[BlackbeastSS2]

Making your own E85 when it’s not available or close by.

I ordered a 30 gallon drum of E85 today because my area does not have any E85 close by. The nearest Speedway Gas Station is 2 hours 11 mins away.

So other then filling up my 5 gallon jugs for track runs has anyone thought or maybe has already looked into making their own E85. I have started to explore this but would like some input on this topic.

[s346k]

storage (ethanol & corn) and security would be the biggest hassles, i think. have to own at least an acre of land in the right area.

from what i understand you can make up to 4k gallons a year (personal use) without a license or any kind of documentation. even the little stills will make ~1 gallon an hour. you could only run it less than part time to stay out of the legal mumbo jumbo. it would be a job.

[KingLT1]

It would be a hassle imo. I would just order a 55 gallon drum of E98 and mix it 50/50 with pump 93. All you need is 40-60% ethanol to get good octane and gains. 85+% is gaining you very little power and putting a lot more strain on the fuel system which usually isn't a issue on NA cars. Either way you can mix it down to make the drum go further and still get most of the benefits of running it.

[BlackbeastSS2]

Next dyno I will run a E40 and then E85 and see how much difference it makes. If it’s marginal then I will mix the E85 to make it go further. No hassle here, I am retired and like doing things like this.

[khcoaching]

Originally Posted by BlackbeastSS2

Next dyno I will run a E40 and then E85 and see how much difference it makes. If it’s marginal then I will mix the E85 to make it go further. No hassle here, I am retired and like doing things like this.

I have not set my SS 1LE to run run flex fuel yet, but I am liking the mixing plan.

With my 2019 Coyote 5.0, it made no difference between E40 and E85....

Ken

[BlackbeastSS2]

Originally Posted by khcoaching

I have not set my SS 1LE to run run flex fuel yet, but I am liking the mixing plan.

With my 2019 Coyote 5.0, it made no difference between E40 and E85....

Ken

Good to know, thanks.

[17MaroSS]

Where can I get a drum of e85?

[KingLT1]

Originally Posted by BlackbeastSS2

Next dyno I will run a E40 and then E85 and see how much difference it makes. If it’s marginal then I will mix the E85 to make it go further. No hassle here, I am retired and like doing things like this.

Look up RPM's youtube channel. NA SS H/C car picks up 26whp on E37, then only made like 4-5whp more on E70 which is what the pump produced. Either way I would dyno it anyway just to see what it does on your combination.

I know on my car, E40, 11psi peak, 18 degrees of timing traps 136 in the 1/4mi on Dragy vs E65, 9psi peak, 20 degrees of timing which traps 134 on Dragy. I have also tried different blends from E40 to E65 on the lower boost pulley and didn't see much difference in trap speed on Dragy. Which is why I proceeded to up the boost and lower the E content to keep the fuel system happy.

The biggest thing is the smell...it doesn't start to smell like E85 until E60. E40 still has the gas stench and the exhaust tips get black faster. That is the only thing I don't like about lower E content. Otherwise E40 still is 100+ octane fuel...especially when blending with E98...might be more like 102 octane.

[BlackbeastSS2]

Yeah I miss that no smell E85 compared to pump 93 with no cats. I did E85 on my 2016 but like u said it rarely got near 85 proof. The drum I bought when it gets delivered I will test it to see the strength. Either way E85 does make more power then pump and that’s what I want. Plus get rid of the 93 toxic smell. If I was not running E85 in my 2016 I could see the people quickly bail from behind me. Lol

[Trochoidal]

Originally Posted by BlackbeastSS2

Making your own E85 when it’s not available or close by.

I ordered a 30 gallon drum of E85 today because my area does not have any E85 close by. The nearest Speedway Gas Station is 2 hours 11 mins away.

So other then filling up my 5 gallon jugs for track runs has anyone thought or maybe has already looked into making their own E85. I have started to explore this but would like some input on this topic.

I’ve thought about it and have had a couple conversations with 2 people that would also be interested. We concluded it’s probably is not feasible.

One tank per week for the year would require roughly 1000 gallon yield. The initial batches would be based on geographic location. Equipment and processing would be one heck of an investment. I’d also approach someone already in the business but don’t have a clue what kind of money they would want to grow and harvest.

It’s appealing but as mentioned the better choice is to get a drum and mix it to desired proportions.

[BlackbeastSS2]

Okay after the above people made a lot of sense with just mixing it to lower the E % I did some digging and found two statement that is bang on IMO.

Found this Ethanol Fuel Mixture Calculator in order to make any % needed.

https://www.getmtuned.com/ethanol-fu...ure-calculator

Found this:
“I was watching a video series from The Tuning School in which the tested several different fuels in a supercharged C7 (93, E85, Ms103, c9, c85, etc) and they stated that when using ethanol that anything above E40-E50 had negligible gains as far as power goes. Rather than take that as gospel I wanted to see if anybody else seen this in their experience/dyno testing?”


Found this:
“ScottyBG , 01-31-2017 09:27 PM
TECH Enthusiast
Yes I agree with that 100%. I run my car on E70. I'm running 15 lbs of boost and 19 degrees of timing. I've tried from E65 through E85, with no noticeable difference in performance. The advantage of E85, is pump and don't worry about mixing. The advantage of running E70 vs E85, is it lowers demands on the fuel system, and you get a little better mileage. E70 is made by mixing 1 gallon of premium gasoline (E10) with 4 gallons of E85. The driver for me doing this was this, I buy my E85 from Speedway, and it is often lower than E85 in the winter. I've tested it as low as about 73%. If you have the car tuned on E70 and you get fuel that tests 85% out of the pump you can always drop it to E70 with a little gasoline, it is usually right there beside the E85 on the same pump. If you have your car tuned to E85, and the E85 tests 72% that day there is nothing you can do about it, your just going to be running rich. Not the end of the world, but not optimum tuning. I made 714 RWHP on the E70, with an unlocked converter on the stock LS1 bottom end. So far so good, its lasted almost a week so far.

In the hottest part of summer, and running high inlet air temps the E85 may make a more noticeable difference, because of the higher fueling requirements, it will cool the intake charge a little more. When summer comes around I may go to strait E85, it can be done simply by changing the stoich from 10.7 down to 9.8. E70 and E85 are close enough that any difference in the timing and VE tables will be negligible. I wouldn't feel that way going from like E40 to E85 though, I'd need to retune it to verify that big of a difference in E content.”

[cmitchell17]

I've been experimenting with blends trying to find the minimum ethanol percentage I can run with zero knock sensor triggering. This has been on my L9H however and its got to be at least 55% or you will get knock. I tried swapping to LS7/LS9 colder range spark plugs as well with no difference, the L9H loves to knock, of course the LT1 is a lot more resistant to knock.

On my LT1 I just run full E85 because I don't want to have to worry about blending it and have no way to know what the percentage is at since the only way I can tell is through HPT on the laptop.

I have always had a long time goal of making biodiesel and/or ethanol, I imagine it would be a very steep learning curve and lots of time investment before you could get good enough yields to start actually probably breaking even.

I know what everyone says about the alcohol percentage vs power increase is non-linear but in theory the alcohol percentage should correlate linearly with power increase as the fuel mixture is richened up with more alcohol added, more fuel is being burned burned, the problem is the alcohol doesn't have the same energy density as gasoline, but overall the ethanol slightly wins out. If ethanol and gas had the same energy density you would theoretically get almost 30-40% more power since you end up burning about that much more.

Yes I know you could be knock limited and not be running MBT timing, but I think people way overexaggerate the effect of subtracting timing has on output. There is a combustion research paper somewhere, I can't remember the exact number, but I think it was less than 1% torque loss from 5-7 degrees retarded from MBT. Of course though the torque loss increases exponentially after that and we don't really know what MBT timing is besides the tables in the tune files.

[KingLT1]

Originally Posted by BlackbeastSS2

Okay after the above people made a lot of sense with just mixing it to lower the E % I did some digging and found two statement that is bang on IMO.

Found this Ethanol Fuel Mixture Calculator in order to make any % needed.

https://www.getmtuned.com/ethanol-fu...ure-calculator

Found this:
“I was watching a video series from The Tuning School in which the tested several different fuels in a supercharged C7 (93, E85, Ms103, c9, c85, etc) and they stated that when using ethanol that anything above E40-E50 had negligible gains as far as power goes. Rather than take that as gospel I wanted to see if anybody else seen this in their experience/dyno testing?”


Found this:
“ScottyBG , 01-31-2017 09:27 PM
TECH Enthusiast
Yes I agree with that 100%. I run my car on E70. I'm running 15 lbs of boost and 19 degrees of timing. I've tried from E65 through E85, with no noticeable difference in performance. The advantage of E85, is pump and don't worry about mixing. The advantage of running E70 vs E85, is it lowers demands on the fuel system, and you get a little better mileage. E70 is made by mixing 1 gallon of premium gasoline (E10) with 4 gallons of E85. The driver for me doing this was this, I buy my E85 from Speedway, and it is often lower than E85 in the winter. I've tested it as low as about 73%. If you have the car tuned on E70 and you get fuel that tests 85% out of the pump you can always drop it to E70 with a little gasoline, it is usually right there beside the E85 on the same pump. If you have your car tuned to E85, and the E85 tests 72% that day there is nothing you can do about it, your just going to be running rich. Not the end of the world, but not optimum tuning. I made 714 RWHP on the E70, with an unlocked converter on the stock LS1 bottom end. So far so good, its lasted almost a week so far.

In the hottest part of summer, and running high inlet air temps the E85 may make a more noticeable difference, because of the higher fueling requirements, it will cool the intake charge a little more. When summer comes around I may go to strait E85, it can be done simply by changing the stoich from 10.7 down to 9.8. E70 and E85 are close enough that any difference in the timing and VE tables will be negligible. I wouldn't feel that way going from like E40 to E85 though, I'd need to retune it to verify that big of a difference in E content.”

What he says is correct and mimics what I said in my previous post. but on these cars there is no tuning for a specific amount of E. With a flex sensor tune the ECU will adjust the tune on the fly for whatever percent Ethanol is in the system..so you don't have to worry about hitting a specific percent Everytime you mix it. That is what makes blending E on these cars so easy.

[KingLT1]

Originally Posted by cmitchell17

I've been experimenting with blends trying to find the minimum ethanol percentage I can run with zero knock sensor triggering. This has been on my L9H however and its got to be at least 55% or you will get knock. I tried swapping to LS7/LS9 colder range spark plugs as well with no difference, the L9H loves to knock, of course the LT1 is a lot more resistant to knock.

On my LT1 I just run full E85 because I don't want to have to worry about blending it and have no way to know what the percentage is at since the only way I can tell is through HPT on the laptop.

I have always had a long time goal of making biodiesel and/or ethanol, I imagine it would be a very steep learning curve and lots of time investment before you could get good enough yields to start actually probably breaking even.

I know what everyone says about the alcohol percentage vs power increase is non-linear but in theory the alcohol percentage should correlate linearly with power increase as the fuel mixture is richened up with more alcohol added, more fuel is being burned burned, the problem is the alcohol doesn't have the same energy density as gasoline, but overall the ethanol slightly wins out. If ethanol and gas had the same energy density you would theoretically get almost 30-40% more power since you end up burning about that much more.

Yes I know you could be knock limited and not be running MBT timing, but I think people way overexaggerate the effect of subtracting timing has on output. There is a combustion research paper somewhere, I can't remember the exact number, but I think it was less than 1% torque loss from 5-7 degrees retarded from MBT. Of course though the torque loss increases exponentially after that and we don't really know what MBT timing is besides the tables in the tune files.

That doesn't make a lick of sense. The L9H is 10.5:1 compression...it shouldn't knock on any amount of E or something is off in the flex tune. It's adding too much spark for the amount of E content or something. Especially if it doesn't knock on 93 pump gas. E40 is still 100 octane.