E85 Ethanol - possible to convert to Flex-Fuel?

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RamMan@dodgecity.cc - 09 May 2006 00:11 GMT

What's the difference in a flex-fuel engine that lets it burn either
unleaded gasoline or E85 (85% Ethanol) ?

Is it possible or even economical to convert a conventional IC engine to
run E85?

What's involved?

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Joe - 09 May 2006 00:28 GMT

RamMan@dodgecity.cc wrote in news:0pjv521gtuf6c0s4b61ndoaa91lkoqptm0@
4ax.com:

> What's the difference in a flex-fuel engine that lets it burn either
> unleaded gasoline or E85 (85% Ethanol) ?
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> What's involved?

It's simply not worth it: http://tinyurl.com/grol2

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Big Al - 09 May 2006 07:26 GMT

> RamMan@dodgecity.cc wrote in news:0pjv521gtuf6c0s4b61ndoaa91lkoqptm0@
> 4ax.com:
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
>
> It's simply not worth it: http://tinyurl.com/grol2

It's not going to save you money because your car would use a lot more fuel.
On an older non computer car it's easy to run it. Have to make the mixture
richer, you should advance the timing and make sure all the parts in the
fuel system can live in alcohol.

Al

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RamMan@dodgecity.cc - 10 May 2006 03:24 GMT

>It's not going to save you money because your car would use a lot more fuel.
>On an older non computer car it's easy to run it. Have to make the mixture
>richer, you should advance the timing and make sure all the parts in the
>fuel system can live in alcohol.

Thanks Al. I guess coming from the natural gas industry as I do that I
should have known it's all about BTU. Alcohol certainly will burn, but not
as efficiently as plain old gasoline. Hard to beat those old hydrocarbons.

They've really got things genuinely f%!$#d up down here in Houston. Here
we are, 50 freakin miles from the refineries and there's spot gas
shortages all over town. Retailers are complaining that their tanks have
to be flushed out a couple times (with what I don't know) to allegedly
"scrub" out the MTBE before they can refill with 87E10 so they're each out
of service for at least 2 days while that occurs.

Someone please help me understand. If that's so then why don't we
consumers likewise have to flush out our complete fuel systems before
buying a tankful of 87E10?

It's all a conspiracy. The big oil companies are not in the oil business;
they're in the oil shortage business. Withold the supply and it suddenly
becomes gold.

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nez - 10 May 2006 20:42 GMT

I agree. There is not a shortage of oil. The price is being controlled
by the Wall Street sepculators. The price changes with the news. The
car makers in this country need to get with the program and start
producing and selling more flex fuel cars. Germany is now producing a
hydrogen cell powered vehicle. They are in the process of building
hydrogen stations in their country. What are we doing? We just sit
around and complain about the high price of a gallon of gas. The price
for gas in England is $8.00/gallon.

> >It's not going to save you money because your car would use a lot more fuel.
> >On an older non computer car it's easy to run it. Have to make the mixture
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
> they're in the oil shortage business. Withold the supply and it suddenly
> becomes gold.

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SnoMan - 11 May 2006 03:38 GMT

> Alcohol certainly will burn, but not
>as efficiently as plain old gasoline. Hard to beat those old hydrocarbons.

That is not exactly true. Alchol does burn very effectively and
cleanly, the problem is that a gallon of it has a lot less heat
content than gas does and the "heat" is what drives a internal
combustion engine. The nice thing about alchol is that if you built a
engine to run on it exclusively, it has a much higher octane than gas
so you can run around a 12 to 1 CR ratio and extract a larger
percentage of the availble energy and convert it to work. The average
gas engine is about 30% efficent at best which means 30% is converted
to work and the rest goes out through tail pipe and cooling system.
(some of it is lost to internal friction too)
-----------------
The SnoMan
www.thesnoman.com

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