e85 in non-flexfuel car

[90accord]

Can e85 be ran in a non-flex fuel car? I have a stock 1990 honda accord. What do I need to convert? any gains? any links will be greatly appreciated.

Max

[civic94]

no, even if your accord was a flex fuel vehicle (takes both) E85 is cheaper, but you MPG with that will be lower, so it breaks even. also with E85 you will have less power than gas

the only good thing about E85 better for the environment

[R.I.D.E.]

Look up newer vehicle EPA numbers for the same vehicle with E10 and one the will use E85.

Nissan Titan

E10 13 city
E85 9 city

Alcohol has a significantly lower BTU per gallon content. Even with E10 there is some loss compared to regular gass with no alcohol.

The EPA recently lowered their ratings for identical cars. They didn't mention the fact that E10 willl produce lower mileage that regular alcohol free gas.

regards
gary

[opelgt73]

Originally Posted by civic94

no, even if your accord was a flex fuel vehicle (takes both) E85 is cheaper, but you MPG with that will be lower, so it breaks even. also with E85 you will have less power than gas

the only good thing about E85 better for the environment

It probably isn't break even anymore. I just checked the prices around me, E10 is now more than $1/gal higher than E85.

[VetteOwner]

ya if i remember right e85 had to be at least 20 cents cheaper to break even, now ours is almost a $1 cheaper like opelgt said...

so really id be running E85 if my vehicles could...

reason you can is the alcohol can eat away at some rubber parts and some plastics, now wither or not your accord has those "some rubber.plastic parts" that can get eaten away (thus causing leaks, etc) who knows...

[civic_matic_00]

Originally Posted by 90accord

Can e85 be ran in a non-flex fuel car? I have a stock 1990 honda accord. What do I need to convert? any gains? any links will be greatly appreciated.

Max

Excel Plus International is marketing a Flex fuel conversion for cars. Don't know whether it's good or not:

http://www.xcelplus.com/
http://www.flextek.com/

what is a flextek?FlexTek is a flex-fuel conversion technology that utilizes its own standalone CPU to enable the vehicle?s fuel system to burn ethanol (E85), gasoline, or any blend of the two fuels, the vehicle?s original computer is not bypassed. The vehicle continues to be controlled by the original sensors and ECU, but in such a way as to allow efficient burning of alcohol blends.

FlexTek installation does not alter the originality of a vehicle. FlexTek plugs into the vehicle?s existing wiring harness without cutting or splicing. FlexTek is easily removed leaving your car completely unaltered.
We highly recommend that you treat your engine with the included E85 Engine Preparation Kit (Engine Treatment and Fuel Treatment) before running on alcohol. This helps clean the fuel system and protects the engine from corrosion.

[Nightwish]

I run E85 25% in my 1994 Ford aerostar...I see only 1-2 MPG difference..if that!!!!!!!

It depends on the car and the driver....adding 10-25% will not hurt anything. Here it is still 1.00 less than Gas....so its worth it...

[EH3]

converting any obd0-obd2b honda to e85 is relatively easy. however, it's not legal in many states because it requires obd0/1 conversion to install a programmable ECU


most people convert because of the high octane value for making power.

[kamesama980]

9 times out of 10 it doesn't harm the engine. however, results vary even between identical engines as to the mpg/power tradeoff, IF you run E85 for any length of time, advance the hell out of the timing to take advantage of the 105+ octane to counter the less energy/volume

[maxxgraphix]

Sure, why not? I would but it's not available around here.

Get an ODB1 ECU, chip it, get a wide band O2, a chip programmer, CROME or some software to fatten up the mix. You may have to get bigger injectors. Some are using E85 on turbo charged engines. You can run higher boost on alcohol.

Or other cars you can get a complete fuel injection system used for racing. So you could make a 1957 Belair run E85. The mpg will just suck though.

[JoeBob]

Originally Posted by 90accord

Can e85 be ran in a non-flex fuel car? I have a stock 1990 honda accord. What do I need to convert? any gains? any links will be greatly appreciated.

Max

1. Check your owners manual. If it is like most cars of that era, it probably says you can run 10 or 15 percent alcohol and be ok, more than that will damage rubber and plastic parts in your fuel system.
2. Check a service manual for your car.
3. Check with Honda of America...they may know.

[VetteOwner]

Originally Posted by JoeBob

1. Check your owners manual. If it is like most cars of that era, it probably says you can run 10 or 15 percent alcohol and be ok, more than that will damage rubber and plastic parts in your fuel system.
2. Check a service manual for your car.
3. Check with Honda of America...they may know.

yea best way to know, heck even my 1980 chevettes manual says its OK to use E10 as long as the octane is the same or higher than regular

[dkjones96]

In an OBD2 car you might get a check engine light for an excessively lean engine. It'll run fine but the ECU sees how much fuel it's adding and will cause this. An avalanche here at work did this.

[RoadWarrior]

The tempo I was driving ran nice on E10, but kept bellyaching about "injector pulsewidth too low" which I guess meant it thought it was running too lean. I woulda thunk that meant that the O2 was shot, but it passed an emissions sniffer test at about 1/4 of allowed values.

[waddie]

I thought the only difference in an E85 rated vehicle was the fuel plumbing. The fuel pump and lines all have to be made of stainless or other alloys. A few years ago I was considering running it in a non-E85 s-10 but several s-10s that year were E85 rated. The only difference I read was about the fuel pump and lines. They can't have any rubber toughing the fuel or E85 will eat into them. If I remember right it's an additional $120 bucks for the auto maker to upgrade the fuel line delivery system. I wouldn't do it just because of the risk of eating through a line; you'd really have fuel mileage issues then. I do know that all E85 has to be delivered via truck for the same reason; the current fuel infrastructure cannot handle the acidity of E85.

[ma4t]

Colleague did a 2 month test of his own of driving to work and back in similar conditions (same time of day, etc) and got it as close as he could.

1 month on e85 and 1 month on regular gas in a flex fuel vehicle.
In between he ran the car until the fuel light came on.
He got 25% less mpg on e85.

In other words, in his estimation, e85 would have to be 25% less per gallon to make it worth using. That's all the specifics I have.

MA4T

[red91sit]

One more thing to keep in mind, Ethanol and aluminum do not get along, and you should consider changing fuel filters after your first tank or two of e-85, as it's a very good fuel system cleaner, it will quickly gunk up the filters.

[Rower4VT]

1. E85 will NOT necessarily eat through aluminum, only certain alloys and other certain un-anodized.

2. E85 will generally NOT destroy rubber seals and hoses on vehicles built after 1988...obviously if your vehicle is very old, and the rubber is degraded, the E85 may worsen the problem.

3. Not all vehicles experience a 20-25% drop in FE, some may only drop 10-15% in FE. It all depends on the vehicle, native compression, timing, and fuel management software.

4. Almost any vehicle with an O2 sensor built after 1988 can handle upto 50-60% ethanol without any issues such as burning too lean. Though the optimal fuel/air ratio is different for ethanol and gasoline, the O2 sensor senses lambda not the air/fuel ratio...so when ethanol is burned it will naturally burn richer to keep the optimal fuel/air ratio.

5. Advancing the ignition does little to help FE or power on an E85 vehicle. Though the octane is 105, and the engine will not knock even with significant ignition advance, the nature of the fuel does not provide for noticeable increase in FE or power. Higher compression, however, can give noticeable increase in power and FE. So mill the heads and call it good.

6. I have a '94 Acura Vigor with ~202k miles on it. Threw in larger injectors and it runs fine on 100% gasoline, 100% E85 or anything inbetween. No check engine lights, stumbling, fouled plugs or anything of the sort. No issues with seals, lines, or other leaks or part degradation. The oil even looks cleaner after 5k miles than normal because the ethanol burns cleaner. I have been running well over 5k miles on E85.

My mileage has dropped about 17-18% compared to gasoline, but E85 is 19-20% cheaper here, so I'm ahead.

As a note, before installing larger injectors, I was able to run about 60% ethanol without any issues...~65% and you would notice stumbling once in a while and a check engine light would pop once a week for a "lean condition".

Remember, a lot of the "scare" you hear about ethanol is from back in the 70's when methanol was added to the gasoline in the last gas crunch. Methanol is much more corrosive than ethanol, plus the fuel lines and seals back then were not made to handle any level of alcohol in the fuel. Ethanol is a much milder alcohol, and like I said previously, most cars built after 1988 have federally mandated fuel lines and seals able to with-stand alcohol.

Originally Posted by red91sit

One more thing to keep in mind, Ethanol and aluminum do not get along, and you should consider changing fuel filters after your first tank or two of e-85, as it's a very good fuel system cleaner, it will quickly gunk up the filters.

[red91sit]

I've ran pure E-85 on several cars older than '88, and the only problem it gave me (other than fuel ratios) was fuel pumps wearing out, I tossed in a '94 Mustang pump, and everything worked fine. I've also been using pure E-85 on my Civic, and it loves it. It just needs a larger pump, the old one is too old to provide the flow required.

[kamesama980]

2 friends of mine, one with a 87 toyota cressida, one with a 86 ran straight E85 for a few months. they adjusted the airflow meter (flapper door style) and ramped the ignition up to about 40* or 45* advanced and the car ran as well as and faster than regular with 15* advance.

I read an article about this where someone bought 2 2003 (ish) chevy tahoes... identical non-flex fuel vehicles except one was run on E85 for 100k miles and one was run on regular unleaded for 100k miles. apparently the FE and power wasn't different enough to mention and the E85 test vehicle had a much cleaner intake manifold and combustion chamber. (both engines were torn down and checked at 100k) the owner then had them put back together and continued to run e85

[Rower4VT]

There's a youtube video that describes the same Tahoe test and shows the teardown afterwards. The valves and pistons in the E85 Tahoe had pretty much no carbon deposits compared to the gasoline one, and the fuel pump had no gunk build-up unlike the one that ran gasoline. My Acura has over 200k miles, and the oil is only slightly darker when I drain after 5000 miles than it was going in....when I was using gasoline it was much darker after 5k miles of use.

[90accord]

thanks for all the info. I will keep it on file. I found it very usefull, & may use it someday,however I decided to buy a Mercedes 300d turbo diesel and convert it to use wvo/svo/& or biodiesel while I had the funds to do it. The price of gasoline is rediculous so i decided to sell my gasoline cars. I will possibly buy a gasoline scooter, the kind that I can ride on the hwy. Im simply tired of it all, so im doing something about it. Currently I drive a 1990 accord with no interior but a drivers seat, no a/c only to top out an average of 25mpg. The benz will give me power/full interior/style/ A/C / with an average of 27 mpg for about a dollar a gallon and I just helped my buddy get a job at my place of employment so we can use the carpool lane, so there is no traffic , just a smooth steady speed. He drives his car for a week , then I drive the next. I just cut my fuel cost from approx. $200.00 a month to approx $25.00 a month. LOL I say that's pretty good!!! Thanks yall

[1cheap1]

Checked my manual for the MAZDA, E10 YES, E85 NO GOOD. I need to find out what the reason is for Mazda to ok one and not the other. If and when i no longer can get e10 i will mix race fuel with the e85 to bring it up to where it should be.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by 1cheap1

I need to find out what the reason is for Mazda to ok one and not the other.

It's easier/cheaper to design/build for E10; it's pretty much the same as straight gasoline. E85 is too different, it requires lots of different materials, different programming, and to run efficiently it probably needs different injectors, additional range on adjustable spark timing, lots of testing, etc. In short, E10 doesn't need anything special, E85 does.

My 1980 Buick's manual says E10 is fine, too.

[Rower4VT]

E85 does not need any special materials beyond E10 for the most part...besides the ability of the fuel management software to be able to adjust to a richer mixture for E85. Case in point: Brazil. All their cars are run on E85, however many of the models they use are the same as our NON-flexfuel vehicles. The only thing they did to most older cars in Brazil is add a module in-line with the leads to the fuel injectors that simply lengthens the pulse-width of the injectors. The ECU in conjunction with the O2 sensor will automatically adjust the a/f ratio. It is really upsetting when people just spout off "...E85 is too different, it requires lots of different materials, different programming, and to run efficiently it probably needs different injectors, additional range on adjustable spark timing, lots of testing, etc...." when they haven't really investigated what the REAL story is.

Check out http://e85vehicles.com/e85/ there are tons of people running between E50 and E85 in NON-flexfuel vehicles. I have yet to hear of someone's fuel tank rusting out, or fuel lines failing. Check it out. Do the research. Trust me, I would not have converted my old car if I thought there was the chance my transportation to work was going to fail me.

[R.I.D.E.]

No E85 here, so its not an option. The energy content of alcohol is about 65%of gasoline.

Indy cars have used alcohol for quite some time. I think they run compression ratios of about 16 to 1.

Shaving your head can lead to many problems, loose timing chain, valves hitting pistons. In an OHC engine you need to shim the cam towers (if possible) to keep the timing chain tight enough.

On the 81-83 280 ZX Nissan engines the combustion chamber portion of the head had an area that was only 1 MM from the piston crown.

They would get a carbon knock, sounded like the engine was falling apart. We used an old Binks #7 paint gun to clean out the carbon, with atomized water, with the throttle at about 2500 RPM.

16 to 1 is about halfway between a normal 9-10 to 1 gas engine and 22+ to 1 in a diesel.

EPA Nissan Titan 13 city on E10
9 city on E85

regards
gary

[Rower4VT]

There are definitely concerns with many engines when it comes to milling the heads or trying to otherwise increase the compression ratio. 16:1 is pretty drastic...more far race motors like you said. I've read of more conservative modifications, like increasing the compression ratio from (for example) a stock 9.5:1 to 10.5:1. This would give you power and efficiency gains on E85, however still allow you to run premium in a pinch.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by Rower4VT

It is really upsetting when people just spout off "...E85 is too different, it requires lots of different materials, different programming, and to run efficiently it probably needs different injectors, additional range on adjustable spark timing, lots of testing, etc...." when they haven't really investigated what the REAL story is.

It was not my intention to come off pessimistically. I am a fan of ethanol as fuel, and I often cite the success that Brazil has. I did think they're using the flex-fuel equipment; I am surprised and happy to hear otherwise.

[jBubb]

So many myths about E85...

"Ethanol has a lower ignition temperature so the engine overall will run cooler increasing power. It also burns slower so instead of just burning out in one violent explosion forcing the piston down, it continues to burn the entire length of the piston stroke expanding gases more evenly and smoothly. So running E85 will give any engine more power over any pump gas. Also E85 is 105 octane. Gas comes in 85, 89 and 91 octane. The 105 octane of E85 will help to eliminate knocks and pings. All of these benefits will make an engine run smoother and quieter."

Yes, you will see a drop in FE, slightly... but in my 99 Metro, after some tweaking of the conversion module, I've got that down to around 6% or less in FE.

But even with 6-9% loss in FE, I still come out a head in $$$, especially when regular E10 gas is almost $1.50 more (some places in CO are selling it for $2.59 a gallon) then E85 around here. So in the end, there is no drop in FE, only a increase in my eyes.


I'll never go back to E10. Car runs better, more power, my engine knock is GONE and runs much much quieter now. Also, my money supports OUR economy and supports our local farmers. I can live with only a 6-9% loss in FE... but in reality it isn't a loss, because I'm still saving more money versus E10 and come out a head, even with the 6-9% drop in FE.

I'm supposed to be using Pulstar Spark plugs with E85, they apaprenlty increase FE even more and assist with cold starting. Running stock spark plugs for now, want to do a few more test runs, then I'll give the Pulstar's a try.


Here's the conversion kit I purchased...

http://www.change2e85.com/servlet/StoreFront


Also read this about fact vs. media spin fiction...

http://www.change2e85.com/servlet/Page?template=Myths


I can post a tutorial on how to install a e85 kit on a Metro, complete with pictures if you all want.

Took me 15 minutes to install and off I went.

[RoadWarrior]

That's cool, like the cold start kit, that's the one thing that was bugging me about rolling my own conversion if E85 was available here. With one of those it would work.