Domer911

wanna see how politics influences fuel content? Click on Oklahoma!

zanwar

Corn used as feedstock for ethanol isn't food that's fit for humans. It's the cheapest starch on the planet. It would otherwise be used as animal feed, but nature didn't evolve cows and pigs to eat it either. If agricultural subsidies could promote the growing of fruits and veggies we'd all be better off. Could they grow wine grapes and olives in Iowa?

paddyh

Not the farmers. More likely ADM Corp

Fred2

Holy Cow!

384 to NJ's 0

Macster

Upping the ethanol content of gasoline will not improve gas mileage. Just the opposite.

Ethanol contains less energy than gasoline. Also, the ideal air/fuel ratio that works best when burning ethanol requires more fuel, the ratio being closer to 7:1 vs. 13:1.

So it takes more ethanol to make the same amount of power and more ethanol to supply the engine with the ideal air/fuel ratio. You can kiss better fuel consumption goodbye.

Oxygenated (MTBE at first but later ethanol) was introduced to help older cars with carburetors run cleaner by carrying in oxygen (in the form of MBTE or ethanol) so during combustion and after there would be more oxygen to effect cleaner combustion and cleaner exhaust.

With modern cars and precisely controlled fuel injection all ethanol does is increase the oxygen content of the exhaust gas which is detected by the O2 sensors which adds more fuel which hurts fuel consumption.

Of course all of this means more fuel is consumed that it would be otherwise, so more oil has to be produced, more oil has to shipped/piped/rail car'd, more oil has to be refined, and combined with ethanol which of course brings its own negatives to the picture, and this has to trucked to the gas stations.

Overall the (at least) several percentage points of poorer fuel economy over the millions of vehicles that have to run this ethanol blended gasoline adds insult to injury.

Sincerely,

Macster.

ScorpionT

In my earlier posts I explained how emissions can be improved by increasing the compression ratio and using forced induction. When paired with DFI systems, significant gains would be seen (as they allow for a leaner mixture than MPFI).

E85 has a stoichiometric ratio of approx 9.5:1, straight ethanol is 9:1. Vehicles designed to use ethanol based fuel will compensate for the change in fuel type, and not just dump fuel in an attempt to achieve a near stoich ratio.

997_rich

Not only does it contain less energy than gasoline, it also takes more energy to produce. When looking at the eco impact of something like this the entire lifecycle is quantified. That means the energy to drill, transport, refine oil is all quantified. That also means the energy to create seed, plant, water, harvest, mash, and refine the corn alcohol is also quantified. Most impartial scientists agree that it requires about 1/3 more energy to get a gallon of corn alcohol than a gallon of gasoline. Citing the not exactly impartial NPR here but if you'd expect anyone to support corn fuel it'd be them.

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/21/132082...turn-the-favor


In addition I have a 2006 ducati with a mildly warped fuel tank because I can't get 100% gasoline in the 5 states I'm in on a weekly basis (NY, NJ, CT, RI, MA). Ducati is replacing fuel tanks under warranty but it's not really worth it to buy one just to watch it warp again. Stabil will not help with this as my friend went through the warranty tank and used stabil with no avail.


Scorpion T, I think everyone agrees that there is quite often room to improve the efficiency in almost any engine. However, when dealing with energy you can't pull energy from thin air. You'll never get more energy out of an engine using a gallon of E85 vs. a gallon of gasoline.

Minok

http://www.pure-gas.org

ScorpionT

Gasoline has more thermal energy than E85 does, but the properties of ethanol make up for the deficit. I can tell you from personal experience that increasing the static compression ratio will have a significant effect on horsepower. Dynamic compression ratio has an even more profound effect. Gasoline severely limits how much you can increase the ratio due to detonation/pre-ignition, whereas ethanol leaves you plenty of room.

One example I can use is a car of mine. On the stock turbo I had a tuner advance timing and lean out the AFR, all while monitoring the EGTs, knock sensors, coolant temps, etc... Zero counts of knock, coolant and EGTs were within safe operating levels. I was able to make more power than stock and average MPG was almost identical to stock. I may not have extracted more thermal energy from thin air, but the motor performed much better with E85 than with gasoline.

Ive know several other Supra owners who run E85 and make 1000+whp. Using the same turbo and running 93 octane they would be limited to ~600whp. Gasoline has an advantage in thermal energy, but it will never be able to make the power the E85 cars can.

Ethanol fuel will not magically increase horsepower and MPG, the engine must be specifically build and tuned to achieve the best performance.

USMC_DS1

So does that just require a reprogramming of the ECU for our 911's? or do we have to gut with a different engine? Maybe it's just the turbo plus associated ECU mod.

997_rich

Right, you can tune most any engine to make it more effecient (and most modern engines were tuned for gasoline, not E85) but when comparing the best tuned gas vehicles of today vs the best tuned e85 vehicles of today you will always get more MPG from the vehicle running on gasoline (the car with 1 gallon of gas had more energy to work with in the first place).

http://www.edmunds.com/fuel-economy/...ison-test.html

http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story....lAlt&story=e85

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/c...view/index.htm

If you want to talk about someone getting maximum horsepower with use of fuel be damned (for a drag car for example) than you may be able to get to a higher horsepower with E85. But this is something different than efficiency.

Spokane5150

ADM Yep....you're right about that. Big difference in small business capitalism and vulture capitalism isn't there.

A buddy of mine owns half the town I live in and made all of his money buying $200 mil in bad mortgages and foreclosing on homeowners. I don't have the stomach for it but I guess someone has to do it. Vulture Capitalism.

Spokane5150

You're right...I'd rather give my money to the farmers and than the people that hate us. I think the concern amongst folks in the Midwest is that these Ethanol Plants may extract too much water from the aquifer but you're right...water is here to day and we can never get rid of it unless we take it into outer space.

It will be interesting to see how thing progress.

ScorpionT

You would see benefits from a reprogramming, primarily from modifying the AFR and ignition tables. I will explain more on that below.

I skimmed one of the articles and the test vehicle used was a flex-fuel Tahoe, (and not one vehicle tuned only for E85 and one tuned for gasoline). Flex fuel vehicles are ones that incorporate ethanol safe fuel tanks, pumps, lines, and injectors. The ECU is designed to handle a wider range of AFRs, giving the ability to use both gasoline. The ignition timing tables dont change when switching between fuels, only the injector duty cycles.

As I mentioned before, to get the most from E85 the compression and timing would need to be changed significantly, and doing so would mean standard gasoline could not be used. Flex-fuel vehicles need lower compression to accommodate for both fuel types.

Here is one example to understand it better. Say two people want to buy dumbbells for their home gym, one is a body builder and the other is not. The body builder is clearly able to handle heavy weights, so he could get them if he wanted. The second person has an average strength level, so he needs an average weight set. If they buy an average set of weights both people will be able to get a workout, but the body builder will only get a mild workout. If he wants to get only the heaviest weights he can find his workout will be great, but the smaller person wont be able to use them at all. For both to use the weights, the body builder makes a compromise and is able to get a workout, but nowhere near the best possible.

If you want to get much better efficiency from ethanol you must to build the motor specifically for it. If you want to run gasoline as well (because E85 isnt always available) you need to build for both, which compromises the performance while running ethanol, but you are still able to use both fuels. In the case of running E85 and gasoline, you cant have your cake and eat it too.


That would be my primary concern, as many farms are already depleting aquifer levels to dangerous levels. Unless something changes, water will need to be brought in from other sources.