Please don't turn this into a gasoline vs. ethanol dispute. I just have a few questions and comments about E85 fuel in regard to POWER!!!... not cost or economic efficiency.

I read today that E85 typically increases horsepower in Ford engines by approximately 5%, so a FFV 5.4L should make about 315 horsepower. I also read that E85 fuel ranges between 100-105 octane. That's when I started thinking...

Tuners such as XCal2, Edge, etc. make most of the hp/torque gains by requiring the use of premium fuel so the ignition timing can be advanced without introducing spark knock. So if the octane level of E85 is between 100 and 105 then I wonder if the timing could be advanced slightly more to make even more hp/torque gains. Anyone have any thoughts or information on this? Does Troyer or anyone else offer custom tunes for E85 fuel?

I wonder exactly what they mean by optimized. I'm wondering if there was a custom tune available if you could "optimize" your engine to run on E85 rather than regular gasoline to reduce the 5-15% fuel economy drop.

This is the site where I found a lot of good E85 info... Click Here!

 

Koenigsegg CCXR makes 1018HP w/ E-85.

 

Wow! That thing is awesome!

I'm going to contact VMP and Troyer to ask about tunes for the FFV 5.4L

 

has more hp then the bugatti and the bugatti still does 0-60 almost a full second slower...

 

I thought that you lost HP with E-85, thus the lower MPG? Maybe I was told wrong? I havn't looked into it since none of my vehicles can run on it.

 

You do the math and tell me the CCXR isnt fast...

Veyron
0-186mph - 18.2

CCXR
0-200mph - 14.7

 

E85 produces less total "energy", but it produces more "power".

Efficiency factors into "energy" and it's not as economical to use E85 as it is regular gas. It's kind of complicated... I'll make an elementary story problem out of it.

Two identical trucks start driving at the same time, but one is running E85 and the other is running 100% gasoline. Both trucks put the pedal to the floor and don't stop until they run out of fuel. The E85 truck runs out of fuel after 380 miles at which time it is 25 miles ahead of the gasoline truck. Thirty minutes later the gasoline truck passes the out-of-fuel E85 truck and continues to drive another 10 miles for a total of 390 miles traveled..

When both trucks have fuel, the E85 truck will kick ***, but it won't drive as far or produce as much overall "energy".

 

never said it wasnt fast, but i dont know about those stats...
i know the veyron does 0-60 in 2.4......CCXR in 3.2

and you can let the Mclaren reach 150 before the Veyron takes off and it will still beat it to 200.

 

They're both fast, but can we keep the comparison between the two out of this thread please.

 

sorry

 

CCXR = pure race car.
Veyron =daily driver with all the comforts that add a ton of weight.

 

Got it. Thanks for the story problem, I haven't seen one like it since college physics about 6 years ago.

By the way both of those other cars are pretty f-in cool and beat the paints off of my F150

 

For an engine to be optimized for E85 or any alcohol based fuel, higher compression would be needed. The higher octane fuel is more stable, so you can run higher compression and get back some of the loses that would be associated with E85. Higher comrpression engines get more out of the fuel. A boosted engine would be the same way. You could run higher boost on the same engine running e85 vs gasoline.

 

E-85 is every hotrodders dream...

105 octane fuel out of the bump .50-1.00 cheaper then 87 octane!

 

Well any mechanical upgrades increase my compression such as crank, rods, pistons, milling the deck, etc. are pretty much out of the question at this time... for me anyways.

But I still wonder what kind of gains you could see by simply taking advantage of the lower volatility from the higher octane E85 simply by advancing the ignition timing more. Your static compression would remain the same... what you would read on a pressure gauge threaded into the spark plug hole, but advancing the igntion timing would increase the dynamic compression which is the actual combustion pressure when there's an active spark plug present.

Lower octane burns faster so the spark plug must fire later in the compression stroke to prevent pushing the piston back down when it's still coming up. With lower octane fuel you just get a quick burst of pressure/force pushing down on the piston. Higher octane fuel burns slower, so you can fire the spark plug earlier to have good amount of pressure present to push the piston back down, but since it burns over a longer period of time, it pushes down on the piston for a longer period of time creating more horsepower.

On a stock truck with no tuner, there's no advantage to running higher octane fuel because our trucks are designed to run on 87 octane and the spark plug is going to fire too early to take advantage of the higher octane. When you install a tuner and tell it you're going to run premium fuel, basically you're just advancing the ignition timing so the spark plug fire sooner. So in theory, with E85 you should be able to fire the spark plug even sooner because the octane level is much higer and see more horsepower gains.