does anyone have one running on E85 fuel? i would assume if they are it would be a high CR motor since the octane rating is 105. the deal is what effect or would it effect the carb at all. since you need to run steel line's for achly fuel.

if you were to setup your slant 6 for E85. what would be a good middle road CR for using 91 till E85 gets in your area?

other things that people might bring up is that it takes more E85 then regular gas. that being true but the higher HP from running 105 octane should not be worring people. as right now E85 is .30c cheaper per gallon vs gas. hey you could even make your own at home. nothing more then moonshine mixed with gasoline.

any thoughts or comments about setting up a /6 for E85?

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1976 Plymouth Feather Duster
2002 Dodge Dakota 4.7l v8

Not worth the trouble. The stoichiometric point for E85 is around 10:1, which means you need modifications to your carb & fuel system to flow around 50% more fuel. More important, however, is E85 has less heat content per mass unit of fuel. Because of this, you will net a drop in fuel mileage even if you have a correct E85 setup.

Mitch

Soon you'll be able to run it on water, so it's best not to muck up your fuel system now.

mitch,
a 25hp increase wouldnt be worth it just to switch? i say 25hp cause thats the number of HP increase from just going to E85 in the mopar mag. while a V8 setup i would expect to see a HP increase, how much? who knows, thats why i started this.

imo the benifits of E85 out ways the "you use more" arguement. whats not to like it costs less and the engine runs cooler. i thought a cooler running engine ment a longer life? lets say you lose just 4-6miles per gallon of E85 used. wouldnt the other factors along be worth it to setup the motor for it.

SG,
water? you mean a hydrogen system? why not just setup the /6 to run on natural gas or propane for that matter.


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i have to redo the fuel system any in my duster. which led me to thinking about setting it up for E85. we might not have alot of gasoline in the future.

i could always just yank out the /6 and go with a EV setup in the car.

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1976 Plymouth Feather Duster
2002 Dodge Dakota 4.7l v8

No need to worry with fuel lines and stuff, many have run it with no problems of corrosion and such.

The main thing is setting the carb up to flow the extra fuel, and running high enough compression to take advantage of the better fuel. If I was going to build a daily driver for E85 I would probably set it around 12.5 compression. But you could not run the pump gas on this CR, but its what it would take make it worth using.


If you setup in way that allows you to run pump gas (91-93) and E85 you will not gain any extra power, maybe some very small amount because of the cooling properties of E85. Using it with a Turbo setup could be a thought. Then you could turn the boost up when running E85, but turn it way down for pump fuel. But then you would need EFI so you could change the fuel requirments to match each fuel. WIth a carb you would have ot have differnt metering block ( Holley) and other things to be able to witch back and forth.

Jess

E85 can be anywhere between E75 and E85 which make tuning a problem with a carb............

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

Not hydrogen, water. This system I am working on will be great for economical builds obviously. But once you tick over on water why not go for power, eh? Hydrogen will probably help the performance, too however.

I think not having problems with corrosion just means it has not become apparent yet. Even with the 10 % stuff here in California I started seeing rust in the fuel systems. Nothing has failed on me yet, but it will take it's toll.


As far as running on water, that is nothing compared to what I expect to to get by running on cat hair. It will need further testing to see which color has the highest octane.

Personally, I'd be too scared to try monkeying around with putting a fusion reactor under the hood, but whatever floats your boat. Just don't fire it up when I'm around.

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"Mad Scientist" Matt Cramer
'66 Dart - turbocharged 225
My blog - Mad Scientist Matt's Lair

The rust you are seeing is the rust comming loose from your fuel tank. Ethanol really cleans things up. Think of it as a fuel system cleaner
While true, it is a seasonal change. One could change a couple jets a couple times a year. It only takes a few minutes.

It would only be easier with EFI if you had the capabilities to use a flex fuel sensor to determine the Ethonal content.

What the heck are you talking about Your not adding any usefull info to this discussion

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Chris'
Autobody
Restoration
Service

Since the low cost of e85 is strictly due to government subsidy I don't know how long the price will stay lower then gasoline. According to this months Mopar Muscle, e85 is subsidized at $0.51 per gallon, and carries no fuel tax, just how long that will last is anyones guess.

I would not try "making it" at home, the feds seem to frown upon that, and the proper permits aren't easy to obtain. I have a friend who tried to get them.

My own opinion is that alcohol is for drinking not a motor fuel.

TopHat

That's what they said about my flux capacitor!

Last year there was a rush to build ethanol plants down by my folks. Ethanol was going to drive up the price of corn and save the farmer. It did drive up the price of corn, now all the ethanol plants are closed because it costs more to make ethanol than you can buy gas for.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

Ya, as a daily driver fuel it just isn't going to work. But here in MN, we get taxed per gal. at the pump no matter what the fuel is. Oh ya, we pay road tax on it!! They just voted to increase the tax here per gallon . Damn bridges!

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Chris'
Autobody
Restoration
Service

In IN, I ran 10% ethanol for years w/o problems, but here in costal VA much of it (at least at first) contained lots of water and caused terrible corrosion problems. The (possibly brackish) water destroyed my tank, fuel sender, pump, and damaged the carb badly enough that if I had to do it again, I'd have just bought another.

When I held a sample of our local E10 from the 7/11 up to the light I could see it was cloudy; when chilled water formed droplets formed at the bottom of the glass container. A copper penny tarnished quickly. This stuff attacked steel, copper, aluminum and brass, but not plastic nor flex line.

The stuff I pulled out of the tank actually was greenish from eating the copper in the sending unit.

Samples from other stations seemed better and formed no puddles of water when chilled. Eventually, to get the junk flushed out I used about 2 gallons of a mixture of acetone & isopropyl alcohol, then, until the local suppliers got most of the water flushed out after a few months, I drove to another county where one could legally buy ethanol-free gas.

I would suggest putting a sample of your fuel into a freezer overnight to see what happens.