How many of you use this?

[Graffiti62]

With gas climbing higher and higher all over the place due to the unrest in the Middle East, one alternative that a percentage of us have is to use E85, or ethanol fuel in our vehicles. The problem is that, at least in my area, the closest ethanol station is several miles away farther than the closest big town. I was thinking about this as I was running errands in town, and I believe the biggest reason you don't see more stations is due to the fact that fuel stations would have to add an extra undeground storage tank, which is rather costly. But, here's my thought--why not replace a slow-selling fuel line with E85?  When I thought about it, I had never pumped 89 octane fuel. Normally (at least here in the States), the standard is 87 octane fuel, with an 89 midrange, and a 91 high-range. Nobody ever really puts high-octane gas in their car unless they need to, and that's almost always 91. Also, 91 octane is always the fuel that is verified not to contain any ethanol in the first place.

My question is this:  Do you or have you ever had to buy 89 octane fuel?

 

[richship]

I thought 89 was half and half.

 

[crash]

Personally, I think E85 is the best stuff ever, with a few caveats.

First - The engine needs to be designed to run on E85 to get the most out of it.  The reason fuel mileage sucks on flex fuel vehicles running E85 is because they were designed to run on gas, not E85.  With E85 you can run much higher compression ratios, making it much more efficient that flex fuel engines.  You can run a leaner mixture cruising with E85, therefore using less fuel. 

Second - Really cold weather and E85 are not compatible.  Which is why I only run it in my summer car.

Here in Minnesota, it is everywhere and racers love it.  It is race gas, but much less expensive.  Pre-ignition or detonation is virtually non-existant with E85 with makes turbocharged/supercharged engines really shine using it.

It sucks that it still mostly comes from corn.  I hope cellulosic ethanol takes off soon.

So for your average car, the drop in fuel economy will probably more than offset the lower price/gallon.  But it beats sending money directly to places like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, etc.

 

[AutoBat]

I thought 89 was half and half.

It is.
and
pretty much what crash said.
E85 is quite popular in Indiana too.
It's cheaper because of government subsidies on corn, of course, so really the more you buy it, the more money they give to farmers, which means they'll need more taxes.  It's the same deal with HFCS vs cane sugar, but I digress.

If you choose to run E85 fuel in a car not designed for it, enjoy the savings for a while until your seals get fried and you have expensive service on your hands because you f-d it up.

 

[ORCRiST]

With gas climbing higher and higher all over the place due to the unrest in the Middle East, one alternative that a percentage of us have is to use E85, or ethanol fuel in our vehicles. The problem is that, at least in my area, the closest ethanol station is several miles away farther than the closest big town. I was thinking about this as I was running errands in town, and I believe the biggest reason you don't see more stations is due to the fact that fuel stations would have to add an extra undeground storage tank, which is rather costly. But, here's my thought--why not replace a slow-selling fuel line with E85?  When I thought about it, I had never pumped 89 octane fuel. Normally (at least here in the States), the standard is 87 octane fuel, with an 89 midrange, and a 91 high-range. Nobody ever really puts high-octane gas in their car unless they need to, and that's almost always 91. Also, 91 octane is always the fuel that is verified not to contain any ethanol in the first place.

My question is this:  Do you or have you ever had to buy 89 octane fuel?

I always get 89, simply for the fact that here in Minnesota at least - 87 and 89 octane costs the same.

 

[mayfly]

I thought 89 was half and half.

What he said.  There are only two tanks in the ground - premium and super low.  Everything else is a mix between the two.

Don't think stations would go for it.

Having said that, I've used ethanol in my car and Biodesel in the work sprinter van.  both work great.

 

[Graffiti62]

E85 turns out to be one of the better reasons for driving a bare-bones truck. Since the only folks who would want a V6 in a half-ton truck would be work fleets, they set the things up to run cheap, meaning running on ethanol, gasoline or even propane.

 

[crash]

87, 89, 92 octane is only 10% ethanol maximum. 

I'd rather subsidize local farmers than give it to people that want to kill us.  Remember, there are many subsidies for oil companies too.  Plus, factor in the cost of the US military, which is used mainly to protect our oil intrests across the globe.

 

[Watershed]

Where I am, we have 87, 89, and 92.
All three are 10% ethanol.
They are each about 10 cents more than the other.

I can't see any reason why anyone would buy 89.
If you don't need premium, then just get the 87.

I have been reading about guys running straight E85 and making good power with them.
Apparently, to do so requires that you run richer tan if you were running 93 though.
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1729586&highlight=e85

 

[Damon]

The point of higher octane is that it burns more slowy, preventing pre-ignition (knocking, where the compression alone detonates the fuel before the plug sparks), mostly in high compression engines or in very hot environments. You should run the lowest octane that you can without getting knocks. Higher octane fuels are actually less pure. The additives slow down the igintion rate for a more even burn under higher pressure. So running anything higher than you need ends up leaving more deposits in your engine from those additives because it's not burning off correctly, and also actually lowers your fuel effeciency, although possibly by so small an amount that you wouldn't notice just by dividing how much you drove since your last gas stop by how many gallons it took you to just fill up . You should always run the gas the manufacturer says to if you want best performance and longevity out of your engine. So Orc, if you car runs fine on 87, stop using 89. It might not cost you more at the pump, but it'll cost you more down the line when your engine needs an overhaul.

I live in the Phoenix area and it gets stupidly hot here in the summer. I've had cars in the past that, as they got older and more worn out, needed 89 octane in the summer to keep from knocking (The higher ambient temp can result in knocking because the heat generated from the compression triggers the boom). I also helped a friend rebuild a Fiero (yup, Fiero. Go ahead and chuckle) once upon a time which, after having the heads milled down a bit to up the compression, needed 89 to keep from knocking. Why 89? Because that was enough to do the job. 91 would have left more deposits.

 

[10maxpower01]

Let me preface this with stating the fact that I am in no way a car guy. BUT, I do enjoy math.  :icon_thumright:

I remember crunching the numbers a while back and coming to the conclusion that while E85 is cheaper at the pump, you do lose miles per gallon. This mpg loss is severe enough to, in fact, raise the amount you pay per mile.

Good for the environment, though.

 

[Dan025]

e85 works great in most fuel injected cars but milage suffers. in japan the military has the government pumps open to the base residents and the pumps supply e85 and jp-8(jet fuel for many modern jets) to keep costs down. the jp-8 is for diesel vehicles. my skyline was not a flex fuel vehicle and like every other gas car on base ran fine with e85. the whole flex fuel thing, well partially a gimmick and partially has to do with a different timming curve and fuel curve. a flex fuel engine will not loose as much milage with e85 as a conventional engine but wont get the full advantage of an engine built to only run on e85. at my shop we built a chevy 400 to go in a friends mustang. (sacrilage i know) it has 13.5:1 compression ratio, iron heads, a solid roller cam, and  victor junior intake with a carburator that had the idle circuits tuned for e85. on the dyno it made 605hp on e85 up from 580hp on race fuel! the reason it was built for e85 is that this is a street driven car and e58 is about $3.00 a gallon and race fuel is up to $8.00 a gallon. it was also built on a budget. we have made as much power on pump gas with better (aluminum) heads and less compression and custom cam grinds but for the money this engine was a homerun.

 

[Dan025]

Let me preface this with stating the fact that I am in no way a car guy. BUT, I do enjoy math.  :icon_thumright:

I remember crunching the numbers a while back and coming to the conclusion that while E85 is cheaper at the pump, you do lose miles per gallon. This mpg loss is severe enough to, in fact, raise the amount you pay per mile.

Good for the environment, though.

without modification you may be right, or may have been a few months ago but now gas is significantly more expensive that e85. also you can not tell with certainty how much milage you will loose. every car model is different, differnt fuel mapping, different compression ratio, different timming curves. also if you like to modify things advancing the intake camshaft will increase dynamic (true) compression ratio and advancing the ignition timing will increase cylinder pressure and millage. those are two mods that can be completed in any garage and are reversable. the timing curve may need special programming to the computer on obd2 cars. but most distributor equiped cars without a crank sensor and the cam sensor located in the distributor can be timed just like in the days before computers. as far as cam timing you will need adjustable gears in most cases but there are press on cam gears that can be removed and rotated and reinstalled on some car models. other car models can make use of offset woodruff keys and some models the use dowel pins can have a new dowel hole drilled using another tooth as reference or the origonal dowel hole can be enlarged and plugged with a plugs that have offset holes..

 

[OzziePete]

From an indepth discussion I had with a very knowledgeable bus mechanic at work on NYE (he actually has accreditation for aircraft engines and huge mining engines too)....I would not fuel a vehicle with anything containing ethanol UNLESS the car manufacturer's manual specifically states that that particular engine can handle ethanol to that level.

We have an E10 fuel that is cheaper at the pump available here in Australia, and folks are finding that their engines initally take to it, but it wears out all sorts of components (long term problems) within the engine fuel system if the whole engine wasn't designed for it and the engine tuned for it.

E85 'Flex' engines are made to handle the ethaol, a lot - or maybe even MOST - Australian engines are not.

My own car is a 2005 Ford Fiesta that has done over 240000 kilometres of mostly freeway travel and it loves a high octane lead free fuel (98 octane). High compression 1.6 litre engine. Wouldn't dare let E10 near it.

 

[AutoBat]

the ethanol % varies from state to state (in the US)  most stations in the cornbelt (midwest) already have 10% ethanol.
corporate branded shell stations are the only ones i'm aware of that don't use it.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Anyone ever noticed that if you pumped half a tank of 87 and half a tank of 91, you'd get 89 at a cheaper rate than if you bought just straight 89?

 

[Justinginn]

Try finding anything under 97 here. Once in a blue moon some old gas station will be pumping 94. That's as low as it ever gets.

 

[Dan025]

From an indepth discussion I had with a very knowledgeable bus mechanic at work on NYE (he actually has accreditation for aircraft engines and huge mining engines too)....I would not fuel a vehicle with anything containing ethanol UNLESS the car manufacturer's manual specifically states that that particular engine can handle ethanol to that level.

We have an E10 fuel that is cheaper at the pump available here in Australia, and folks are finding that their engines initally take to it, but it wears out all sorts of components (long term problems) within the engine fuel system if the whole engine wasn't designed for it and the engine tuned for it.

E85 'Flex' engines are made to handle the ethaol, a lot - or maybe even MOST - Australian engines are not.

My own car is a  that has done over 240000 kilometres of mostly freeway travel and it loves a high octane lead free fuel (98 octane). High compression 1.6 litre engine. Wouldn't dare let E10 near it.

i hate to argue with your knowledgable friend but "made to handle" something is very vague, now i do agree that long term use may be bad for the engine and i dont recomend storage with e85 in a non flexfuel car as i have seen what ethonol race fuels can do to an engine (holds moisture) but being that misawa air base provides it to residents numbering over 12000 meaning several thousand cars that are not and never were designed for e85 are running on it full time with no ill effects aside from less than optimal milage and lower running temperatures i think most of us are fine to put e85 in our non flex fuel vehicles. there is some fear that the ethenol is corosive to fuel system components but i never saw any fuel system problems caused by it. and there may also be cold start problems but i can say misawa is very cold in the winter and i never encountered an issue, just some rough idle on cold or rainy days but a higher heat range on the sparkplugs fixed that.

also 98octane is high for gasoline. just how high is the compression on that thing? not that that matters without knowing how the cam is phased and the ignition curve. judging from the horsepower numbers i see on the internet  there shouldn't be a need for 90+ octane unless these are lower speed higher efficientcy engines than seen in other countries. if austrailian engines need that kind of octane they seem like exactly the right type of engines to run on e85 which is about 105 octane. 

 

[lafromla1]

My truck says to use 89 as it has the Hemi engine.  Once in a while I'll put 91 for the added detergents that are in the fuel, but my fuel mileage decreases dramatically as I burn it up much faster..  I did use 87 once and it ran like crap.

 

[Superlizard]

100+ octane racing fuel FTW.