I would like to gather feedback from anyone who has researched and installed an e85 conversion kit on their late model 5.4L. They appear to be around $500. I am curious as to which vendors carry them and how they install, if they are simply "plug-n-play" and whether or not anything else needs to be changed (fuel pump etc).

 

What year is your truck?

 

I have a '97 5.4, and I run E-85 almost every tank. I haven't done much to the engne. The main mod, (and the most important) is a high performance tuner. You need that to convince the pcm to advance the spark, and increase the WOT fuel delivery. This helps increase performance, as well as maintain a fairly rich WOT mixture. You will still see a leaning trend as you reach 4,000 and up WOT, but it won't be a problem with ethanol. Your performance will be greatly improved, but your fuel mileage will suffer. I get around 15 mpg on gasoline, and about 12.5-13 on E-85. It's around $.30-$.40 cheaper per gallon, so the reduced economy isn't really a cost issue. You will get a CEL for running anything greater than E-48 concentration. This is because the PCM recognizes what you are doing and is griping about it. But the computer will be able to cope with concentrations all the way up to E-85.

One important fact... It's a bad idea to switch from straight gasoline to straight E-85 all in one giant leap. It's best to blend it, because the sudden change in fuel ratio will cause problems with your computer. It will see the immediate change as a hardware failure, and it won't take the appropriate steps to counteract the A/F change required. It will ignore O2 sensor input, and default to around ~12.5-1 A/F ratio. This will wreak havoc on fuel economy. So when you go to E-85, wait until you have 1/2 a tank of gasoline, and fill it up with E-85. Then when that tank gets low, fill it again. This will bring you close to E-85, and give your computer time to think about it.

It is VERY important to heed this advise when going from E-85 to gasoine. That's when you're likely to have problems. If you don't have a choice, (say you're almost out of E-85 and you HAVE to fill up with straight gasoline), then you will probably have to remove your battery and reset the KAM (resetting your codes won't fix it). If you don't get a CEL, then you have nothing to worry about. (it made the adjustment) But if you switch back to gasoline immediately you will get a lot of codes. All pertaining to A/F ratio problems, sensor failures, voltages out of range, and O2 sensor lack of switching...

I've run a lot of E-85, and been through a lot of crap, and getting purty good at dealing with it..... Having a wideband helps a lot... It lets you see what your computer is seeing.

BTW, I have run a concentration of E-85 for around 35,000 miles. And straight E-85 for ~20K ish... Just guessing really, I can't remember exactly... So far my engine, trans, etc have around 236,000 miles on them and are still going strong! And my truck on E-85 will hang with (and sometimes beat) my buddy's '99 with the PI heads and a magnaflow exhaust system. And he is lighter, has stock (smaller) tires, and his truck only has 70K on the odometer. My point is, that it won't hurt it.

 

The truck is an '04.

 

Have you considered getting a flip chip with different programs for the different concentrations of E-85? There are 5 possible settings. Stock and 4 custom tunes.

JMC

 

It's not that the computer can't adjust for the different concentrations... It does that fine. It's just when you make a rapid jump from one extreme to the other, it sometimes can't make that large of an fuel "re-calculation". Well, it can, it just doesn't know it.. See, I run the high performance tune all the time. I let the pcm adjust itself to whatever fuel I put in it. The high performance tune gives it the spark timing the "wiggle room" it needs to adjust for different concentrations of 87 octane - ~107ish. It takes about a couple of miles to get the spark right, and about 10 miles to get the a/f ratio set.


I've been saving up for the pro racer software, so I can change some bullcrap in my pcm and get rid of that annoying CEL. (it's not actually running lean, it's just telling me that the trims are out of "norm") If I didn't have the Edge on the dash to clear that CEL every day, I'd go crazy. Money is tight right now cause I just got engaged, and I have another project to deal with. And it's a lot better than my truck....

 

Cool! Is that a 112? Do you fly? I don't but I always wanted to take lessons. Just never had the money when I was younger and single.
Congrats on your engagement as well!

 

You're talking about a 15-20% decrease in fuel efficiency for an approx 10-15% cost savings. Plus the outlay for the initial conversion.

Not only that, but the polution from the agricultural process of creating the ethenaol in E85 far exceeds the reduced polution created by the end user. It's not a sustainable model and in the long run is poor for the environment. The only reason it's still around is the gov't subsidies that are given to the farmers.

Just my .02

 

I read somewhere that the E85 is more corrosive, so the fuel tank, lines, and everything involved with fuel is different. I dont know how true that is, or even remember where i read it. But I think its more than just installing a program.

 

It is more corrosive. The marine industry is running into huge problems with it desolving the binding in fiberglass tanks and damaging older fuel lines.

 

Almost all pump gasoline today contains 10% ethanol. So, "standard" gas systems must be able to handle at least 10% ethanol/gas mix. The question in my mind is what percentage can they handle before changes to the existing system are needed? And what are those changes? There must be a way to find out what parts, exactly, ford substitutes when they prep a 5.4L for e85 use. Is the tank different? I doubt it. Are the fuel lines different? Doubt it. Fuel pump? Maybe. Internal Engine seals? More likely. Injectors and/or ECM programming? Certainly.
I think the best thing we can do is to find out what that list includes.

I suspect you could ***routinely*** mix some, perhaps 25%, pump e85 with 75% gasoline and never, ever run into any problems. In my mind, it's that percentage that's the question.

 

That a Commander all right. I think its a 112. I fly a PA-24-140 (taking lessons right now) and plan to own a M20J sometime after college.

Can't help with the E85 prob tho, I haven't even seen a ethanol station where I live.