10-01-2012, 11:50 AM | #1 |
petrolhead
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E85 vs regular premium gas
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10-01-2012, 12:20 PM | #2 |
Too much is never enough
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E-85 is alcohol (well, 85% anyway). It has considerably less energy content than petroleum. It's usually cheaper at the pump, but you'll use more. I seem to recall it'll cost you more in the end, but that's a pretty straightforward calculation based on pricing in your area. It's yet another brainchild of the corn lobby trying to find a way to use up all of the corn the subsidies have produced.
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10-01-2012, 01:26 PM | #4 | |
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If your car wasn't scpecifically designed (or modified) for E85 or Flex Fuel, you'll likely end up destroying various rubber parts of the fuel system.
From the F30 user manual, page 262: Quote:
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10-01-2012, 03:22 PM | #5 | |
Too much is never enough
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Good catch, I should have mentioned that. I was merely addressing the question of what E-85 is. |
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10-01-2012, 03:27 PM | #6 | |
Too much is never enough
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If you're going to track your street car, you'll be fine running a quality high octane pump gas. You won't see a benefit from the very high octane (100+) fuels sold at the track unless you have aggressive tuning/modifications that would benefit from it. |
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10-02-2012, 02:18 AM | #7 | |
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10-02-2012, 08:11 AM | #9 | |
Too much is never enough
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Internal combustion is all about cylinder loading and ignition timing. The more fuel/air you can load into the cylinder, the more you can compress that fuel/air mixture and the more timing you can dial in, the more power you'll make. Any alcohol-based fuel will allow for higher compression/more timing because of its inherent resistance to detonation. In a stock car, or a car without the ability to toggle from one tune to another, E-85 won't outperform straight petroleum. And the corrosion of fuel lines is not a risk worth taking just for some extra power. If you follow that logic, why don't you just dial your boost up to 50 psi? That'll make more power too. Of course your pistons will vacate their bores before too long, but at least you were making tons of power. |
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10-02-2012, 09:54 AM | #10 | |
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