Yeah, it's so easy. Just go to the farmer's market, get a bushel, and jam the cobs into the fuel tank with a rubber mallet.
has anyone really experimented with e85 in the e30's? im newer to BMW's. came from the Audi side of the fence (still have it though). i have some friends running e85 in their neon srt-4's and they can make some nasty power on the stock turbo. any info on anyone thats run e85 on a turbo m20? what needed to be done as far as fueling, tuning, supporting mods, etc?
I'm impressed!!! Really informative phorum post on forums.bimmerforums.com my friend. I just wanted to comment u0026 say keep up the quality work. good luck
Will e85 make it worse or better on smog?Originally Posted by Disgustipated
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using BF.com
82 hennarot 733i 5-speed
83 silver 633csi 5-speed
86 red 635csi 5-speed
86 silver 635csi
87 red 325is 5-speed lots of mods
88 black 325i convertable 5-speed
93 white 325is 5-speed
95 black on black 750il
98 silver 740iL
Beemer me up Scotty
I think BMW car's engine price is very high as we accepted.
I would assume it would be beneficial. The air/fuel on a gasoline motor reads differently than an Ethanol one. So it'd appear leaner.
I ran E85 in my old Evo for 4 years as a daily driver. It's amazing fuel and ridiculously cheap compared to 110 or q16. You do need larger injectors/pump to handle it though as it does require more fuel (about 30%) than normal gasoline tunes. It burns cooler and causes less detonation so it always helps especially in non-intercooler cars. I've also helped tune and a build a turbo e30 that ran it for a solid 2 years. You can do it with OEM lines and not have an issue, just pull your injectors once every few months and make sure they don't have any gunk build up. If they do, soak them in regular gasoline and clean them off. As far as power gains, I'm not sure NA but turbo cars love it. I went from 22psi on a small turbo to a 32 psi spike and had 0 knock issues. I've also ran a larger turbo on 34psi with no issues. It picked up about 120whp over the gasoline tune.
1) Water is an issue. Damage shows up later. Damage to gaskets and rubber parts in some older engines. Don't get into ethanol before researching this carefully.
2) Mileage is a huge issue on engines set up for gasoline. Ethanol fuels have lower BTU ratings. While I respect the tinkerers here, IMHO it's crazy to run ethanol mix in gasoline engines - especially in older cars.
3) Why don't we have a choice whether or not to run straight gasoline in USA cars? It was a political decision by the politicians to buy farm state electoral votes. It is not a decision engineers would make. Ethanol is not suitable for many older engines. It turns rubber to mush. It makes cars fail and forces owners to buy newer cars. Supposedly this kind of aggressive social engineering is good for the economy but I would never let the crap near my BMW if I had the choice. Did you know that ethanol cannot be transported in pipelines? Why? Water builds up in the low points. That's why it has to be trucked to my state, California, where it is forced on people. We have no choice to buy it because it is added as a pollutant to our gasoline.
4) Did anyone notice that most of the ethanol refineries went bankrupt and were bought up by the petroleum refiners for pennies on the dollar? They get paid a lot of money by the Feds to mix ethanol into their gasoline. It's a moneymaker. They don't care that you get 30% less mpg with the crap. They sell more fuel and make more money.
5) Sure, you can make a car run really well on ethanol 85. NASCAR does it. But I have a BMW and I don't want to mess with it or damage it on crummy fuel.
6) There is no clean air benefit from ethanol. Search:
The Effects on Health and Climate of Ethanol Versus Other Vehicle
Technologies and Fuels
Mark Z. Jacobson
Atmosphere/Energy Program
Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Stanford University
I don't like being forced to buy 30% more gasoline laced with alcohol. I am pissed off. So remember this when you praise ethanol.
Last edited by Ptero; 11-26-2012 at 08:56 PM.
all i read was blah blah blah
I used to get 280 miles to the tank in my NA bolted m54b30 on 93, and now on e85 I get 290 with the same commute every week. (hard on the throttle, probably smack the limiter a few times every day)
If all you have is speculation and theories along with numbers that are crunched you dont really know.
never changed the pump, filter, lines, o rings, nada.
Ok, some quick questions on this one.. How long have you ran this mode? Usually any rubber that hits the big "E" dies (if not made for it). Next, what tune/mods do you have?
Lastly for the guy that put the "E" sensor in-line, did you use a War Chip to flip for the curve delta on the ethanol?
Good read folks.. keep it up!
I agree, and you have to pay 60% more for 30% less.. in my location is it "up to 15%" .. yeah... do you get the discount .. nope...
Last edited by Das Bullitt; 11-27-2012 at 12:56 AM. Reason: Automerged Doublepost
From the source I provided:If all you have is speculation and theories along with numbers that are crunched you dont really know.
Potential Effects of E85 vs. Gas:
Emission Differences From Data (Percent change)
Oxides of nitrogen -30 (-59 to +33)
Carbon monoxide +5 (-33 to +320)
Total organic gas +22 (+38 to +95)
Methane +43 (+43 to +340)
Formaldehyde +60 (+7 to +240)
Acetaldehyde +2000 (+1250 to +4340)
Benzene -79 (-62 to -85)
PM number 0 (+100)
PM mass 0 (+31)
[The table is more clear but usually people who use "blah, blah, blah" in their sentences don't look things up.]
Problems of fuel ethanol production have been the subject of numerous reports, including this analysis. The conclusions are that ethanol: does not improve U.S. energy security; is uneconomical; is not a renewable energy source; and increases environmental degradation. Ethanol production is wasteful of energy resources and does not increase energy security. Considerably more energy, much of it high- grade fossil fuels, is required to produce ethanol than is available in the energy output. About 72% more energy is used to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy in a gallon of ethanol. Ethanol production from corn is not renewable energy. Its production uses more non- renewable fossil energy resources in growing the corn and in the fermentation/distillation process than is produced as ethanol energy. Ethanol produced from corn and other food crops is also an unreliable and therefore a non-secure source of energy, because of the likelihood of uncontrollable climatic fluctuations, particularly droughts which reduce crop yields. The expected priority for corn and other food crops would be for food and feed. Increasing ethanol production would increase degradation of agricultural land and water and pollute the environment. In U.S. corn production, soil erodes some 18- times faster than soil is reformed, and, where irrigated, corn production mines water faster than recharge of aquifers. Increasing the cost of food and diverting human food resources to the costly and inefficient production of ethanol fuel raise major ethical questions. These occur at a time when more food is needed to meet the basic needs of a rapidly growing world population. -- David Pimental, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics
1991, Volume 4, Issue 1, pp 1-13, Ethanol fuels: Energy security, economics, and the environment
Nobody listened to Pimental, either. Now watch what the Midwest Drought does to ethanol prices.
Explain to me how I am getting better fuel economy with more injector and e85?
Its a controlled route I take every week, the only difference was e85 and injector size, everything else remained the same.
Measurement error or bad (lean) tuning, more than likely. It's not physically possible, assuming you're running enough E85 to maintain the correct lambda. To run the same lambda as with 100% gasoline you will be pushing 30-33% more E85 through the motor at the same power level. If the car is tuned for E85 it'll likely make a little more power due to the cooler mixture temperatures and increased spark advance, so you'll be using even more fuel.
No matter how you cut it, with all variables equalized you'll get fewer miles per gallon with E85. More power, yes, but less mileage by about 30%.
right, my car is running the same 17lb injector tune for a 3.5 maf, with 24lb injectors
aka
41% more fuel.
let the o2 sensor make its lambda correction and voila runs purrfect.
So if you're running 41% more fuel, your gas mileage has decreased by 41%, which is not what you said.
The other problem here is that your car doesn't have a lambda sensor (unless your car is OBD-II). Your car has a narrowband oxygen sensor which is nowhere near accurate enough to tune your fuel mixture in the way you think it is. I'm glad it's working for you, but...
Unless E36s have significantly smaller tanks than E46s, 280 miles/tank on highway driven M54b30 is pretty pathetic. I would frequently get 400 miles before filling up in my old 330i, and I generally filled up before the light came on. OBC predicted I could get 480+ Usually red lined at least once a day. I would expect that a lighter weight car with a smaller frontal area to get even better mileage.
Thermodynamically, it's impossible for a gallon of ethanol to give you the same mileage as a gallon of gasoline (assuming everything is running properly). Do the math yourself if you don't believe me.
Last edited by TerraPhantm; 12-20-2012 at 10:31 PM.
my 02 325xi is bone stock. should i run this? im afraid that its gonna mess up the engine. i have no experiance whatsoever so please help
Hater... you are running OBD2 with the m54b30? Any way to hook up a wide band and make sure its all good? Not doubting your results... if you have seen no decrease (even an increase) in range switching to e85 that would be great!
I wonder whats with the "less efficient" per gallon going around. When used in an engine designed for gasoline I would agree that the outcome is less efficient... however, when ethanol is used in an ethanol engine (think past even flex engines) the results are spectacular. Look at any turbo car and you will see. The increased static compression as well as turbo boost level makes for very efficient use of a gallon of ethanol... where gasoline would just detonate.
Also, ethanol contains oxygen within its covalent bonds. Kinda like built in NOS
It has nothing to do with whether the engine was "designed for" E85 or not. It has everything to do with physics (or chemistry).
Ethanol's energy content is about 76,100 BTUs/Gal. Gasoline's energy content is 114,100 BTUs/Gal. E85 is somewhere in between at around 81,000 BTUs/gal. That's 71% the energy per gallon. Therefore to do the same amount of work as gasoline, you need 40% more E85.
E85 has some performance advantages - it is higher octane than pump gas meaning an engine can have a higher compression ratio. It requires more spark advance because it burns more slowly than gasoline. It also has a high specific heat, so it provides a charge cooling effect. Bottom line is an engine can make more power on E85 if tuned for it.
But it will ALWAYS get fewer miles per gallon if run at or near a stoichiometric ratio.
im interested in this as well
In it something is. Clearly, thanks for an explanation.
So in theory if I install injectors that flow 40% more than could I run e85? And also would running e85 be a viable alternative to dropping the compression ratio with a thicker head gasket on a forced induction application?
Bookmarks