E85 "Octane Booster"

[campbellju]

Does anyone have any knowledge or good links for using E85 as an ocatne booster. I was reading on scoobynet where some use 20% with an engine remap and get good results. I also read of people on other sites that used 5-10% instead of an octane booster.

Speke in Liverpool sells it so I was thinking of playing around with it.

Jim

 

[Thor]

Is these a good side for you??

http://raceone85.com

 

[PobodY]

E85 = 85% ethanol in petrol doesn't it?
Obviously you don't want to be running it neat if you haven't converted the car for it (damage to components that are expecting a non-polar solvent like petrol rather than the polar, and conductive, ethanol... so the fuel pump and any rubber, rather than silicone, seals). - I appreciate that's not what you're talking about though, and I would have thought that at 5-10% v/v you wouldn't see any of those problems.

For all I know most of the octane boosters are just E85 already; although I would have thought that they'd use something like toluene instead, but they're a propriatary mixture... I'd try to get some analysed, but that's not really the kind of work we do and it would just overwelm our instruments (which look for fuel contamination in soils... well, mine don't; they look for metals).

I don't think there's any harm in giving it a go. I'm wondering if the success of "raceon85" is based on the fact that's a cast iron, push-rod V8, which may not contain many exotic materials (like aloys) and probably already has "racing" fuel lines etc (which are probably more resistant to the fuel). - I also accept that there might be a certain amount of scaremongering about ethanol fuels, and that the real impact isn't really noticed for thousands of miles... like that argument about BOV where nobody actually notices the difference to the life of their turbo without it, but in theory they should. It might be a case of "try and see" because not every engine is the same.

 

[RO_SUNNY]

I have friends who have S2 Audi's running about 700-800 bhp that use only E85 fuel instead of regular 100 octane petrol.

In my country the price for E85 is almost 50% cheaper then regular petrol.

Here is a small video of a guy from Hungary who uses E85
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caXc6fQtXpw&feature=related

 

[campbellju]

Thanks for posting, I hadn't realised you are from Hungary!

I think as George has said, next time I'm passing through the garage that sells it I should buy a gallon and try it. At 5% level I'm less likely to have to mess with AFR's to compensate for the fuel.

I also think one of the members is developing a 100% E85 car so I'm watching that project with interest.

Jim

 

[RO_SUNNY]

Hi Jim..

Actually I am from Romania.....it's near Hungary (we are neighbors)
But a friend of mine wich has a 2.5 20v project wich will use E85 (only)

 

[RO_SUNNY]

So.......a few findings and things maked clear from my hungarian friends.
So E85 it's actually approx 80%ethanol and the rest until 100% regular petrol.
The burn temperature is smaller then regullar gas ...so therefore the tmperature from the fuel burn will be alot smaller then petrol.

But the mileage will be alittle bit bigger.......for example...if with petrol you will do 15 litres per 100 km with E85 you will do approx 19 litres per 100 km.
So....fuel consumption is 30% bigger (in theory)....but E85 is more cheaper and more reliable.
E85 chemical formula CH3-CH2-OH
Petrol chemical formula C8H18

So......E85 has oxigen and from here you have a bigger consumption......but better performance and lower temperature
Less temperature -->less problems

 

[PobodY]

So.......a few findings and things maked clear from my hungarian friends.
So E85 it's actually approx 80%ethanol and the rest until 100% regular petrol.

Not quite - it's 85% ethanol (hence the name E85) and 15% petroleum spirits (or "other").

E85 chemical formula CH3-CH2-OH
Petrol chemical formula C8H18

Again, close; ethanol has the formular CH3-CH2(OH) or commonly Et.OH
iso-Octane (aka trimethylpentane) has the formular CH8H18 or (CH3)3-C-CH2-CH-(CH3)2 (CH3-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH3 would be 'plain' octane), but petrol isn't just iso-octane (in fact it probably contains very little of it).

There's a lot of toluene (C6H11-CH3) - I can't draw a benzene ring, but it's usually refered to as phenyl so: Ph-CH3 (~30%).
Maybe some benzene C6H12 (~5%), maybe some xylene Ph-(CH3)2
Maybe some polyaromatics like napthalene (~1%), maybe some shorter compounds like hexane, cyclohexane...
Anyway, it's a complex mixture of hydrocarbons that have boiling points (and molecular masses) within set parameters (this is where you can get different petroleum spirits, by picking the boiling point ranges).
The mixture changes from refininery to refinery, and from month to month because they change the mixture to help with cold starting in winter, and less ping in summer.

Petrol can contain something like 5% ethanol as a naturally occuring additive anyway (it can even be added to this level under EU spec EN 228); it's only when it gets above ~10% that it might be flagged as an ethanol containing fuel.

EDIT: I'm not not trying to criticise you - it's just that I'm a chemist, so I'm trying to be helpful.

 

[geoff pine]

The big question is at was percentage do you need to start to worry about the integrity of your fuel deliver system :spy:

 

[stumo]

Petrol can contain something like 5% ethanol as a naturally occuring additive anyway (it can even be added to this level under EU spec EN 228); it's only when it gets above ~10% that it might be flagged as an ethanol containing fuel.

All the fuel from Stanlow refinery now contains 5%Ethanol and has done since October last year.

 

[campbellju]

I guess that includes optimax then? Was this about the same time when optimax went from 98ron to 99Ron?

Looks like 1/2 gallon to a gallon per tank would be normal and might be a cheap octane booster.

 

[PobodY]

It makes sense that Shell would be adding ethanol to the EU limit really; that's a interesting bit of info Stu.

Maybe that's how they make the octane up in the optimax; as we established early in the thread, 5% is not a large amount of the fuel and it has an octane rating of over a hundred (110 was it?). - The next step would be to try 10% I'd guess.

 

[RO_SUNNY]

Not quite - it's 85% ethanol (hence the name E85) and 15% petroleum spirits (or "other").
Again, close; ethanol has the formular CH3-CH2(OH) or commonly Et.OH
iso-Octane (aka trimethylpentane) has the formular CH8H18 or (CH3)3-C-CH2-CH-(CH3)2 (CH3-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH3 would be 'plain' octane), but petrol isn't just iso-octane (in fact it probably contains very little of it).

There's a lot of toluene (C6H11-CH3) - I can't draw a benzene ring, but it's usually refered to as phenyl so: Ph-CH3 (~30%).
Maybe some benzene C6H12 (~5%), maybe some xylene Ph-(CH3)2
Maybe some polyaromatics like napthalene (~1%), maybe some shorter compounds like hexane, cyclohexane...
Anyway, it's a complex mixture of hydrocarbons that have boiling points (and molecular masses) within set parameters (this is where you can get different petroleum spirits, by picking the boiling point ranges).
The mixture changes from refininery to refinery, and from month to month because they change the mixture to help with cold starting in winter, and less ping in summer.

Petrol can contain something like 5% ethanol as a naturally occuring additive anyway (it can even be added to this level under EU spec EN 228); it's only when it gets above ~10% that it might be flagged as an ethanol containing fuel.

EDIT: I'm not not trying to criticise you - it's just that I'm a chemist, so I'm trying to be helpful.

Cheers mate.
No offence taken......actually I am really glad that you came up with some explanation....I was in a foggy situation (I didn't really understod what this E85 was all about)) )

 

[PobodY]

I know I can get a bit carried away, but it really is quite hard to nail down what's in petroleum spirits (which is essentially the crude oil split we use). Interestingly gasoline should technically be a lamp fuel (although nobody uses gasoline lamps any more) as it's not the same as petrol, but that's what called in the Americas. - From the perspective of the company I work for, we look at the a split of carbon chain lengths (C6-C12 or something like that) but it's really more like boiling between 20 and 80 degrees. There's a set number of compounds that can boil in that range (and they're pretty much C6-C12), but as to the ratios; who knows?
Those ratios are how you can fingerprint fuels; just like on CSI etc... but don't get me started on that.
I can't remember if AVGAS is a narrower cut, but I think the specification is just for a lower vapour pressure (so that it doesn't vapour-lock the plane engine at altitude).
As you get further up the boiling points (and carbon chains) you get other fuels like petroleum distillate (diesel), then various oils, and eventually what remains is bitumen.

I got a bit off topic, but the gist of it is that not only does the content of petrol change depending on the oil you use, but also by how it has been blended to give the desired characteristics; RON, easy starting, etc... and if the refinery can do it by adding something cheap (like ethanol, they will.

 

[shroom]

so red diesel aint no good :lol:

 

[stumo]

so red diesel aint no good :lol:

Not in an R.

In yer JCB it's fine!:roll:

 

[campbellju]

Sasha fowarded me some useful information on this:

http://www.e85.biz/index.php?page=149

He also sent me a large report across US car manufacturers that was saying 10-15% was okay and Porsche even suggested as high as 30%!

if I tried a 10% mix on top of my normal E5 petrol I'd end up with something similar to an E15. Given staraight petrol is meant to have an AFR of 14.7:1, what would an E15 need? So if I'm targetting a 12.2AFR normally, what would that equate to a 12. 0:1 with E15?

Anyone got any experience?

 

[PobodY]

Sorry to dig-up this thread again, but I was watching that "Road to Le Mans" - they were running a bio-ethanol powered Aston Martin (the show seems like it should really be called "Lord Drayson fancies being a racing driver, so we're indulging him").

The short version is that in this episode the fuel had corroded parts of the intake system (the trumpets maybe), and jammed them open. - Yes they sorted it out in the long-run, but it does got to show you that E85 might have unforeseen effects even in a car that has been built to run it.

I don't think you'd see these problems if you blended your own mix, but it's documented proof that the claimed risks of running it neat aren't just scaremongering.

 

[campbellju]

Thanks George. interesting.

 

[stumo]

I don't know much about Ethanol but if you want to use Methanol (as in a drag car etc) you have to get Methanol proof seals etc as it attacks the normal rubber that's used ( i think you have to use Viton rubber )

I guess Methanol is like Ethanol as it's spelt the same 'cept someone's added a M.


edit. AVGAS is pretty poor for making power compared to modern race fuels. It was originally developed for high altitude planes and as such is made for slow revving engines. It was used years ago (in cars and bikes etc) cos it was the only way to get high octane fuel.