Well, they just opened the first station in Cuyohoga County (Cleveland Ohio) that sells E-85. I went over there today to try it, had a 1/4 tank of shell 93 octane and filled it with E-85. 93 around here is about 3.09/gal whereas the corn squeezins is 2.49/gal, that was a 60 cents/gal savings. Right now I'm running the Troyer 93 tune and didn't change a thing and my truck seems to be running fine and it was built as a FFV from the start, so I'm not worried. And E-85 has an octane of 100-105 depending on vendor.

 

Let us know how your mileage is with the E-85 vs. gasoline.

 

i'll be betting that it's lower

 

I have an 07 FFV and run E85 all the time using a Superchips tune and my mileage is around 13mpg running the stuff. Guys will always complain about the gas mileage but I have noticed better performance on E85 than on even 93. You can mix the two all day long and not have a problem too. Try a tank or two and judge for yourself.

 

so am i. although e85 is cheaper (and great as a performance fuel because of the octane rating) it takes more E85 to go the same distance

 

I have a stock truck and just fillled up with E85 for the first time. I had a 1/4 tank regular gas when I filled her up wit E85. I am getting 16.2 on the 10% ethonal they use around here. We will she how she does

 

Just an update, I don't have any hard #'s, but my mileage has gotten worse by about 35-40%. I used to be able to go to work and back 5 times and use a half of a tank of gas, now with the E-85 and 93 mix I only got three trips to work for a half tank. Something else I noticed, during cold start up in the current weather of about 30 degrees, the truck is a dog in first gear. Once it shifts into second, all is fine. Also, once it warms up a little, it's back to normal. I don't know if this a characteristic of E-85 in cold weather (don't think so) or just a flaw in the tunes that I have. Another possibility is there is something wrong with my truck, either way, I'll talk to Mike soon and see what he has to say, maybe he has a fix for this, or knows what the cause is.

 

buddy just picked up an 07 silverado flex fuel 5.3-sayd right on tag he'll see 3 mpg less running e85-phil

 

so, what if you put E-85 in a truck thats not FFV?

 

I would think that since ford started offering E-85 capabilties on the F-150's, that all F-150's have the E-85 safe fuel systems. But only the FFV versions have the fuel sensor to measure the alcohol content. You could probably run E-85 in a non FFV but you would need to upgade your fuel pump and injectors to handle the increased volume of fuel and you would need a new tune to get your A/F ratio correct while using E-85, and finally you could not switch back and forth between reg and e-85, you would have to run one or the other exclusively because without the fuel sensor your truck can't adapt to the varying alcohol content.

 

It won't be good. I've heard that the only difference in the the engines built for E85 is some internal parts being made of a different material because of the chemical differences in E85 vs. gasoline - not 100% sure though!

 

How hard would it be to convert my truck to the FFV version of my truck. I asume that you could but the parts from Ford. And I sure that it probably wouldn't be worth the $$$, but it would be very nice to have the option. I'm sure that there can't be that much different between the two.

 

Are you sure your truck is not an FFV? Just about all 07's w/ the 5.4 are ffv's. Only the Harley 150's don't get the ffv 5.4, and if you ordered it without it. Just about all off the lot 5.4's are FFV's. Check your window sticker and see if you have it.

If you don't have the window sticker, check your VIN#, it tells you what engine you have. The eigth digit is for the engine, FFV 150's have a "V" in that position. Non-ffv's have a "5" for the 5.4

 

I do have my window sticker, and id doesn't say anything about FFV, and the 8th digit of my VIN is a 5. I would assume that Ford would just make ALL 5.4's FFV, but I got mine right off the dealers lot, and no FFV or E-85 fro me...

 

Another update, I've put in 32.3 gals of E-85 and have traveled only 268 miles on it, and I have a 1/4 tank left right now. I usually fill up when I get down to a 1/4 tank. So basically I'm getting about 8.3 MPG on straight E-85. I'm going to load my 87 tune and switch back to running just gas, it's just not worth it. I only save 30-40 cents a gal but my mileage has gone down by a third. At todays gas prices, E-85 would have to be about $1.10 cheaper a gal for me to break even, and right now I'm losing money, it costs me more in the end to run E-85.