Last week I purchased a 2008 F-150 Supercrew with the 5.4L engine. I live in Michigan and drive about 10000 miles per year. Anyone out there have experience with burning E85. Good or Bad... Thanks NMN

 

No personal experience, but the general consensus is this:

It will run just as good, possibly a little better as E85 is higher octane than gas. It will get worse gas mileage. Just how much worse varies - anywhere from 7 to 35 % is what I've been hearing. You have to try both, keep track of your gas mileage, and do the math to see if you are actually paying more or less per mile. It may be hard starting when the temperature is below zero.

 

I have tons of experience with it. I agree with everything GLC says. You WILL have a MPG loss, (around 20% for most vehicles but it varies with driving conditions) which is usually offset by the price. My truck is hard to start in cold weather, but it is not a flex fuel truck. Both of my uncles have FFV's and they have no issues cranking cold.
It does, however, burn MUCH cleaner than gasoline, and it has a higher octane rating (~105 ish), so tuners give a much bigger improvement in power v/s 87 octane gas.

My favorite advantage is that almost 100% of the production costs of ethanol are domestic. When you buy a gallon of gasoline, the procedes of the purchase go overseas. When you buy a gallon of ethanol, almost all the costs of production are domestic.

I'm a farmer and I haven't done the figures specific to corn (we grow other crops), but I'd estimate that over 80% of the income from corn production go to expenses related to its production. NOT including fuel. That means that it goes for the purchase of seed, fertalizer, equipment and infrastructure (huge portion of expense), chemicals, labor, parts and maintenance, hired services, etc, etc, all of which keep somebody else in business. Most of the remaining 20% goes toward land/facilities payments (some of which may not be related to corn production). Diesel costs don't ammount to very much since corn is a high volume crop. Probably less than 5% of costs.

A popular con of E-85 is the tax break. But people forget that everything on the above mentioned list has been taxed and re-taxed, and re-taxed again!!! You would not believe the ammount of taxes we pay on the farm. And all the stuff we buy we pay taxes on. And all the companies we do business with pay taxes on the money they make, and their employees pay taxes, etc. etc.

If you think about it, E-85 makes more money for the gov't than gasoline EVER could. Not to mention how much it helps the economy. That's the main reasons our legislators could financially justify the tax break. And I'm not just saying this because we grow corn. 100% of our corn production goes to Tyson for chicken feed.

Thanks for reading my rant. I'm just tired of folks knocking a really good thing. I don't know how many people on this site work for a company in the USA, but when I go to the store I ALWAYS look for products made in the USA. Price is NOT a factor. I have no problem buying from Canada, but that's about it.

 

As an example only:

My 2002 sonoma is a flex fuel vehicle. I did some comparison to see if I was really saving money at the pump between regular and e85. I calc'd that e85 has to be at least $0.70 per gallon cheaper to be about even. At my local pumps, here in Kansas, e85 has only been about $0.40 to $0.50 a gallon cheaper. So for my particular application it has not been worth it. Plus I hate stopping for gas any more than I have to. So I typically run regular gas.

 

I have seen e85, but never when I needed to fuel up. Even so, it's been 20 to 50 cents cheaper which is not enough to offset the reduced mpg, so I've not had the opportunity to try it.

 

Chester I thought you died/hid under a rock or somethin. WHere you been?

 

Working and schooling. For all of you people above me, You can blend E-85 50% and reap the benefits of 95+ octane fuel, save money, and not lose much fuel economy

 

i wouldn't run E85. i have a flex 08 screw and it prob wont ever see E85. the cost is less than regular gasoline but the mileage is worse. there is no advantage to running it what so ever. plus performance decreases and the 5.4 is already slow enough

 

Can you back that up? I don't think that's correct, I think performance may even increase slightly. You are running higher octane fuel and the knock sensor will allow for more timing advance. The loss in energy is completely compensated for by the O2 sensors telling it to run richer.

 

You might want to do a little more research:

Here is some info from: http://www.o2-technology.com/tech/E8...ynoResults.pdf

The alcohol of choice to use in a blended fuel is ethyl alcohol or better known as ethanol. Ethanol is made from distilled sugar cane, fermented corn, and other such agricultural goods. E-85 is made with 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline which is designated by its name. A major difference between gasoline and alcohol is that alcohol has no hydrocarbon atoms in it. Another characteristic of alcohol is that each atom has less heat energy than gasoline, but there are more of them during each firing event which in turn generates more power. A 30-32% richer mixture generally has the potential for 3-5% more power.

 

True. I just wish there was some way to increase the compression ratio. That would improve fuel mileage on ethanol signifigantly. Thermal efficiency would increase, and it would probably get just as good of fuel economy as gasoline. Or better.

 

I don't see why you couldn't put something like a set of high compression racing pistons in it.

 

Yeah, but E-85 is sparse in Georgia. It just so happens that I have several stations that sell it nearby, but I use my truck elsewhere. Occasionally I do fill it up with gasoline when I can't find a station, and it adjusts back to gasoline without a hitch. I suppose I could run 93 octane when I'm not near an E-85 station, but high octane fuel is hard (nearly impossible) to find because of the fuel shortage in the south.

 

That is only if you get a 30 to 32 % richer mixture. Where does it say our trucks are running that mixture? This article is compares e85 without and with nitrous.

There is no indication here that putting e85 in any vehicle's fuel tank will result in more power out of that engine.

I agree with the original statement: "performance decreases" in my truck. Now, I'm not gonna lie to ya. I've never run e85, so that is based on my personal experience over the past 20 years of running on e10.

 

The 2009 5.4 FFV has the following specs:

E85: 320 HP, 390 TQ
Gas: 310 HP, 365 TQ

EPA gas mileage on E85 is a LOT worse than on gas.

Your experience on losing some power on E10 is due to a couple things - its the SAME octane as the pure gas it replaces, and it's blended for low emissions, which does kill power. Just ask anyone in California, where the gas is barely better than goat ****. E85 is a whole different story, it's 105 octane and there's not enough gas in the mix to affect the blending significantly.