Drivers attempt at E85

[NJSPEED3]

ahhh hmmmm ahhhh hmmmm no...sorry!

[driver311]

It was worth a try. LOL

[cld12pk2go]

I topped off with another 1.2 gallons today (total of 2.7 gallons of E85).

I did several more pulls, and I really have not seen a significant shift in AFR at WOT in OL (still ~11.8:1), which doesn't make any sense.

I would have expected to have leaned out by ~0.6 or so with this amount of E85 as I have not made any fueling changes at this time.

I just installed my Grimspeed EBCS in interrupt mode, so I will probably stick with the current ~18% E85 level until I get my WGDC and boost dynamics tables dialed in.

[bf360]

Originally Posted by Novej Again I totally agree, but in their defense the HT tune wasn't exactly designed for any E85 useage Im not running it straight and with how pig rich these cars come from the factory I'm not complaining. Like I said check out my logs and you'll see what Im talking about....When I first start boosting its around the 11s, just the closer you get to redline (approx. 5000ish rpms) the tune richens up again Im sure they did this for safety more than anything....Hell the stock tune does the samething....I honestly think HT set the ecu to target the 11s for openloop/WOT! But like Driver311 here Im still in the testing phases w/ the e85/93 mix.....With it dipping into the 10s and 9s the car still pulls very nicely and I'd rather see it a little rich up top then too LEAN!!! Serious question, how much HP do you guys think I could gain running 11s straight to redline especially on a stock turbo, with boost raised 2 psi already??? Eventually I want to go standback myself and Im just curious thats all.... Ok a correction, just looked at the logs again, Im hitting the 9s and 8s right before I shift under boost any ideas why?...but Im still mainly in the high 10s WOT......I need to post the actual datalogs so you can see what Im talking about......

Adding e85 wouldn't make you run richer, it would make you run leaner with no other changes.

[xdm88]

following along, so much to be had with this new trip down the e85 lane. driver thanks for testing this, id really like to run this once i get my build finished and help others see the benefits.

about filing up each time and tuning, if you were say out of reach of your normal pump station and needed some fuel to get home or to wherever, doesnt matter, and you put 93 in because they didnt have e85, would your tune for 50/50 (for ex.) be unsafe then?

would you need a backup map to have? thanks for all input

[cld12pk2go]

So is it actually required to add a lubricate (like Marvel Mystery Oil) when running an E85 blend?

In the good ole days, this was only done when adding xylene/toulene/etc that were not originally intended for automotive use.

I would not be surprised to find that E85 already has the required lubricants to keep fuel systems happy.

Does anyone have an answer to this?

[driver311]

No do not add any lubricants. There is a reason why is only 85% ethanol. Its already done and not to mention we are mixing with pump gas. Ive already posted that at 30% e85 my afr and fuel trims are damn near identical to no e85. I dont know why but it is, and IM not complaining. i think 50% e85 is gonna be easy. I think tuesday Im gonna go to 40% and see how it goes. Im also planning on dynoing that day also. But might push it back a week so i can get the 50% e85 in there and advance my timing a few degrees to around 16 and also lean out to 12.5 and see what 20psi gets me with this setup. Id be real suprised if it didnt do 380whp minimum.

[Novej]

Originally Posted by bf360 Adding e85 wouldn't make you run richer, it would make you run leaner with no other changes.

Im completly aware of this, thats why I was so surprised Im still so rich (even with 4 gallons E85 and 8 gallons 93) For the most part we haven't even seen at what amount the E85 starts effecting AFRs yet......Driver311 sorry for the threadjack man, you really are an innovator with this and Im sure all of us are greatful to you for taking this to the limit (I know I am).....good luck I hope you see some good power gains with a proper E85/93 tune once you hit the rollers.....I for one will closely be watching your progress

[socks]

Originally Posted by driver311 No do not add any lubricants. There is a reason why is only 85% ethanol. Its already done and not to mention we are mixing with pump gas. Ive already posted that at 30% e85 my afr and fuel trims are damn near identical to no e85. I dont know why but it is, and IM not complaining. i think 50% e85 is gonna be easy. I think tuesday Im gonna go to 40% and see how it goes. Im also planning on dynoing that day also. But might push it back a week so i can get the 50% e85 in there and advance my timing a few degrees to around 16 and also lean out to 12.5 and see what 20psi gets me with this setup. Id be real suprised if it didnt do 380whp minimum.

when are you gonna quit foolin around and run down the track?

[Speed3eak]

Subbed - would love to be able to run e85 but I'll sit on the sidelines and see how you guys fare long-term running the e85/pump gas mixtures.

[driver311]

Well I said fuck it and went ahead and did 50% e85 tonight. Drove around for 20 miles or so and all seems well. My stfts seemed to hover around +8 give or take. I didnt do any wot pulls cause I wanna monitor my stft a lil more. Im thinkin Im gonna have to scale my maf up just a bit. Car seems to run great the way it is. Ill be posting some logs here in the next few days. Im pretty excited and Ill keep you guys posted on my progress. All in all this is starting to look pretty promising.

[NJSPEED3]

You crazy nut why didnt you go to the strip before putting your car threw this. I swear if something goes wrong, before you do hit the 1320 im gonna be really pissed, since you are the best candidate to achieve 11s RIGHT NOW!!

With that said I cant wait to see toe dyno results.

what are you planning to do at the dyno?

current tune with just pump gas and then
same tune with 50% e85 and then
added timing and leaner afr with e85?

That would be a good way to see what e85 can net your car before and after ethanol mixture.

[bf360]

Originally Posted by xdm88 following along, so much to be had with this new trip down the e85 lane. driver thanks for testing this, id really like to run this once i get my build finished and help others see the benefits. about filing up each time and tuning, if you were say out of reach of your normal pump station and needed some fuel to get home or to wherever, doesnt matter, and you put 93 in because they didnt have e85, would your tune for 50/50 (for ex.) be unsafe then? would you need a backup map to have? thanks for all input

Depends on how off your tune is, you may be really rich but ur timing will still be higher, all depends on how aggressive you go with the tune.

Also driver where are you located? You may not actually have e85, but rather e70 since its winter.

[shpankey]

I've ran this many times, as does another Speed 3 guy I know. He does some kind of exact percentage... I think 2.85 gallons and the rest 91 and he also says it's important to counter the effects of the ethanol with marvel mysery oil. 4 ounzes per 10 gallons.

One thing I've noticed with this mix is, even stock, the car will pull all the way to redline, and definitely pulls harder on the butt dyno. Probably b/c all we can get here is 91 so the octane of ethanol is badly in need. I think the guy who does this that mentioned it to me last year has a first run mazdaspeed 3 and said he's been doing it for a long time, almost since he got the car, with no ill effects yet.

I've ran it myself quite a few times and love it. Feeling the car not fall off like a rock down a cliff face at 5600 rpm's is glorious.

[driver311]

Originally Posted by bf360 Depends on how off your tune is, you may be really rich but ur timing will still be higher, all depends on how aggressive you go with the tune. Also driver where are you located? You may not actually have e85, but rather e70 since its winter.

Im thinking so to. MOst of the stations that sell e85 run close to e70 in winter. But its been like that for years. If youi read the pump it says "up to e85" lol Either way Im happy thus far and will continue to experiment.

[MS6_Auburn_Fan]

Have you checked your plugs for any signs of detonation?

[Novej]

Originally Posted by MS6_Auburn_Fan Have you checked your plugs for any signs of detonation?

Good idea, however with virtually no knock on his logs, and AFR's still well within tolerance I don't think this is a problem right now........now once he starts adjusting his timing to find the limits that could yeild a different story

[cld12pk2go]

Originally Posted by shpankey I've ran it myself quite a few times and love it. Feeling the car not fall off like a rock down a cliff face at 5600 rpm's is glorious.

Sorry, but the fuel isn't going to change the throttle blade closing above 5500 RPMs with the stock tune.

[ERABBIT23]

I love E85!

[ms3brendan]

Originally Posted by shpankey I've ran it myself quite a few times and love it. Feeling the car not fall off like a rock down a cliff face at 5600 rpm's is glorious.

Yeah, stop making shit up.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[shpankey]

lol, I'm not making shit up, at least intentionally! This was told to me by him, a user at bitog and I gave it a try and it definitely made it FEEL like it pulled stronger to redline, to me. You can not believe it if you want, it doesn't bother me you don't. But that's what we both noticed. Or you could try it yourself and see if you wanted. I suppose it could be the sugar pill theory, especially since he planted the idea, but it sure seemed to pull much better to redline to me. It's been awhile since I did the mix, but I'll do it again next fill to compare. Though I suggest you calm down a little and not get your panties in a wad over a post. lol

I'm doing some video's to show the new clutch and lightweight flywheel and the effect on rpm's at idle, so I guess it won't be a problem to do a before and after pull with straight 91 and then the E85 mix and that would be a good A-B to see the effect, if any, after 5600 rpm in a video. I have no problem with proving my butt dyno is wrong. It's notoriously wrong all the damn time.

[ms3brendan]

Originally Posted by shpankey lol, I'm not making shit up, at least intentionally! This was told to me by him, a user at bitog and I gave it a try and it definitely made it FEEL like it pulled stronger to redline, to me. You can not believe it if you want, it doesn't bother me you don't. But that's what we both noticed. Or you could try it yourself and see if you wanted. I suppose it could be the sugar pill theory, especially since he planted the idea, but it sure seemed to pull much better to redline to me. It's been awhile since I did the mix, but I'll do it again next fill to compare. Though I suggest you calm down a little and not get your panties in a wad over a post. lol I'm doing some video's to show the new clutch and lightweight flywheel and the effect on rpm's at idle, so I guess it won't be a problem to do a before and after pull with straight 91 and then the E85 mix and that would be a good A-B to see the effect, if any, after 5600 rpm in a video. I have no problem with proving my butt dyno is wrong. It's notoriously wrong all the damn time.

Oh I'm not accusing you of lying about the fact that it pulls harder, it very well may pull harder whether it be the placebo effect or not.. It's just that on the stock tune.. There's really no possible way seeing how the stock tune works to fix the falloff after 5700RPM regardless of what fuel you use.

[djuosnteisn]

EGTs are quite a bit cooler on e85 as well, right?

What effects does this have on the hotside of the turbo? IMO a cooler EGT would result in slower exh velocity, and perhaps a more sluggish spool (doubtfully noticeable on the k04).....

BUT... the additional required fuel will increase the overall exhaust mass... bringing that spool back and then some. So if you maintained the same flow, with cooler EGTs, it's possible that the turbo would actually perform more efficiently.... and perhaps account for all this butt dyno claims we're seeing.


If that's true... then it'd be obvious on a dyno. And i for one, believe dyno charts over hearsay.

[cld12pk2go]

I am still not grokking why I am not seeing the expected shift in AFR...

I think this paper shows that we can rule out the possibility of higher flow for a given injector pulse width that would be expected if the ethanol-gas mixture had a lower viscosity...

http://virtualpowertrain.com/papers/...20Injector.pdf

It appears that the exact opposite is true. The mixture becomes more viscous as the ethanol percentage increases.

The mixture does increase in density a few percent with increasing ethanol percentage, which would tend to offset some (but not nearly all) of the lack of change in AFR...

Also looks like the average atomized fuel size increases a little when going to a blend...

The paper is a good read...

[Click Here]

Originally Posted by djuosnteisn EGTs are quite a bit cooler on e85 as well, right? What effects does this have on the hotside of the turbo? IMO a cooler EGT would result in slower exh velocity, and perhaps a more sluggish spool (doubtfully noticeable on the k04).....

***WARNING***

I do not own a Mazdaspeed. With that said, in the sake of fact-finding:

I'm running E85 in my car and I have individual EGT's installed right after the exhaust valves. I've got tons of E85 logs, and if anyone cares I'd be happy to do a series of 93-octane versus E85 to compare the exhaust gas temps from the two.

Originally Posted by djuosnteisn BUT... the additional required fuel will increase the overall exhaust mass... bringing that spool back and then some. So if you maintained the same flow, with cooler EGTs, it's possible that the turbo would actually perform more efficiently.... and perhaps account for all this butt dyno claims we're seeing. If that's true... then it'd be obvious on a dyno. And i for one, believe dyno charts over hearsay.

I'm no chemist, but I'm pretty sure the difference in exhaust volume also has to do with the byproducts alcohol fuels yield when they oxidize compared to gasoline. I'll see if I can find a paper which explains it, unless someone else that's good with chemistry can explain it...

I also have a good paper on power output using various blends of gas/alcohol that I'm happy to share.

[cld12pk2go]

Originally Posted by djuosnteisn EGTs are quite a bit cooler on e85 as well, right? What effects does this have on the hotside of the turbo? IMO a cooler EGT would result in slower exh velocity, and perhaps a more sluggish spool (doubtfully noticeable on the k04)..... BUT... the additional required fuel will increase the overall exhaust mass... bringing that spool back and then some. So if you maintained the same flow, with cooler EGTs, it's possible that the turbo would actually perform more efficiently.... and perhaps account for all this butt dyno claims we're seeing. If that's true... then it'd be obvious on a dyno. And i for one, believe dyno charts over hearsay.

More heat is released in the burning of E85 than gas for a given amount of oxygen.

Of course more heat is required in the initial vaporization of the E85 prior to combustion as well.

I suspect (ie guess) the balance would make the EGTs slightly warmer on E85; however, lots of math would be required to prove that and I am feeling lazy at the moment (its my day off).

[Enki]

Please do (both).

Knowledge is power.

[bova]

everything i've read says that the EGT's for E85 will be less.

[Click Here]

Some E85 related technical papers are attached below.

PDF gni-mjb-051303 is an EPA paper concentrates on fuel economy and efficiency, but the paper has good detail on things like burn rate, thermal efficiency and knock thresholds.

PDF sae-2002-01-2743-v2 uses a experimental engine to test the operating parameters of ethanol and methanol based fuels. This paper is a little more technical, but goes into some cool detail about cylinder pressure versus crank angle, and brake mean effective pressure for ethanol/methanol.

PDF epa-fev-isaf-no55 is similar to the study above, but goes into more detail about mixture dilution and knock limits. Note the compression ratio of the test engine is 19.5:1, haha.

PDF Ethanol Paper is a University study, so take it for whatever it's worth. Assuming their test methods were good, they collect some great data on work per engine cycle, BSFC, and fuel conversion efficiency.

[djuosnteisn]

Thanks for the analytical objective data.

Me likes fact.

[Click Here]

Originally Posted by djuosnteisn Thanks for the analytical objective data. Me likes fact.

Really my pleasure.

Once I fill up with 93-octane, if I have any usable data I'll post it up.

[cld12pk2go]

My no shift in AFR from my target of 11.8:1 with about 18% E85:

[driver311]

Well my afrs are definately off now on my first few logs. Ill make some changes and keep you guys posted on how it goes.

[cld12pk2go]

Originally Posted by driver311 Well my afrs are definately off now on my first few logs. Ill make some changes and keep you guys posted on how it goes.

Post logs please.

[bf360]

Your probably only running 12-13% ethanol, which isn't really a high enough amount to start to make a noticeable difference in afr.

[cld12pk2go]

Originally Posted by bf360 Your probably only running 12-13% ethanol, which isn't really a high enough amount to start to make a noticeable difference in afr.

Even based on ~13%, I should see close to 0.4 increase in my AFR.

[bova]

well if the car is still trying to target those afr's don't you think its doing all it can to do just that, which is why you aren't seeing them budge much?

[cld12pk2go]

Originally Posted by bova80 well if the car is still trying to target those afr's don't you think its doing all it can to do just that, which is why you aren't seeing them budge much?

I am in OL above 1.1 load, so no the ECU is not adjusting to compensate.

[cld12pk2go]

Up to 3.5 gallons of E85 (about 24%).

Still no visible shift in AFR.

[Enki]

How is your fuel pump holding up?