E85Forum.com

imprezarsc · Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 87

Hey guys. I'm working on a "v2.0" for my E85 work at www.gt-labs.net

What I'm looking out for are different tests, upgrades, and changes involved in getting different vehicles to run on E85. It's more like a compilation of parts and tuning for different cars to run high ethanol content fuels. My subie, for instance, just needed a fuel pump and a fuel pressure tweak. A Mitsu GSX in town needed all new fuel line and injectors to do it. SpecialGreen's bike had his PCV (plastic) connectors go bad after a few years. It's these little ins and outs that I'm looking at documenting and turning into a spreadsheet.

The litmus tests come into play by testing the parts in the presence of E85. Soaking different manufacturers fuel lines in e85 to test for swelling is one test. I put up on my conversion site, my own test with synthetic and dino oils in E85.

Anyone that has ideas for these tests or little "nick-nacks" that came in handy, please chime in here.
_________________
http://www.grantouringlabs.com My ethanol conversion and tuning site.

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

sounds like a useful project:

2002 Subaru WRX with 2.0 L engine, 5MT transmission (car used at 5800 ft altitude)

<33% E85 no modifications needed, car throws CEL for "too lean" if fuel mix contains too much E85, but will run fine with the CEL on up to about 50% E85.

>= 50% probably the practical upper limit for no modification use.

<100%>33% E85.
Swap stock 420 cc/min injectors for 550 cc injectors intended for the 2.0 L STi (Japanese , Aus or UK versions)
Swap fuel pump to Walbro 255 L/hr high flow pump, Not manditory but recommended.

No problems detected in 2 years regarding fuel lines, fuel filters or rubber fuel hoses or O rings on injectors etc.

Car runs fine on any fuel mix from about 33% E85 to 100% E85. Will run with brief, slight surging during open loop / closed loop fueling crossover on straight gasoline. Open loop /closed loop crossover occurs at moderate high throttle near 5000 rpm. This is a minor annoyance. Car cruises very nicely at light throttle on any fuel mix, and drives well at low throttle openings in town on any fuel mix.

Crush fuel pressure regulator to raise base fuel pressure to ~ 50 psi. Not manditory but recommended.

Run no more than 85% E85 in the winter time for cold weather starting in very cold weather ( ie < +10 deg F)

Other options available include several different aftermarket tuning solutions Including at least these two:

Using a TXS Utec piggy back
Using an Ecutek ECU reflash calibrated for E85.

Larry

imprezarsc · Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 87

_______|Fuel pump|Gas tank|Fuel Line|Fuel Hose|O-rings|Injectors|ECU|
Make
--Model
_______

How about something in spreadsheet form? Portability of the document is important. So is ease of use and reading. There's only so many parts in an efi system anyway. From reading much of what you have here, most vehicles could fit such a layout pretty easily. Manufacturer's vehicle and chassis codes will also have something in common. It's still just a car. I believe all these tweaks will have some kind of link between a factory's cars and high ethanol content fuel. A furthering common link is to look at a vehicle's government emissions rating. My Subie has an NLEV certification, just like Hotrods. For some reason google pulls up this stuff better than the EPA's own site. Look at how many cars could very likely be able to run ethanol fuel with some minor tweaks. How many of them use "the walbro 255 fuel pump" or Bosch's equivalent?

http://www.epa.gov/air/caa/caa241.txt

Hidden in the rules was where I think this stuff is. The Clean Air Act lays out a lot....almost everything except HOW to build it. I'm not sure how many people make that connection at all, either. If all the manufacturers have to abide by that ruleset, then all the manufacturers have something in common. More of those commonalities come out in the parts they use. "Joe Consumer" didn't do it first in this case. 'Ole Joe has to backtrack a bit Wink

. But, "where to go still" confuses me while walking in Joe's shoes...

A walbro 255 fuel pump seems very common among japanese vehicles. This same walbro 255 in my n/a and hotrod's turbo subies also works for toyota supras, rx7's, and mr2's. What gives? Do GM, chrysler, and ford all have one in common? Other chassis, I believe chrysler and mitsu, might both share some of the same issues.

C/N--I'd like to be able to clarify to some extent what is a pain to change or fix and what isn't. I think a lot of it already is layed out for us, we just have to sniff it out.
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http://www.grantouringlabs.com My ethanol conversion and tuning site.

imprezarsc · Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 87

Something like this was what I was thinking of so late into the night Smile

.

www.gt-labs.net/notes/ethanolcars.wks

If there's just a set of links to follow to stuff that's already made, akin to what the EPA already laid out for us. It's not so much a matter of being lazy as much as just sniffing the trail. Those are the rules such a bit of "swapping" or enginerding would have to meet anyway. In the ruleset, "manufacturers" are any entity who participates in such a venture. That can mean anybody. That doesn't HAVE to be Chevy, Ford, Mitsubishi, or whoever. It can be you. But, if you swapped a few different factory's parts then you're not manufacturing anything other than a unique piece of work or skilled labor.

What I get stuck on, is if "the little country mouse" uses factory parts or something out of a catalog warranted for use in this kind of application. What is country mouse really engineering that someone didn't do already? If someone else made it, they jumped through these hoops already. Country mouse is left with nuts, bolts, and maybe the same common sense that got him into this mess :p.

It continue to amazes me how much might already be done for us and we don't even see it.
_________________
http://www.grantouringlabs.com My ethanol conversion and tuning site.

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

Can't open your :

www.gt-labs.net/notes/ethanolcars.wks

file, can you export it as comma delimited or another more generic format.

Larry

imprezarsc · Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 87

www.gt-labs.net/notes/ethanolcars.txt

www.gt-labs.net/notes/ethanolcars.csv

Try these Smile

. I don't know what spreadsheet format would be best. Any ideas? I don't have office and was shooting for the most generic webfile I could make. .mdb files are pretty common but I still don't have MSoffice.
_________________
http://www.grantouringlabs.com My ethanol conversion and tuning site.

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

Actually I prefer plain text files myself, unless you have to do computation on the fields.

I do not have Excel either, If I have to mess with a spread sheet I use Corel Quattro pro. I can view the Excel formats using the free viewer Microsoft has available so if you want a universal format then a reasonably recent excel format should be supported by most anything.

The beauty of text files is:

Any body can read them
They are very flexible so you can put all sorts of odd comments and notations with the data but still preserve a column format for most of the data.
You can easily cut and past data.

It's been my experience that you never know exactly what you need until you enter a few dozen records and see what it looks like, what pieces of data are missing you wished you included in the beginning, and what length fields you need for each data category.

I fall in the KISS school of data processing. Power point and spreadsheets formats have given me more fits than any other file type that I can think off.

The other possiblity would be to prepare it any way you want but post it up as a PDF file.

Old fashioned HTML will be handled by just about any platform that can see your site so that would be another lowest common denominator approach.

Larry

Revision · Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 194 Location: Carol Stream, IL

Here is something I found in the latest Popular Mechanics - 2006 Feb page 104.

You'll want to add it to your litmus tests. Someone else was asking about it in another post..

----

Its a home hardware method of measuring the ethanol level in fuel.

I'll paraphrase to avoid the whole copyright issue.

1) Take a tall glass like a highball glass. ( or a chemistry graduated cylinder)
2) Fill 1/3 with regular antifreeze (article specifies ethylene glycol based)
3) Mark height of antifreeze on glass. (please note that the antifreeze tends to climb the glass so you should measure at the lowest level as it curves. Try Google for more info: meniscus)
4) Add the same amount of your test fuel to the glass.
5) DO NOT SHAKE
6) Cover the top of the glass and gently mix by inverting it.
7) Let stand to let the mixture separate again. (about an hour)
8 ) If the level of coolant goes up 10% then its regular gas with 10% ethanol in it. If it goes up 85% then its E85.. Etc.

The coolant will apparently absorb the ethanol in the mixture, but the total volume stays the same so you can use the height of the greenish coolant as a measure of the change.

Dispose of mixture by letting it stand in a shallow tray away from animals until it evaporates.

edit: Thinking back, I think Hotrod posted something similar a while back...

imprezarsc · Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 87

I added a similar one to see the effects of E85 in the oil. It watered down the dino oil and the synthetic actually stayed oily but looked clear. Weird. I'm getting an oil analysis done soon. Those results should be interesting.
_________________
http://www.grantouringlabs.com My ethanol conversion and tuning site.

imprezarsc · Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 87

Bump! I figured it was as good a time as any to add these features. I'll update the links in the index when I get home. The .htm needs to be a .html

The upgrade table and reader's rides section are meant to work together. Submit your car's information with the following info and what you modded. You'll also be hotlinked to the reader's ride section from this table if you'd like. The table is meant to be a simple guide as to what worked with ethanol and what didn't. The reader's rides section lets you go into more detail about what you might have changed, since you the reader are submitting the info. For example, old school DSM's supposedly need new Fuel tanks + lines, but no one has independantly confirmed it. I've got a line filled in for my Impreza RS and hotrod's WRX. He also has a few older Subie's he's trying it on. There's a Honda CRX here trying it out with engine management, and there's a Ford Mustang now running on it too. All of you are encouraged to contribute. There is no way I could independantly test all of this stuff. Part of the grassroots movement with ethanol is all of you fellow garage tinkerers doing your own work. This might not be the final layout of this table, either. Feel free to add comments, but remember the table is supposed to be kept simple.

Write to gary@gt-labs.net with the following info and you'll be added to the chart. Link to your carster or CarDomain account if you have one, too. Submit a short article for your car if you'd like. Feel free to reply here with the info, too. No worries Smile

.

Please include:

-Make (alpha)
-Year (####)
-Model (alpha)
-Engine Description (####cc)
-Fuel Injectors Y/N (###cc)
-Fuel Filter (Y/N)
-Fuel Pump (Y/N)
-Fuel Lines (Y/N)
-Fuel Hose (Y/N)
-Fuel Tank (Y/N)
-Injector O-rings (Y/N)
-ECU (Y/N)1
-Readers Rides Submission? Y/N
-....aaaaaaannnndddd, your article for RR Smile

.

Upgrade table

http://www.gt-labs.net/conversionchart.htm

Reader's Rides

http://www.gt-labs.net/readersrides.html

There's a few minor details about the chart I need to mention. The Injector compatability section is a "Y/N" option. The injector size you might have replaced them with is listed next to it in the same column. That is the single most common mod for ethanol. Material compatability is becoming less and less of an issue for most cars. That section looks to see if you had to increase your injector volume.

Cars with the same chassis codes should share the same necessary parts upgrades (theoretically.)

A few trends that should become common once the tbale is more full:

-Heavily modded cars will likely have larger injectors installed already or done so soon to handle more volume. This is specific to the vehicle and it's associated mods (boost, nitrous, etc...) That's why you have a Reader's Rides section to explain more details.

-Stock cars will likely not show an injector change or ECU retune. Even your bone-stock grocery getter or commuter that runs ethanol will be covered here.
_________________
http://www.grantouringlabs.com My ethanol conversion and tuning site.

imprezarsc · Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 87

I can't edit the old post for some reason.

The updated links are:

Conversion table
http://www.gt-labs.net/conversionchart.html

Readers Rides
http://www.gt-labs.net/readersrides.html

Blog

http://www.gt-labs.net/index.php

Please include:

-Make (alpha)
-Year (####)
-Model (alpha)
-Horsepower (####hp)
-Engine Description (####cc)
-Injector size (###cc)
-Injector O-rings (Y/N)
-Fuel Filter (Y/N)
-Fuel Pump (Y/N)
-Fuel Lines (Y/N)
-Fuel Hose (Y/N)
-Fuel Tank (Y/N)
-ECU (Y/N)
-E10-E30 (stock) (Y/N)
-E30-E100 (higher concentration) (Y/N)
-Readers Rides Submission? (Y/N)
-your article for RR.
-your cardomain/carster links.

***(Y/N) is asking if you still use the stock parts. Details for changing anything are kept in the readers rides section.

It was tossed around as to what was better: asking what was changed or what still worked. We went with the latter. 6 of 1 or 1/2 dozen of the other. As long as the semantics were clarified, I think we're good.
_________________
http://www.grantouringlabs.com My ethanol conversion and tuning site.

Revision · Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 194 Location: Carol Stream, IL

Yes means it is compatible and has not been replaced?
Or does it mean Yes you've replace it?
Or yes you've tested it for E85?

I'm usng: No it hasn't been replaced. Yes, I've changed it.

-Make Subaru
-Year 2005
-Model Impreza WRX
-Horsepower (?hp) Unknown, need to get on a dyno
-Engine Description (1999cc) I think
-Injector size (420cc) Stock
-Injector O-rings (N) Stock
-Fuel Filter (N) Stock
-Fuel Pump (N) Stock
-Fuel Lines (N) Stock
-Fuel Hose (N) Stock
-Fuel Tank (N) Stock
-ECU (Y) Stock, flashed with Street Tuner
-E10-E30 (stock) (Y) Ran fine on the Stock ECU
-E30-E100 (higher concentration) (Y) Ran fine at reduced boost to E85 with ECU reflashed.
-Readers Rides Submission? (N) Not submitted yet.
-your article for RR: Using Street Tuner to reduce the boost to wastegate levels @8psi. Running E85 with 90% injector duty cycle and about 11.5:1 AFR (gasoline scale) using near stock timing except for adding 2 degrees of advance at the higher load points. This is still in testing and will continue in the spring. Only power mods are an uppipe and turboback with cat. Also waiting for new version of Street Tuner which will have a badly needed table for coolant temp based cold start enrichment.

imprezarsc · Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 87

I kinda wondered where phrasing might get me in trouble Wink

.

Y/N simple asks if the stock materials are compatable. From a budget standpoint, I figured people would only replace what wasn't compatable. I'll fix your entries and refine my monologue Wink

. Thanks for the submission and I should have it up by tonight.
_________________
http://www.grantouringlabs.com My ethanol conversion and tuning site.

imprezarsc · Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 87

It'll be up in a few minutes, Rev. Sorry I'm late Wink

.
_________________
http://www.grantouringlabs.com My ethanol conversion and tuning site.

imprezarsc · Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 87

Bump! Just added a 170k mile Caprice and a 221k mile 1988 Honda Accord.

who's next? Wink

Gary
_________________
http://www.grantouringlabs.com My ethanol conversion and tuning site.