E85Forum.com

Ls2camaro

About Catalytic Convertor
I discussed with my good friend ( he is good mechanic) about E-85. He knows little about converting to E-85 from cheap gas I use on my "91 Camaro 305 TBI.
He recommend to remove the catalytic convertor then could be use E-85. It could cause the engine hot because of the exhaust enough not flow out on using mix cheap (grade 87) gas and E-85.
Is that true about do I need remove the catalytic convertor??

My camaro have bad heavy blue smoke when I start up to go to work. I see puffs a LOT of blue smoke. If I put some E-85 mix with the cheap gas, would be less smoke??? Very Happy

Thumpin455 · Joined: 04 Oct 2008 Posts: 227

Blue smoke is an indication that you are burning oil, either it is seeping past the rings or the valve seals. And with a small chevy it could be both very easily. If it is only when the car first starts it is probably seeping past the valve seals after the car is shut down, then when it is fired again it burns the oil that has accumulated on the back side of the valves or in the chamber.

Are you saying your friend does or does not know much about running E85?

The old pellet type cats shouldnt be affected by running E85 other than it probably wont get as hot since more of the fuel is actually burned in the engine and does work rather than heating parts. The cat is on there to burn the unburned fuel that came out of the engine, whereas there is vastly less unburned fuel coming out when you run ethanol, unless its is VERY rich.

A severely lean condition would cause the engine to run hot, but unlike gas, rich wont make it lose power or run too hot, unless you are really drowning it. Ethanol has different properties than gas, and it reacts differently to heat and combustion. What works good on gas isnt always the same on ethanol, and what works bad on gas might be a good thing for ethanol.
_________________
1970 Pontiac GeTOh 455 with a Qjet.
1998 Pontiac Formula LS1 on yeast pee.

skiracer · Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2010 9:40 pm Post subject:

I ran E85 for over 2 years and never had any colored smoke at all.
_________________
'06 Evo IX Stage 1 by RRE,Walbro 255lph fuel pump,RC Engineering1000cc Injectors, AVO exhaust,RRE flash, (325whp @ 22PSI 91 octane, 353whp @ 25psi on 100 octane, 383whp @30psi on E85),Zeitronix wideband/Ethanol Content Analyzer, Defi gauges

hotrod · Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 872 Location: Colorado

Leave the Cat in, the blue smoke is due to the engine burning oil as noted above, when the cat is not hot enough to "light off". Once the cat gets hot enough to work properly it will burn off the oil smoke and you will not see any.

If run excessively rich fuel air mixture any fuel (gasoline or E85) can over heat the cat, due to the cat burning off the excess fuel. It makes no difference if you switch to E85. E85 and a working Cat give very low emissions.

If I were you I would find the oil burning problem first before you worry about changing to E85. It might also mean you are running to light weight oil for your engine. One of my cars smokes a lot on 5W-30 but does not smoke at all on 10W-40.

Larry