You are preaching to the choir here. Remember, elections have consequences.

The 20% reduction in fuel mileage is an exaggeration. More like 6-10%.

 

I ran E85 in my Avalanche and lost 2-3 mpg average before was 15 down to 12 w/E85

 

20%? Is that what you've actually seen or just what you've heard? There's still 90% gasoline in there, plus the energy content of the ethanol. 20% reduction doesn't really make sense, does it?

 

damn corn farmers. yes, in our cars around 10%. but in some larger suvs 20 plus percent. I elect to elect the politician who will get this stuff out of our tank! I think in Brazil they actually makes theirs out of sugar. And they are non dependent on opec. we cannot grow sugar in the states and tax the hell out of the brazilian ethanol. not that i want it in my car. just pointing out it is ridiculous to produce something that loses money for us. obama keep paying the corn farmers and increasing our deficit! upps am I on his bad list now???

 

damn corn farmers. obama keep paying the corn farmers and increasing our deficit! upps am I on his bad list now???

really...you blame farmers for something? just the ones that grow corn?
You can't get much more ignorant than that...

what about cattle farmers? dairy? pig? chicken? what are they blamed for?

 

if you do a google there are tons of sites which state the gas mileage goes down by as much as 20%. All be it from larger trucks. I know not to believe everything you read on the net. But I know it hurts gas mileage.

 

The corn farmers get paid off under Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Ethanol didn't make any more sense under Bush than it does under Obama.

Corn producing states have senators of both parties whose entire job (as defined by the sources of their campaign war chests) is to protect corn interests.

You might say "constitutional conventions have consequences," since this is a direct result of the decision a couple centuries ago to give small states disproportionate power in the Senate.

 

Right now, here, ethanol decreases the price of a gallon of 87 by about 6%. At worst, it's a couple percent from the break even point.

Is the 20% you see E85 vs gasoline? That's not the same as E10.

 

makes cents. our prices dropped by a few cents a gallon in October. I will check on the e80 vs e85. i know the energy is less with the e80.

 

makes cents. our prices dropped by a few cents a gallon in October. I will check on the e80 vs e85. i know the energy is less with the e80.

I have never seen E80, only E85 and E10.

 

My G8 mileage decreases by 4-5%. Power is the same since more fuel is added to compensate for the decrease in enery. As a comparison, Diesel fuel has about 20-25% more energy than gasoline. That's why diesel powered vehicles get better fuel economy.
A lot of the turbo Buick guys are converting to E85 since the octane rating is about 105. This allows more boost and timing compared to straight gasoline which results in more power, but the trade-off is more fuel used because of less energy per gallon.

 

My Dad is a farmer who's seen his profits go up because of ethanol. At the same time, it isn't catching on enough without the govt subsidies to stand on it's own as a fuel source. Yes, it helps reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but it also jacks up the price of food because more corn is dedicated to fuel production and less wheat and soybeans are produced in place of corn. In the big picture, it's also bad for the environment because places like Brazil are clearing rain forests to product corn. Once those rain forests are gone, the climate is permanently changed. Wonder what Al Gore has to say about that.

 

I saw a special on 60 minutes quite a while ago on Brazil. They actually use sugar can and convert it to ethanol. They did not show the forests being cut down. But I know you are honest and will look into that more.

On another point more fuel is added to the gasoline was stated above. So when I go to Chevron now which is enriched with 10 percent ethanol they have to be putting less techron in the gasoline if they are adding more fuel. I guess the ethanol is a different type of cleaner which needs less techron. I hear there is a buildup of another type which eats up rubber hoses and even the top of the pistons.

Yes, food prices are going up because of ethanol in gasoline. And yes there are two senators per state no matter how large or small a state. Very politically motivated. But I feel in a few years there will be no more ethanol in gasoline.

 

There will be ethanol in gas, but less and less will come from corn.

Grass, scum, sugar, etc.

 

To me it seems like this is rather a bad time to be wasting wealth on green tech. Green tech would be something good to invest in during the good times. Its a luxury item by definition considering its extremely ineffiencent money wise.

The US government always seems to act opposite of what a rational person would do. If you are in massive debt and you cant pay your bills...what would a rational person do? Cut back. Oh no..not the US government. They go on a massive spending spree, buying all sorts of luxury items.

1.42 trillion, just this year. No doubt it will top 2 trillion before the year is up taking into consideration unexpected spendatures.

It doesnt really suprise me though. Democracies have a fatal flaw. They corrupt themselves over time. Only a complete purge of the US government, from the highest to the lowest will save the United States from itself.

I read a recent report that said the USA could lose 42-50% of its population, and still have the same level of production it has now. Parasitism is rampent in this country. Even the most wealthy nation on the planet cant survive numbers like that, the parasites are almost as big as the host, eventually they will kill off the host.

 

This is getting to be a little too serious of a conversation. I love democracy! Who the hell wants to live in a socialist or communist state! Why do more people come here than any other country? We have problems and a very unique heterogenius population which I love! Black/Yellow/Red/Brown/White it is all good! I do not like Obama's policies at all. But it was great that a black man could become president of the USA! If it was Colen Powell that would of been a heck of alot better!

 

I do not like Obama's policies at all. But it was great that a black man could become president of the USA!

I agree, it was good, however, that's the problem. Just b/c he was black we put him in??? Doesn't make much sense to me...

 

with e10 your mileage will barely change i have done back to back to back tests with more than one car and many tanks. in my 528 going from e10(89octane) to 87octane to 91octane i would see from 480miles to 520miles a tank. outside temperature had much more of an impact on my mileage than my fuel choice. with e85 you do see a significant drop in mileage. somewhere in the 30% range.

you will not loose power with e10. in fact if tuned for it you could pick up a slight amount of power. with e85 you will definatley pick up power.

 

cool, back to the original conversation. how would you pick up power? i know the aki index is higher on the ethanol. but in terms of btu energy i believe it has less. but as someone stated above they are adding more fuel to the gasoline mixture. so less of the techron if we are talking about Chevron and more fuel. I understand if you tune for it you can advance your timing more. In Tucson where I live they only do it Oct through Feb when it is cooler. I guess they want those hydrocarbons burning off during the cooler weather.

 

cool, back to the original conversation. how would you pick up power? i know the aki index is higher on the ethanol. but in terms of btu energy i believe it has less.

You realize that even with regular gasoline that the higher the octane rating the less potential energy the fuel has. 93 octane fuel has LESS energy contained within it than 87 octane does. The higher the percentage of ethanol in the fuel blend the higher the octane too. With E85 you will gain power; especially in a boosted application. The reason why is that you don't just burn the fuel to heat your home with it. If that were the case then 87 octane would be the best because it has the better BTU value. Our engines burn it and convert it into rotational energy. There are MANNNNNY more factors than pure energy potential of the fuel that come into play when converting that heat energy into rotational energy in an internal combustion engine. Detonation is the main factor. With the higher energy in the 87 octane it burns too fast and hot and has a much higher chance of detonation. That is why you have to run less spark timing with that fuel which reduces horsepower. With 93 octane fuel you can run more spark timing because it has less potential to detonate because the fuel is more stable which as we all know increases horsepower. As you move up to E85 it gets even better which is why you see allot of racers, especially the boosted ones, switching to E85 for those benefits because it has an octane comparable to full on racegas but at a fraction of the price.

As a side note, a somewhat similar comparison happens when looking at black powder and smokeless powder in rifles. Black powder being like 87 octane and smokeless being more like the E85.

And as an additional benefit since you have more alcohol content in the E85 fuel which evaporates at a lower temperature your IAT's will be a little down too. Now of course your IATS will not be able to sense that since the fuel injectors spray post IATS but your combustion chamber and flame front propogation will be positively affected. This stuff does get a little technical once you get into the details. But if you want to talk about the benefits and disadvantages of a fuel then the whole story needs to be told.

 

juspimin, please enlighten us. are you a business man? even shudog who's father is a farmer states that this product cannot stand on it's own. it costs more to produce than you can sell it for. it only exists because of government subsidies. the corn goes into alot of food products that cattle and chickens eat. it makes going to a supermarket extremely expensive. the cost of food has been going up astronomically. not all because of this. but this does not help. i am willing to listen what you have to say.

 

What limits your power? Usually it's how much air you can get into the engine. In the case of E85, it can be the injectors that's the bottleneck.

Adding ethanol to the fuel lowers the stoich air fuel ratio, from 14.7 (Gas) to 9.76 (E85), which means you need more fuel for a given amount of air. While E85 only has 75% the energy content by volume, you use more of it at WOT to get a 13% power increase.

This isn't even taking into account the high octane rating ethanol gives, which will allow for greater spark advance and higher compression ratios.

 

... You get 20% worse gas mileage with a 10% ethanol blend...

Based on long trips, my gas mileage reduction with ethanol gas is
2006 Chrysler 300C - 10%
2005 BMW 330 - 7%
2008 Astra XE - 9%
2008 Astra XR - 10%
I've so far avoided putting E10 in my G8.

I can't decide which scam has hurt our country more. Is it E10 gas, the Freon-ozone "connection", manmade global warming, or Iraq weapons of mass destruction?

 

once some of you go to superchargers and turbochargers you will want to be able to run your cars on E85, people have been tuning RX7s to run very high boost on it, its less then $2 a gallon versus race fuel that is well over $20. You can repeat this story for every car out there, everyone wants to run E85.

For performance cars it can be a great tool, but you do need more fuel and a way to supply it and obviously tune for it.

I wont get into the political side of the discussion, but for all out performance its the way to go if you were going to be running race fuels.

 

You could blame the price increase of gold jewelry on electronics using it as a conductor, price of plastic contents on the guy that first put water in a bottle... supply and demand. The relative demand on gasoline has gone down because of ethanol. What's the effect of that?

 

... The relative demand on gasoline has gone down because of ethanol. ...

Not true. Demand has dropped because of the "great recession". Because E10 seems to reduce gas mileage by about 10% and it requires a lot of oil to fertilize, irrigate, harvest, process, and truck corn ethanol, net oil consumption actually increases. Don't forget about the depletion of fragile Midwest aquifers and inflated food prices. Corn ethanol is such a huge fraud that it borders on treason (selling out the USA for money). Let's just skip the ethanol production and directly send sacks of taxpayer dollars to the corn belt, Washington lobbyists, and politicians.

 

Would you rather have methyl tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE) in your drinking water or ethanol? Anyone remember 10-15 years ago when oxygenated fuel was mandated? They started putting in MTBE and because it has slight solubility in water it quickly started showing up in ground water from leaking underground tanks and pipelines. I believe MTBE has essentially been replaced now by ethanol. One positive for ethanol that no one ever mentions.

 

Would you rather have methyl tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE) in your drinking water or ethanol? Anyone remember 10-15 years ago when oxygenated fuel was mandated? They started putting in MTBE and because it has slight solubility in water it quickly started showing up in ground water from leaking underground tanks and pipelines. I believe MTBE has essentially been replaced now by ethanol. One positive for ethanol that no one ever mentions.

Yup. I remember it. I lived in Jersey at the time and I remember one day at work where some representatives came in and handed out info packages extoling the virtues of this additive. Some time later it was revealed that it was getting into the water supply and killing fish. Nevertheless IIRC it took quite a while before that crap was banned. The manufacturer was lining the politicians pockets. :slap:

 

I did say gasoline. Not much gasoline is used to produce ethanol.

 

That's true. Mostly diesel.

 

Also this is the first time in the country's history that we are importing wheat and barley. All the fields are being converted to corn crops. In a way you cannot blame the farmer. It is human nature to want to make more money. Government feeding a plan that does not work. The cost of bread and beer has gone up astronomically!

Also ethanol is extremely harmful to older engines. It is such a good cleanser that it will take old parts from the gas tank on and dislodge them clogging up the entire fuel system.

Why does Chevrolet give two different horsepower numbers. One for running gas with ethanol and for without it. Aren't the horsepower numbers a little higher without it?

You may be able to tune for it; but the average car on the street will see a 3-5% drop in horsepower. At least that is my consensus after reading quite a few articles. But I am sure it can make more power as some of you have said if the vehicle was precisely tuned for it.

 

Why does Chevrolet give two different horsepower numbers. One for running gas with ethanol and for without it. Aren't the horsepower numbers a little higher without it?

You may be able to tune for it; but the average car on the street will see a 3-5% drop in horsepower. At least that is my consensus after reading quite a few articles. But I am sure it can make more power as some of you have said if the vehicle was precisely tuned for it.

Yes the power will drop when running the higher octane fuel if the vehicle is not properly tuned for it. That is why there is not much point to people running 93 octane gas in their car if it is still tuned for 87 octane. However, if the vehicle was running into any issues of detonation on the stock tune which made the knock sensors pull spark timing then when they switch to 93 octane they will gain power even on the bone stock tune. Some tunes on some vehicles will allow a vehicle to knock even from the factory while others have quite a large safety margin. How much power you lose or gain while switching to higher octane fuel without a retune will depend on that. Sometimes I do not explain things as well as I understand them so if you have any questions about what I said just let me know so I can reword it. :thumbsup:

 

A Point and A Question

The point:
Ethanol doesn't have to be made with just corn or sugar cane, I've read somewhere that there can be other things that can make ethanol, it's just a matter of building refineries suited for them. The one thing I read is the trees that the Pine Beetle kills in the rockies can be converted to ethanol power. If that is indeed the case, that would be great, and not detrimental to the environment or the economy as these trees are already dead. If we can use other waste, that would be beneficial too... :wall:

The Question:
Anybody out there know what happens if we did run E85 through the G8 GT engine? Other than mileage, is there a detrimental effect to the pistons and such? :driving:

 

The point:
Ethanol doesn't have to be made with just corn or sugar cane, I've read somewhere that there can be other things that can make ethanol, it's just a matter of building refineries suited for them. The one thing I read is the trees that the Pine Beetle kills in the rockies can be converted to ethanol power. If that is indeed the case, that would be great, and not detrimental to the environment or the economy as these trees are already dead. If we can use other waste, that would be beneficial too... :wall:

The Question:
Anybody out there know what happens if we did run E85 through the G8 GT engine? Other than mileage, is there a detrimental effect to the pistons and such? :driving:

Corn farmer speaking here. Cellulosic ethanol is what you are talking about. The basics would be that you are making ethanol from the plant material itself not just the grain. This technology hasn't been perfected yet, but it might be what ethanol needs to hold on. FYI, at this time we're not taking anything to the local ethanol plant because it's only about a $.10/bushel premium over the regular plant, meaning it's not worth the trucking cost to us.

 

I do not have the facts on that; but my guess would be it would eat up all your rubber linings. Thats why some of the chevys state e85 compatible. They probably have special linings from the fuel tank all the way down into your combustion chambers.

 

No you can run E85 in our cars with no issues but you will have to tune for it and your fuel system will "appear" smaller because it has to flow more fuel per a given horsepower. The E85 compatible rating has more to do with the vehicles ability to sense when it is encountering E85 fuel so that it can change the commanded AFR to reflect the different stoich required for E85. Also, the fuel injectors will usually be slightly larger in an E85 vehicle compared to its brethren so that it can flow the sufficient amount of additional E85 required. People have ran E85 fuel in their normal non-E85 rated vehicles for YEARS with ZERO issues. Just to make sure that if your vehicle is not rated as an E85 vehicle from the factory to make sure you get a retune to properly recalibrate your AFR's for the different fuel. Most of you guys would be better served to just stick with regular pump gas. Those of you higher performance guys that are running high compression or boosted vehicles would benefit quite a bit in terms of the extra spark timing advance and the consumate power gains that E85 allows. You will have to upgrade to bigger fuel injectors and higher flowing fuel pump sooner than what's required when running ragular gasoline though so keep that in mind. Most of us bigger racers don't mind those things though.