the numbers so I could refute you -- and it turns out that a shot of everclear works out to almost exactly 1% BAC!

For that matter, I now have a lot more respect for shots of more normal, 80 proof (40%) liquor....

1% is dead and pickled.

Try this:

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and

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"Steve W." wrote in rec.crafts.metalworking:

Try 95% and a 190-proof beverage.

FWIW, your exaggeration also includes the "alcohol poisoning range" comment.

"Everclear" is a relatively mild, almost totally tasteless, liquid that - taken in moderation - provides no hangover so long as it is ingested without being polluted by such extraneous compounds as water, mixers, colas, etc.

Work the numbers. A shot is 1.5 oz. You've got roughly 5 qt of blood in your body, which is 160 oz. If it all hit your bloodstream at once, you'd be dead.

"Moderation" being such an important word in that description.

If the claim that one shot of everclear would kill you is true, why then do many people imbibe 3 0r 4 mixed drinks that contain a couple of shots of 80 proof alchohol each and live to tell about it? It seems to take

20 or 30 shots of the 80 proof stuff to put the college kids into their coffins. Could it be that you can't just really need to take overall body wieght into account, not just the amount of blood?

Pete Stanaitis

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RAM³ wrote:

It does get more complex, and the rates are very important. Three or four mixed drinks over the course of three or four hours is having the alcohol metabolized as you're drinking it, and distributed over all your body tissues ending up with much lower concentrations. Taking a shot of everclear has all the alcohol in your stomach at once; if your stomach was empty it's absorbed into your bloodstream pretty quickly, and at that point you've got very high concentrations for a while.

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