I have some people ask me about my setup over PM's, so i figured i will do a quick write-up for those, who would want to take a similar route. I also have nothing better to do today I do not have a dyno sheets and do not expect to do any for a while as my car is not yet finished.

Ok, so for one why E85? Here's what I know about this fuel's benefits:

The only requirement to run E85 is you need to give your engine more fuel. I'm sure you've heard it needs 30% or so more fuel. Why? Because its stoichiometric ratio is 9.7 as opposed to gas' 14.7
Does it mean that your mileage is gonna suffer just as much? No, at the same boost levels you will need less throttle to go the same distance, because of more energy in the e85 mixture and its quicker burning.
I get around 170 miles out of my tank at 28 psi and i step on it often. What do you get on race gas? Maybe 220?

So, basically to run your stock turbo on E85 you will need a walbro pump and 1000 injectors. You will also need to reprogram your ECU to use more fuel. It's not gonna "learn" to do it automatically. My 1000 injectors are scaled at 609 in ECUFlash and that should work for most people, plug whatever injector latencies your vendor suggests for a given brand of injectors, you can fine tune them later. You will not need new fuel lines, fpr, or rail. All that can be left stock. Timing maps can be left the same, you can fine tune them later. If you have an VIII you will need to rescale your fuel and timing maps' load to at least 300.

TIMING: This fuel burns faster than pump fuel, also by upping boost, you will produce higher cylinder pressures; Those 2 things combined is the reason why you should not expect to run any crazy timing numbers on E85. It will actually look similar to regular pump timing. I for one, run 0-2* at peak and up to 21 at redline on my VIII.

FUEL: When it comes to green, you will run out of fuel with one pump. If i run over 22 psi after 6000 rpm's, my IDC's go over 100%. So the solution that i am using for now is called boost taper My boost is controlled through ECU with a GM BCS and while i have 28psi at peak, 25 at 5k, i have to reduce it after 6k to about 21 by redline. So that is part of the reason there's no dynographs. My car is not producing all the power it can. If you have an MBC you will probably get away running 27-28 peak, so long as it tapers to 21-22. The proper solution is a bigger or a dual fuel pump, which i am going to invest in next spring. For the stock turbo one Walbro pump is enough.

AFR's: most widebands are gasoline cofigured so they will read AFR as lambda multiplied by 14.7. On such a wideband you will want to tune for 11-11.3 There's no need to make it leaner as again it keeps making power down to 0.7 lambda.



The way it is now it makes around 400hp/tq and is an absolute blast to drive! The torque is there right away, and stays there for a long time. So here's my suggestion: E85 coming your way? Switch! Such a setup will allow you to do everything fast:street driving, autoX, track, 1/4 mile.

My car is a VIII with:
Stock long block with exception of HKS 280 cams
20G-LT/Evo Green
Most regular bolt-ons (TBE, LICP, UICP, Ebay FMIC, Cone air filter, DV)
1000cc injectors, one Walbro 255 pump
Boost control with GM BCS
Boost is logged with JDM MAP and ZT-2

List of E85 stations is here http://e85vehicles.com/e85-stations.htm
Or you can use google maps.

Well here's a DLL dyno sheet from early november, this is on E70 (winter blend of E85) at about 26 to 21.5 psi Waves are a result of imperfect ECU boost tuning and wrong heat range plugs i had in at the time. No correction.


12/05/07 update. Cold Starts: Last night it was 13*F, and my car has been sitting in the driveway for the last couple of weeks, had like a foot of snow on it, the battery was dead. I hooked up some jumper cables to it and it fired right up, no hesitation, no cranking, no nothing - right up!

 

Though I'm continuing to do research for my future E-85 turbo setup on my Civic, those are some get points you made there. So 1000cc for around 400 hp eh? I guess I'd only need 750's or 770s then. Hope to see more of these setups floating around on here; it really is the future for street machines!

 

I'm not sure about the civic set-up, but because you can set up any size injector with the ECU, it's probably worth to go with 1000 on an Evo right away. You can flow a lot of fuel through those, yet they are easily controlled at idle as well. In case of Evo Green and E85, there's just not enough corn syrup coming from the single 255 Walbro...

 

you dont need 1000cc injectors necessarily, to reach that HP level. There is someone on this board making over 420whp on his stock 8 turbo w/ 10.5 w/ cams and other mods on E85 and runs like 750's or 780's...care to explain? I am not attacking you at all though...but when you say you NEED 1000cc's to run E85 is not the smartest thing to say?

 

great summary! I agree just go to 1000cc for E85, they tune very easily on the stock ecu

 

Talking about lucas? I think hes running 780's but i just talked to him a few days ago about my e85 conversion and he ordered 1000's for me I have pretty much the exact same mods as his car, I think he knows what hes doing.

 

That's Lucas English, you're probably talking about. Well, you can get away running 780, that's right. But I just think there's no point in limiting yourself. There are no negative effects from choosing 1000 over 780, just more headroom. My personal guess is that even if you ask Lucas himself, he will recommend 1000.

 

Well i know Lucas personally , but I was just thinking from other peoples perspectives I didnt want you to get flamed for this turning into, you need to have 1000cc's to run E85, thats all.

 

Got ya!

 

np, just looking out...

 

I have 850s at my 431whp and run a 12.0 out the top due to being out of fuel. I did 850's because they are around the shop. I allways do 1000's on E85 with stock turbos. I allways do a gas flash for my cust also which runs good with the 1000's.

 

But what Lucas does and what will work for you is two different things, Lucas has superpowers

 

good stuff. how much extra fuel do you have to use compared to gasoline?

 

I would expect ~20% more E85 fuel will be used at comparable boost level and driving style.

It means that you will have to fill up more often. At the same time $/mile of E85 at higher boost will approximately equal premium unleaded $/mile at lower boost.

 

Just curious, what is E85 going for in your area? I saw today it's $2.33 here...

1000cc is a good idea for future upgrading and if I read correctly it's best to run your injectors at about an 80% duty cycle. But that might have been just one shops/mans opinion.