Driving a 2011 Chevy Impala E85 rental. Got gas in Sacramento at a Shell station. Regular was $4.17 and E85 was $3.49. Saved $8.16 on 12.5 gallons. And the E85 is 105 octane. Hmmm? Won't know the mpg as we're going to the airport tomorrow. I see why a few LX's are converting to E85. It's cheaper and 105 octane. I hear the mpg suffers some, but should run cooler, especially in AZ.
You need to tune for it right? I sort of remember Johan did custom tunes for a couple of guys to run E85. I think they got a whole lot of power out of it.
Can't just tune for it. The fuel system has to be upgraded to run the corn. But yea, E85 is the way to go. I thought about doing this back on early 07, but the cost was high and little known about its effect. Guess I should have pulled the trigger when I had the opportunity? lol
BlueBee out of Portland, Oregon has been doing a lot with E85. I talked to him at Bremerton Raceway up by Seattle. As Ron said, a lot of fuel system upgrades to get the most out of it. Bigger injectors and more fuel from the tank. I can't remember everything he said. He's coming down to Mopar's at the Strip this coming weekend. He's' running N2O also. I'm going to be working in Victorville while this is going on. Only 190 miles away. Sucks
E85 is a lot "dryer" than normal gas, it has less power to it but its a "cooler" fuel. The alcohol is also more agressive and therefore you need to upgrade not only capacitywise but also to make the parts last, the plastic in pumps, lines etc hurts after a while. But yes, you can run with a higher compression or higher boost, pushing in more fuel will get you more power. Some cars (especially those with turbo/supercharger) tend to be up 30% when run on E85, SAAB 95 are known to be serious alcoholics... On the other hand one of the guys I work for has a Chevy Avalanche and he can see a 5% difference, but it has no boost! Some pepole here mix 50/50 and get a tune for that, they get more power, doesn´t have to change the fuelsystem if its sufficient capacitywise. If you have a E85 tune and have working knocksensors you should be able to run on normal gas as well, but without the tune you probably won´t see any benifits. Just my 10 cents, someone more knowledgable will be able to give you a more detailed answer. Fredrikizza:
Somehow I've always considered the engine to be an integral part of the drive train... drive train: wnat makes the car move. Example: the 500 lbs of water pooled in the accessory well in the trunk is NOT part of the drive train.
Are you sure it was E85 and not E15?....if you did you were running lean and most likely damaged your engine...E85 requires about 30% increase in fuel delivery...
