Hmmm... I just put on my moderator hat and noticed that this thread doesn't appear to have anything to do with autox or racing.

Make a connection for us, Jeff.

 

kill the thread.. I'll start a new performance one. although I have been ingesting all the ethanol this evening I can work on something tomorow.

 

I did forget to mention the sound produced by the Qr25de on 70% ethanol was heavenly I drove through a tunnel with the throttle to the floor and a guttural "big block" sound was coming out the exhaust. something I never expected, I assume some of the fuel was burning in the header causing this but it was beautiful (On a side note I never installed the restrictors during the trip, never had to)

 

Did you run your ethanol mix at the Pocono time trial event?

 

No the wimp that I am ran a somewhat tame E10 93 octane mix. during the event (normal super fuel in Pa) the car was way powerful Pocono East is a glorified auto cross and not the place for a powerful FWD car with an awful suspension. I arrived there with a reputation to uphold and let all my friends down, these were people I started racing with 15 years ago... the car was crap, although I had a great student, I signed him off to TT his first day on ANY track.

 

the other downside that people don't realize is that a higher octane fuel, like e85 also is harder to ignite/burn...this requires more fuel to be added to get the same power on a system designed for lower octane. In order for e85 to be beneficial it needs to be run where it desires, LOTS of cylinder pressure compared to your engine designed for 93 octane.
Yes, it also does require a higher mass flow for stoich and therefore more consumption BUT that can be worked around.
I did my entire senior project around a 250cc 4-cylinder 4 stroke for Formula SAE....AUTO-x'ing
It was 11.5:1 and turbocharged at 18 psi...so when I say it needs cylinder pressure, I think you get the idea. 13:1 CR and e85 would be a pretty nice DD setup and very efficient as well.

as for ethanol production, leaps and bounds have been taken in new forms of by-product and waste, instead of corn...

I will stop now as I can ramble on and on about it. Take a year and half to design your senior project engine basing around direct injection ethanol and...

 

No argument from me there.

 

This is something I was arguing with some friends and some people on the board a while back. I argued that while it has a lower energy density its other properties would allow an engine designed to run on ethanol to largely close the gap in efficiency with gasoline engines. A high compression engine tuned specifically to run on E85 should be much closer to gas engine fuel consumption than these compromise "flex-fuel" engines we are dealing with today. Does all of this check out with what you found in building your engine? I'd be interested in hearing what somebody with practical experience has to say on the subject.

 

There were a lot of negative comments made about oil 100+ years ago too.

"Too costly. Gotta find the oil $$$, pull the oil outta the ground $$$, refine the oil $$$ then deliver the gas to a station $$$ where the horseless carriage has to drive to to fuel up...my horse is cheaper to buy and can fuel up anywhere."

 

our biggest problem right now is florida and the stupid tax disc rule they have, I don't know if it's enforced but E85 stations are not supposed to let you pump unless you are displaying a current year placard. since the excise tax is not charged as part of the price per gallon.

in a on topic related note. S+R performance supposedly ordered a few barrels a while back can anyone confirm or deny this?