If you go back to the original post, first sentence, when you can increase the combustion ratio, you can get more efficiency out of the same gallon of gas or more power and mileage. What ethanol brings to the game is it's resistance to ignition which allows for more compression of the gasoline charge which translates into more power and mileage using pump octane gasoline. It also reduces the compression temps prior to combustion which also lends to more compression being available before you have issues with detonation. It has nothing to do with the fact that ethanol has fewer BTUs per gallon or like an engine running on E85 alone where fuel mileage suffers. Will we see it on the road? I don't know. Ford has been pretty flakey lately about what it's going to do and about what products will actually hit the streets. I was wanting a Fusion with the 340HP 3.5 but it got shelved at the last minute. I was also looking forward to a diesel F-150 but that's not happening at the moment either. But it does tell you that Ford is light years ahead in engine technologys and as a Ford owner, you can be even more proud of the Ford nameplate.

 

Where is all the E85 going to come from?


.

 

Your taxes. The entire idea is way too corny. Just wait until Obama bin Lying starts shoving E20 and E30 down your fill pipe. Boaters hate the stuff.

 

lmao and to think i was the only person in american that didnt like obama haha

anyways is running 93 over 87 that much better, for the money that is, i know gasoline is about 2.43 for 87 and maybe almost 2.70 for 93 here, is it worth the money

 

No. You are wasting your money. If your not tuned for 93 then its pointless. Now if your truck was tuned for 93 and you were able to advance the timing a little more then thats one thing, but on a stock truck 87 is all you need. Thats what they are tuned for from the factory, unless the fuel cap says otherwise.

 

E85 is about 104 octane if I'm not mistaken. An engine that's high compression and properly tuned for it will make up the loss of gas mileage. Today's flex fuel engines aren't high enough compression to do that.

 

thanks thats what i thought, my owners manual says 87 oct and thats what ive always used except once i was in the middle of nowhere and runnin on fumes and all they had was 89 or 93 so i went with a little 89 to get back to town

 

Fuel cost are going to be prerry close to the same...E85 is cheaper, but your mileage will suck. Almost an even trade but with more power.

I'm confused though as I thought this wasn't nothing new as you're presenting it to be. E85 vehicles are already on the road. E85 is extremely hard to find too, and I think next to impossible to get n Cali. This subject has already been beat to death in another thread and turned into a political blood bath instead of a bunch of gearheads sticking to the automotive value...kinda like this one.

 

It is true that E85 allows for higher compression w/out the troubles of detonation like pump gas does. If Ford built an engine strictly for E85 rather than Flex Fuel engines, they could easily cream the competion and make everyone a believer. Until E85 becomes more readily available, people become more educated and oil companies quit buying out polititions, it's not going to happen though. I'm a proud Republican that voted for Bush both times and McCain so don't try to write my views off as some left wing nut job's. If E85 was the sole fuel source and compression ratio's were raised, we would see drastically increased horsepower and cleanliness at the same or better fuel economy. On top of that we would be infusing our own economy with money rather than stupid comunist countries that hate us. There are allready a ton of US companies out there focused on creating Ethanol from corn and celulose(grass clippings and what not) but until the government goes straight, we're not going to see a mass amount of E85 pumps or these great engines. Ethanol has been around for 30+ years but $$$$ talks and keeps polotions running in the wrong direction. I have an E85 pump not 2 miles from home and a Flex F150 but until they start tuning the engines strictly for E85, it's not worth it.

 

One of the reasons Bill Elliot's Ford Thunderbird was so fast back in the mid-80's was that his team had engine heads that allowed compression ratios of up to 18/1. It was more efficient/powerful than the other guys until they found out why he was so fast. For the record, Bill qualified at Talledaga at 212mph and 209 at Daytona.

Nascar now limits compression ratios to 12/1 as one of the ways to slow down the Sprint Cars.

I presume the high compression is not good for emissions. Probably raises the NO emissions.

 

tlt008 is correct,the higher the compression ratio the higher the nitrous oxide,which is the only pollutant that has been increasing over the last ten years.Ethanol is a great fuel,but remember it is only 76,000 btu/gallon against gas 116,000 btu/gallon and increasing compression ratios to make more efficient will still not equal gas in power output.$38 billion has been the corn subsidy over last 8 years,this is why some ethanol/gas is available.Also remember ethanol is a solvent and corrosive,plus will phase seperate as it absorbs water,this is why shelf life is 3 months.

 

While correct that Ethanol doesn't have the same efficiency as conventional gas, the fact that it is a sustainable fuel source far outways that. Also, like I said before, it's somethng that we can create here in the US so we don't rely on anyone else and fund their hate for us. The expansion of the Ethanol idea would create jobs and more opportunities for our nation. The fact that it's not as efficient as gasoline should not be a deterant. Electric cars are a bunch of bs and Hydrogen is far to unstable and dangerous at this point to put into cars on a normal production level. Propane and other natural gases are great but are still not sustainable. Ethanol is the only thing that comes to mind right now that we can create from things we grow rather than mining or drilling for. What better choice than Ethanol do we have?

 

http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...h/4213775.html

This way of producing bio diesel and ethanol is a much better way than using corn.

 

Agreed........corn is the most well known way to make Ethanol but it is y far not the wisest. Grass clippings are another great way......

 

Just to clarify, these are not E85 engines where the only fuel used is ethanol. These engines are designed to run pump gas aided by ethanol as an octane booster and a combustion coolant which lowers NOx, at much higher compression ratios yielding more power per gallon of gasoline and more mileage per same gallon of gasoline. Think of it like Nitrous Oxide....kinda. It averagely uses only 5% ethanol to the gasoline mix. As demand increases, the amount of gasoline increases as does the percentage of ethanol. The higher the ethanol percentages, the higher the effectual octane of the fuel and the cooler the combustion temps which lowers emissions. If you burn 100 gallons of gasoline in these engines, averagely, you will only burn 5 gallons of E85 also. Remember, you are using two fuels TOGETHER at the same time. The computer system monitors demand and percentages of the fuels injected. The timing curve and cam timing can also be advanced much sooner which will yield more HP and fuel mileages.

FWIW, high combustion temps like we see in todays engines are the cause of NOx, not the fuels as such. Lowering the combustion temps reduces NOx dramatically. There are also units in research that are taking your exhaust gases at the headers and cooling the exhaust quickly. Some of these are showing promise of zero emission compliance in currently manufactured engines. It will probably be an available technology in the next few years.

In my opinion, a better fuel choice would be bio diesel. Used in a headless engine where compression ratios can be as high as 1000:1 and efficiencys as high as 80% versus our current efficiency of about 30%, fuel mileages on test engines have shown that an engine making 500HP can run 8 hours on just 5 gallons of bio-diesel and these engines are capable of zero emissions certification. Problem- it's a political football and the Feds will not fund any of the expansion of these engines. Imagine what the oil industry would be if these engines made it to market. There would be literally millions of people out of work and the politicians would lose trillions in tax revenues. Worst yet, you could make the fuel at home from your own garbage which means they have no way to tax your usage of the hiways.