E85 conversions considering gas prices

Ethanol just plain sucks. I don’t use it unless that is the only option if I pull in a service station. Not worth the headache, loss of mileage. Been a non ethanol person for about 35 years with no regrets and very little fuel related problems in all my cars I’ve owned. Spent a ton on premium though in all those years…

Sad Sack said:

Ethanol just plain sucks. I don’t use it unless that is the only option if I pull in a service station. Not worth the headache, loss of mileage. Been a non ethanol person for about 35 years with no regrets and very little fuel related problems in all my cars I’ve owned. Spent a ton on premium though in all those years…

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you needed to marry into one of those corn barons families....

or get one of them dork-tastic nascar trucks....where they just give you the alcohol to drive around in a circle,...drive off track to get some groceries...who is to know.?

I've said before, and I'll probably say it again.
Corn is for food, livestock feed and Whisky, not necessarily in that order.

I''m obviously not certain of all the motivation, but do know in part it came about during our farming crisis to help subsidize farmers and pay for itself.

I like pure gas for equipment, boat for sure. Haven't used in my 2017, I may in the 87 tbi. There are continually more here, but most are 89 or 93. I travel 30 minutes to get 87 pure. Being more$, worth it on the equipment and boat. Boat fyi gets 1 mpg Lol.

xm20k said:

I hope you rejeted that carb by a considerable amount otherwise it might detonate itself to death.

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Put in 0.101" main jets, and 0.070x0.032 metering rods to start.

Feeling quite a lot better about my 8.5mpg, thanks.

I only use ethanol for mixing shellac and for medicinal purposes.

I tried E85 in my flex fuel Buick. The mileage was way lower. When I did the math, even though E85 was considerably cheaper, it was a higher price per miles driven. The whole corn in our gas thing is such a huge scam. It's just a government handout to corn farmers. Fuel wise we're better off without it.

My wife runs E85 only in her 2013 Silverado with 4.8 V8 flex fuel engine. She has had the truck since 2014 and it has about 83K on it now. The truck is mint and I installed a SST MBRB CAT back dual exhaust on it a few years ago. The truck runs excellent, sounds so good and definitely makes more power on the E85 and even sounds more throaty using it. Mileage is lower than when running 87 or 93 octane gas though by about 2-3 MPG. Still she averages about 17, not too bad. Once in a great while she will get a check engine light- misfire. Not sure if it's related to the E85 but I simply clear it and it's good for another 6 months to a year.

Everyone needs to remember apples to apples,oranges to oranges. Computer controlled ignition,more compression and electronic fuel injection is going to be a way different game ,and out come,than a car with a distributor and fixed orifice carbureator jets

I've run E85 in many things, for many years.

You almost never win based on cost versus 87 pump gas.

You'll give up 25-30% economy, even with cranked timing, and you'll save 18-25% on cost.

On forced induction applications, can't beat it with a stick, 107 octane out of the pump for 30% less than 87, love that. Can be careless with the tune, goofy with the wastegate, and it'll just laugh it all off.

For fun, yes, economy, no.

As I said over in the gas prices thread.... I run E85 in my 2011 Suburban whenever I can. The biggest issue here is that there are only four stations in the entire state of Oregon that sell it. If I have to tow anything south though, it is a huge money saver to be able to run E85 and the truck REALLY likes it, especially in hot weather or towing. Running an ethanol blend on a modern engine with proper tuning up to ~40% ethanol will actually get you an overall INCREASE in fuel mileage due to you being able to run leaner fuel mixtures and better ignition timing, but most engines are not properly tuned or set up for that. When I blend E85 with E10 pump gas to get ~30-40% content I have seen an increase in mileage. Once you have full E85 in there at 60-85% ethanol content the mileage does drop quite a bit. I made a trip down to Southern California a few weeks ago pulling an enclosed car trailer and I got ~10-12mpg while towing. The 6.2 is running ~10.5:1 compression so it likes to have at least mid-grade in it when towing. In oregon, mid grade was ~$4.89/gal and E85 was $3.99/gal. Redding, CA had mid-grade at $6.29/gal and E85 at $3.49/gal. All stations south of Sacramento had Mid-grade ~$6.49/gal and E85 at $2.99/gal. Obviously it was highly beneficial to have higher octane than premium at less than half the cost. I ended up spending about half the amount on fuel for the round trip as my BIL, who has a 2023 Ram Rebel and towed the enclosed trailer down empty and towed a fairly light jet boat back up. I was pulling the enclosed trailer with a complete C10 chassis including a 454/TH400 and a bunch of spare parts in it... just missing the cab and bed.

I can probably run E85 in my 1980 K25 with the newer engine in it, but I would need to install a flex fuel sensor and convert the P01 computer to a P59 computer running a flex fuel OS. It's really only possible because I have the 24x reluctor on the 454, individual coil packs, and larger injectors than needed. Unfortunately it would probably require me to convert to DBW as well.

An 80's-90's vehicle with no way to tell exact ethanol percentage, low compression, and questionable fuel/timing control to begin with is NOT going to do well on E85. There is no inherent benefit to the fuel over standard gasoline other than the things it lets you do to the tuning because of HIGH octane rating and an inherent cooling effect. If you can't adjust fueling and timing on the fly based on actual ethanol percentage making it into the engine, then it will make it run like absolute garbage most of the time.

Lots of interesting info, explanations on the net. As someone said, comparing apples to oranges. These different fuel types have different applications based on vehicles. I've learned quite a bit.

Luckily I have several 91 octane no ethanol stations close by. That's all my 86' K10 and small engines get.

ghopp24 said:

Luckily I have several 91 octane no ethanol stations close by. That's all my 86' K10 and small engines get.

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I'd go broke... My K25 has a rebuilt 350 in it with the original quadrajet. I've bumped the compression to 9:1 and have a mild Summit RV cam(K1102). It gets regular E10 87 octane.

91 Octane Ethanol free is stupid expensive. I don't even put it in the boat early in the year when I know I'll be using it up quickly. I'll put ethanol free in it with Sta-bil once the main fishing seasons are over, but once we hit April I'm using it fast enough that it doesn't even matter. I'll usually get a 5 gallon jug of it for the mower and small engines and mix with sta-bil that lasts me for a few months.