Supercharging - attn: Mike T - E85 fuel

I have been following these posts for your supercharger kits, wanted to start a new thread. Mike T and others, I am very interested in the benefits of centrifugal supercharging. I also have been reading the recent articles in Car Craft and Hot Rod on new kits from Paxton? soon to be on the market. To sum it up this type of boost to a 455 it just what I have been looking for. The one item I have not seen addressed is fuel requirements. I am planning the build of my engine for street duty with a occational romp on a chassis dyno. I want to get pump fuel and not have to get race fuel or additives. My goal is to build the engine and fuel system to run on E85. Assume you all know what this is, if not E85 fuel is 85% corn alcohol, 15% gasoline, octane is around 96. Known problems/concerns are corrosiveness of alcohol, and air/fuel ratio (10/1 is more typical vs 14/1 for gasoline. (Prior to boost assume my engine will run in the low 500hp area, with street gears, turbo400 trans or Tremec TKO 5 speed)

Has anyone thought of using this E85 fuel as a alternative to high octane gas in engines with higher compressions or supercharging?

 

To get the MOST out of your system with a supercharger, an intercooler should be considered a MUST HAVE to run premium pump gas AND get serious boost!!:TU:

I've never had any experience with the E85 fuel - don't believe I've ever seen it available in my area. I know alcohol and superchargers normally go together quite well though!:TU:

 

Generally most systems are designed to work on "pump gas". To me, that means premium grade unleaded, which would be 91-93 octane most places. Real world driveability and availability.

Octane requirement has so many different variables it is near impossible to have a one size fits all protocol. As a result most things are engineered on the conservative side.

Regarding the type of fuel you are referring to, I am not familiar with it. It does appear the fuel system you use will have to be designed to be fully alcohol compatible, which most all old cars and hot rods are not.

Assuming the octane rating system for this fuel is the same as what you would buy at the pump, you should be able to run more boost with less chance for detonation. I do not know if you could run enough boost to overcome the lower energy content of the fuel. With pure alcohol you can, with a blend I am not sure.

This may not apply to you, but when systems are built on the edge, ie) the car can use 93 pump gas under optimal conditions, you sometimes run into a problem when conditions AREN'T optimal. IE) its hot as heck that day, you drive from 3,000 to sea level, the car goes slightly off tune, etc. OR WORSE, you are cruising and the gas station you normally use is out of that special stuff you need, or maybe its 91-92 that day not 93.

Food for thought when planning your system. Just remember to be realistic about how you intend to use the car.

Michael Tweedy
XSPerformance@iwon.com

 

Scott,
It looks like only us in the upper midwest will be subsidizing the corn growers.:blast:
Isn't Ford selling the dual fuel vehicles anywhere else?
Dale

 

Dale,

Hopefully, the day will come when we can all pull into any station in the country and have alcohol based fuel as an option, not to mention CNG and Propane for those that prefer that!

 

Dale, you know what I am talking about. E85 (dual fuel) vehicles are all over the country.
Ford has a lot of them. New GM 1/2 ton pick-ups also have the option with the 02 models from what I have heard. The mid-west must have the upper hand on E85 however. I have read much on the compatability issues. I don't see anything yet that would keep me from giving it a try. I plan on replacing the entire fuel system anyway so why not design it to handle E85 and keep my options open??? For others not in the mid-west, E85 is available all over this region and the price is less than 87 octane..... Also note, the 15% gasoline content in E85 is present to improve cold start conditions....

 

Any Taurus with the "FFV" logo on the side will accept these alternate fuels (FFV = Flexible Fuel Vehicle).

I don't think that alcohol does so much when it's part of the fuel as when it's injected raw after the intercooler- after the intercooler you will get a significant amount of heat pulled out of the airflow because of the evaporation that takes place. At least that's my understanding.

On some of the non-intercooled turbos, the alcohol acts as a pseudo-intercooler because of the heat that the alcohol pulls out from the hot air (250 - 300 degrees or more under boost).

*OFF TOPIC NOW*

I used to always underestimate the amount of energy that evaporation would use, but then a "genius" engineer at a prior employer explained that evaporation takes a huge amount of heat, which is why things like sweating (or being sprayed with a cool mist) make you feel so cool.

You know those goofy bird things that you find in novelty shops that wobble back and forth, then slow down and dip their beak in the water and then start to wobble again? They are powered purely by evaporation! Took me years to understand how those things worked.

Resume normal on-topic discussions now...

-Bob Cunningham
bobc@gnttype.org

 

Extensive study has been given to the use of alcohol based fuel in aircraft piston engines. The need for these studies is driven by the prospects of losing traditional petroleum based av-gas in the future because it is such a small part of the overall refinery production. It is not based on getting more punch out of the alcohol. In fact, alcohol based fuel produces less heat energy per quantity and thus restricts the range of aircraft relative to traditional av gas we call 100 low lead. (The label is a misnomer because it is highly leaded and eqivalent to about 112 octane on the scale used by the automotive industry.) An additional problem is the difficulty getting the alcohol based fuel up to the high octane rating needed to protect turbo- charged aircraft engines from detonation. (I hate it when an aircraft engine which contains a lot of aluminum shoots a rod through the cowling at 200 hundred feet --a position from which I cannot get back to the runway) The consideration that alcohol can attack parts of the fuel system that are not affected by traditional fuels is also an issue. Thus, in aviation, with a few exceptions, we currently do not use alcohol based fuels. We do use intercoolers, but you must still be very careful no to exceed the design capacity of the engine to withstand the additional power produced. Accordingly, my suggestion is to use avgas for the measure of protection it will provide your after-market turboed auto engines against detonation. It is also cheaper than the racing fuel I have seen sold for autos.

Jim Lore

 

Jim,

Interesting info!

However isn't the density of AVgas quite different from racing fuel/automotive fuel?

Even though it is very high octane, you'll still run very lean because you're putting in fewer pounds of fuel.

Unless, of course, you re-jet accordingly.

-Bob Cunningham
bobc@gnttype.org

 

I understand that race gas and av-gas are not equal, but not sure why. The big no-no is supposed to be using av-gas with nitrous. Not sure why, but would like to find out, or even hear some ideas.

 

I was hoping Jim would chime in here because he seems to know fuels, but my understanding is that AV-gas has a significantly lower density than automotive fuel.

I think automotive fuel weighs 6.5 pounds/gallon, and AVgas is like 5.5 pounds per gallon.

Since you inject the nitrous fuel by volume and not by weight, you will wind up putting less fuel into the motor, run lean, and BOOM. (The nitrous systems are designed according to pounds/hour of fuel, not the gallons/hour).

-Bob Cunningham
bobc@gnttype.org

 

Scott,
I am going to jump in here. I am planning on doing a D-1 supercharger on my BBB. The major problem I see is that I have 10:1 compression ratio and do not really want to change pistons. The solution that comes to mind is switch to E85.

Doing the pro and con list:

Pro: E85 likes high compression. E85 is even better than gas at sucking up heat when it evaporates. I have E85 at the corner gas station. The fuel system planned is ready for E85. Also ethanol is not anywhere near as corrosive as methanol. I think all of the dyno challange winners used E85. Do not have to change pistons. On low boost may not need to be intercooled.


Cons: Will be a total rework of the tune. Will have to spend money on my NEW carb to be converted. Fuel millage will be less (what the h#ll it sucks now!) Will it start as well? Will it run too cool? Have to change the oil more often (already change it every 1500 miles?)

As far as cost it may be a wash. With gasoline it will really need to be intercooled, about $300. Have the carb rebuilt for E85, about $300. No changes in the fuel system. In my area E85 is about 20% less in cost and fuel millage should be about 20% less.

I think it all comes down to the tuning. If I can do the tuning it should be great. If it is too hard to get the tune right then it will not be a lot of fun and will start to cost.

Enough rambling for now. Have a whole winter to work this out.

 

An old thread revisited - cool. Check around,, there are a few carb companies that make a carb aleady set-up for e-85. Not sure if they can take boost however. i think if you keep the timing down, and not boost say above 6 to 8psi, 10-1 should be fine with E85. I am no expert with boost applications though - I am sure others will jump in. Another benefit will be the charge should be slightly cooler due to the increased fuel to air ratio. I have stepped away from the thought of a blower and e-85. I will stick the money into TA heads and other misc parts instead - still like the EFI ideas out there. I am looking at going with higher compression (11 to 1 or more) and no power adder (no turbo/supercharger). Like you - I worried about the tune, and missing it may cost me the motor. If your really worried about fuel milage, well your basically out of luck unless you want to go the EFI route, and that may not help that much...

 

It looks like I may be breaking new ground here. A few people have procharged their BBB, and very few have gone to E85. I have not heard from anyone doing both. I have been in contact with Mike and he thinks the D-1 should work. I do think that intercooling is not going to be out of the question so I may be in good shape with my ten to one compression. Again this seems to be new territory so we will see where it goes.

 

Be prepared to use very big jets! Make sure your Carb builder know's you will be running E85 as well so the imulation jets can be setup to insure you're getting enough fuel.

 

Thanks again Rich,
I will definetly be working closly with Jesse and Lynn at Bigs. Already in contact and they are waiting for more details of the project.

 

You allready have the procharge setup, or interested to buy? Just plugging myself, i have Rich's old D1 kit.

 

I have a D-1 setup out of a 94 Camaro. Mike thinks we can adapt it to a Buick. So I have most of the expensive parts.

 

I looked at E-85 a couple of years ago I talked to c@s and csu who's who I use for a carb. I also spoke with patrick at pro-systems. All three told me the issue with e-85 was it at present date vary to much in the mix to be a good choice for a boosted application. they told me if I choose to mix my own then it would be fine but from station to station and brand to brand it will be different. I have a couple customers that run it with NOS in there car and they buy drums of it so they can tune it and use the same tune before haveing to change it. As far as 10 to 1 compression if you keep the boost way down you should be able to get away with it on good fuel but like mike said it is on the edge. I would be tempted to put a thicker gasket to lower the compression. Just my two cents

 

thicker head gasket would be the cheapest fix for youre high cr
2nd bandaid would be a nice meth/water progressive injection kit