Decided to run a e85 blend in my Neon

[85boostbox]

So I decided to run a e85 blend in my Neon to see how it would react with the car. My Neon is mainly stock outside of intake and exhaust. I was doing some research and math and decided to start with a 50/50 mix. And I literally about ran my car out of gas. Neons have a 12 gallon tank. So 6 gallons of e85 and 6 gallons of premium. I did this last night. According to math and online calculators it should give the same knock suppressant of 96 octane unleaded.


Now just off filling up last night I have noticed 2 things. The car seems to run smoother, and a little more power. No check engine light so far, but I have about 20 miles on this tank. So no real miles on it so far. But the little that is on it I have noticed a difference. On top of my testing I also made sure that there were no codes in the car with a snap on solus that I have access to.

I'm going to get a around a 100 miles on this tank and then hook the scanner back up to it to see what the injectors are at PW wise and to look at my fuel trim data, and timing to actually see what is going on. I will also document gas mileage.

Will keep you posted if anyone is interested in what I'm doing.

Paul

[CoolV300C]

I am dumb on this. What would expect would happen?

[tryingbe]

I hope you have a wideband.

[contraption22]

What are you using to tune the car in order to compensate for the great deal of additional fuel required to maintain a proper mixture with ethanol?

[looneytuner]

There is a reason they went to plastic gas tanks. I assume they also went to stainless fuel lines. water in ethanol,

[85boostbox]

This is a stock car. No wideband or tuning. Reason for a blend and not straight ethanol. I think there is enough play in the computer to compensate the different fuel. This is not affiliated boosted car so there is anything little room to play as far as going lean. That is why in the next couple of days I will hook up the scanner to see what exactly is going on.

Ethanol attracts water. Doesn't have it in it. This is my daily so it will not attract water quick enough to cause any ill effects I believe.

[wowzer]

50/50 blend will make it run 15-20% more lean, so if you were cruising at 14.7 afr you might now be up at 17.5 afr if you haven't adjusted anything (injectors, fuel tables, etc). hopefully your fuel trims can make up the difference. be careful. need to get a wideband on it, or at least monitor the trims to see if they are maxed out. i'ld be hesitant to put the hammer down until then.

[Ondonti]

50/50 blend will make it run 15-20% more lean, so if you were cruising at 14.7 afr you might now be up at 17.5 afr if you haven't adjusted anything (injectors, fuel tables, etc). hopefully your fuel trims can make up the difference. be careful. need to get a wideband on it, or at least monitor the trims to see if they are maxed out. i'ld be hesitant to put the hammer down until then.

This.

And I don't understand the point of this test. I would find no purpose in it even though I have had great success using Ethanol when there was a good reason.

[85boostbox]

I think you guys are missing the point that this is not a boosted application. This is a mostly stock 96 SOHC neon. From what I have read the factory sets the AFR target at WOT for around 12.5:1. If my math is right this blend will lean me out to around 13:1. Which is right around where N/A applications like to be at for max performance. As long as my EGT arent skyrocketing, and I am not detonating it should be alright.


Purpose of this test is to see about getting a little performance for cheap. If I dont notice any ill effects with a SOHC computer I will try a DOHC computer cause it give a little more timing.

This is just to see what it does.

[rx2mazda]

EPIC THREAD. lol

[Ondonti]

Your math is wrong. Wowser did the math for you and I quoted it for emphasis.

E10 Will take you from 12.5 to 13.0, job done.

[tryingbe]

This is a stock car. No wideband or tuning. This is my daily

Wow, just wow...


Going in blind folded.
Lean and mean = dead engine... but I guess some people needs to find out the hard way.

[2.216VTurbo]

There are a few of these tests that go on over at EcoBoostPerfomanceForum where the 3.5l TT Ford guys hang out. Since I'm not big on crunching numbers or doing Calc's I let those guy who are have fun with them. The direct injection EcoBoost motors have the advantage in delivering the fuel from about 400PSI to 2800PSI depending on load/boost/speed etc. I have watched the pressures via Torque Pro on my Nexus 7" tablet. Those guys (the math fans) have determined that 3 gallons with 15 of 91 octane(best I can get in Cali) is about the most we can get away to get the benefits of the increased detonation ceiling the E85 offers. Typically my Explorer Sport (intake, exhaust, downpipes, LMS tune) idles at about 395-410 when warmed up on a mid 70's temp day when I run the 91 pump gas alone. When I do the mix, I noticed it never drops below 460-470. So it really does throw more fuel without me having to make any tune adjustments. It does seem to run a little smoother with the blend and I've seen the boost ceiling go a little higher (from about 13.2 to as high as 14.4 blended) so it's worthwhile for me to run it, but there's only a couple stations in my county that sell E85 so I have to fill the racefuel jugs and blend at home which is a PIA on a busy workday. I think if there was a station nearby in my regular drive patterns I'd have LMS set me up with their E85 tune but I know I would have to mess with reflashing when I had to fill with pump gas. Too much effort for my situation.

[85boostbox]

Update: checked the plugs last night and no detonation showing on plugs and plugs were a nice golden brown.

No sign yet of bad damage yet. Car runs smoother than ever and definitely a bit more power up top.

[shackwrrr]

50/50 blend will make it run 15-20% more lean, so if you were cruising at 14.7 afr you might now be up at 17.5 afr if you haven't adjusted anything (injectors, fuel tables, etc). hopefully your fuel trims can make up the difference. be careful. need to get a wideband on it, or at least monitor the trims to see if they are maxed out. i'ld be hesitant to put the hammer down until then.

At part throttle and idle the o2 sensor would compensate for that. O2 sensors are lambda sensors. Since the sensor is seeing a drop below a lambda of 1 it will compensate as long as you are within the +/- 25% that the computer can handle.

The reason we talk about o2 sensors switching at 14.7 is that the stoic value for gasoline. If you put ethanol in the o2 will now switch at 9.7 (or somewhere in-between depending on concentration)

[crusty shadow]

Your math is wrong. Wowser did the math for you and I quoted it for emphasis.

E10 Will take you from 12.5 to 13.0, job done.

actually Wowser's math is wrong.
in my own testing with straight E85 you only need to add 20% more fuel to get to stoich over 100% gasoline.
datalogged with a wideband the entire time. I added a set of +20's on a stock TI car and A/F was right where It should be the whole time. with stock injectors I could run up to a 50/50 blend of E85 and 91 octane and still be in the safe range.

major helpful hint when tuning with E85 and various blends- set your wideband to display Lambda instead of A/F. on the Lambda scale 1.0 is always stoich no matter what blend of fuel you are running. eliminates a LOT of confusion and mistakes with math....

[wowzer]

actually Wowser's math is wrong.
in my own testing with straight E85 you only need to add 20% more fuel to get to stoich over 100% gasoline.
.

hmm - i said maybe 15-20% lean. you said add 20% more fuel to get it back. seems almost like the same thing....................

[Ondonti]

actually Wowser's math is wrong.
in my own testing with straight E85 you only need to add 20% more fuel to get to stoich over 100% gasoline.
datalogged with a wideband the entire time. I added a set of +20's on a stock TI car and A/F was right where It should be the whole time. with stock injectors I could run up to a 50/50 blend of E85 and 91 octane and still be in the safe range.

major helpful hint when tuning with E85 and various blends- set your wideband to display Lambda instead of A/F. on the Lambda scale 1.0 is always stoich no matter what blend of fuel you are running. eliminates a LOT of confusion and mistakes with math....

hmm - i said maybe 15-20% lean. you said add 20% more fuel to get it back. seems almost like the same thing....................

Plus I see no mention of WOT or adaptive part throttle/idle situations.

The goal was clearly WOT otherwise he wouldn't be targetting 13:1. Who cares about STOICH.

[85boostbox]

actually Wowser's math is wrong.
in my own testing with straight E85 you only need to add 20% more fuel to get to stoich over 100% gasoline.
datalogged with a wideband the entire time. I added a set of +20's on a stock TI car and A/F was right where It should be the whole time. with stock injectors I could run up to a 50/50 blend of E85 and 91 octane and still be in the safe range.

major helpful hint when tuning with E85 and various blends- set your wideband to display Lambda instead of A/F. on the Lambda scale 1.0 is always stoich no matter what blend of fuel you are running. eliminates a LOT of confusion and mistakes with math....

This... That is why the FFV spirit had comparable to plus 20's in them. Nothing more nothing less. AFR reading is a good thing when tuning with regular gas. Any other fuel you want lambda and a egt guage. E85 is comparable to 105 octane for knock suppressant. So you can somewhat lean the mixture out as long as you have a egt guage and are staying safe within those limits and have good knock detection. Also E85 also runs cooler than regular gasoline.

I did a lot of reading before I tried this. Also the reason why I did it on a N/A car. I know that the computer could compensate enough with the E85 to still be safe, but lean me out enough to get my target AFR. I can't prove at this time what the actual AFR was, or what my egt were outside of my math, but I can tell you the car runs better and there is a little bit more power up top.

Another update. I filled the car back up last night and with a lot of spirited runs the car still averaged 23mpg. A little down from my average 26 with the car. So all in all not bad.

Paul

[tryingbe]

This... That is why the FFV spirit had comparable to plus 20's in them.

A N/A 2.5L have 20% bigger injectors than a stock Turbo I/Turbo II/Turbo III/Turbo IV...