Sander-Tuned.com - Honda Performance

E85 Ethanol

The Idea of E85 is fantastic in my eyes. I am greatly concerned about the dependence on fossil fuels. I am also concerned about the harmful emissions that race cars and production cars produce. Generally race cars do not use catalytic converters (emissions devices) and run with excessive fuel in the high rpm and high load tables (at least than needed more than is generally needed) to cool the combustion process. While this is how things have been done for years and years, It is my belief (along with others, IRL in 2007 (100% ethanol) and possibly NASCAR in the near future) that we should move our emphasis to alternative fuels that provide the power that we are used to but in a somewhat cleaner, more renewable fashion.

This is a hotly contested subject in the Environmental Studies crowd. There have been a number of studies (One in particular from a gentleman named Mark Jacobson, A Stanford University atmospheric scientist) that are contesting the environmental benefit of Ethanol in any form, E10 or E85. He is saying that the presence of E85 in densely populated areas can actually lead to more cancer deaths as a result of the emissions from E85 powered automobiles. I do not personally have the resources or knowledge to contest this statement, although there have been organizations that have fought back against this study (www.e85fuel.com). At this point I do not know who to believe really. It almost seems that everyone has a special interest of some kind with ethanol.

Well cutting the debates out of ethanol makes it seem nicer. I enjoy tuning with ethanol for the following reasons, it’s a high octane fuel (great for giving your self room to play with higher compression / high boost set ups), it is somewhat renewable (even if it is not the most efficient way from corn…), and it’s really cheap! It has recently gone down to $2.54 a gallon at my station in Annapolis, MD.

Getting ahead of my self a little…

You may be asking what is E85?

E85 is a mixture of denatured ethanol and regular gasoline. This mixture is 85% denatured ethanol and 15% gasoline. Denatured Ethanol is pure ethanol (E100) that has 4.73% gasoline mixed in. (Basically 5 gallons of gasoline in a 100 gallon container of ethanol).

The specific energy output of ethanol is quite less than gasoline.
You can make up for this in quantity.

  • denatured ethanol energy content (btu) = 77,815 btu/gallon
  • gasoline energy content (btu) = 114,132 btu/gallon

There is a simple energy equation that lets you calculate and compare the energy in E85 as compared to gasoline and other fuels.

Denatured Ethanol (77,815 btu/gallon) * .85 (this is 85%) = 66,143 btu/gallon
Gasoline (114,132 btu/gallon) * .15 (this is 15%) = 17,120 btu/gallon

Therefore E85 equals 83,263 btu/gallon.

FYI Here are the btu/gallon ratings of other popular fuels.

Gasoline = 114,132 btu/gallon
Diesel Fuel = 138,000 btu/gallon
Ethanol (pure) = 78,000 btu/gallon
Methanol (pure) = 56,800 btu/gallon
Propane = 84,500 btu/gallon
Compressed Natural Gas = 19,800 btu/gallon


Sander, what does this mean?

Well, you may have noticed the energy output per gallon is quite a bit lower than normal gasoline that you are probably using in your car right now. This can be over come by quantity burned per power stroke. The stoichiometric ratio of gasoline is 14.6:1-14.7:1. This is the ratio of parts of air to one part of fuel. (14.7 parts of air to 1 part of fuel = 14.7:1). This is the relationship to air needed for a complete burn. Most race cars/performance street cars using regular leaded or unleaded pump or race fuel run in the area of 11.5-13.0 depending on type of induction. The illustrate the larger amount of E85 needed for complete combustion, the stoichiometric ratio of E85 is in the area of 9:1 – 10:1. (fewer parts of air to one part of fuel means you need more fuel…) The general idea is that you will need in the area of 20-30% more fuel as compared to pump gasoline.

Now you might be thinking “Dude, I don’t have a wide band air fuel meter that reads down that low?!?” (Or you may not…)
Regardless, many people forget what a wide band air fuel meter does. The sensor for one of those wide band meters does not just sit in your exhaust and give you a number. It measures the oxygen content. Remember OXYGEN CONTENT! The manufacturers who make most wideband air fuel meters (PLX, AEM, FJO, and TechEdge) calculate the oxygen content needed to produce a perfect burn ratio for normal pump GASOLINE. This assumes that the stoichiometric air fuel ratio of the fuel you are using is 14.7:1. What if you use a gasoline calibrated wide band to tune a car that runs methanol? (Stoichiometric ratio of 6:1) If you try to get that gasoline calibrated wideband to read 6:1 your car will not run, start, or be happy, and your oil will begin to stink of alcohol. You must remember what I told you a few lines up. The OXYGEN CONTENT needed to produce “a perfect burn” post combustion is always going to be similar regardless of fuel. So this is when the great “Lambda” comes in to play. Lambda is a Greek symbol that is also used to denote the stoichiometric ratio of any fuel. So the stoichiometric ratio for Methanol is the same as the stoichiometric ratio for gasoline… 1. Lambda of 1 is the same oxygen content regardless of fuel type. So you don’t have to remember all of these different fuel types and their ratios and what you should and should not tune for! All you have to do is remember that you want to be in the ball park of Lambda of .8 or less for high power applications. This is why the higher dollar wide band systems (MoTeC PLM) are all denoted in Lambda.

Ok, so you need a larger quantity of E85 to make it work on a gasoline engine. It is cleaner as you’ve said, is there any other reason why I should switch?

YES! E85 local to me (Annapolis/Baltimore, MD) is in the $2.5x range. I haven’t yet mentioned that E85 is also in the 100-105 octane range, and Ford has netted 5% overall horsepower increases just by switching to E85 in their somewhat popular FFV cars (Flex Fuel Vehicles). So “in theory” you could go up to your pumping station that carries E85 (when your car is tuned for it!) and buy 105 octane gas for the low $3 range. Who wouldn’t love cleaner race gas for $2.5x / Gallon, that has the possibility to give you more power.

…Not to mention supporting local fuels (meaning local to the US), getting us off diminishing fossil fuels, and if for nothing else doing something different!

I use E85 in my own K20A race car. It has proven it self reliable at the track with over 1200 track miles on this current set up so far. Holding within 10 hp of our fresh dyno tune of 217 wheel horsepower and 161 wheel torque. Below is a demonstration of the power benefit that could be yielded when switching to the fuel.




- Sander

Top




BioDiesel

I am going to be rather blunt here. BioDiesel Fuel is something that has made me more excited to work on cars than anything else I can possibly remember in my rather short career of dealing with cars and or race cars. It just gets my head excited at the possibility of being more in control of self-sustainability and anti-dependence. Down with the man, yeah, I said it. The experiences and people that I have been apart of recently have led me to look to the future for new ways to really help the growing environmental problems associated with dependence on fossil fuels. The reason why BioDiesel is so great is that it takes an otherwise dis-regarded waste product like used cooking oil and through a chemical process (an easy one) can become a great low emission fuel for compression ignition engines (Diesels).

OOOOK enough hippy talk…

Now don’t go run down to your local Burger Queen and try and get some cooking oil to make some gas to put in your Kia. There are a great many things you should be aware of when planning to use this stuff.

(It should be noted from this point I am going off of research that I have done mostly on www.biodiesel.org, and that short of the fact that we have made a successful test batch on the 1L scale the information here is just research from others, thanks.)

These are some of the Basics of BioDiesel

  • First and Foremost, you MUST have a diesel engine to use this stuff. It will not work in a spark ignition engine. There are more complicated problems on newer diesels that use “Common-Rail” direct injection technology. They are far more efficient although they are also a good bit harder to successfully maintain a good running condition on B100. They have much finer fuel filter elements and I am unsure of what would happen with B100 on a chemical level when the fuel is pressurized to 25,000 psi (give or take) and if the injectors would become clogged etc… I am in no way saying it can not be done on the newer diesels, but the older VW TDI and Mercedes diesels will run on just about anything (including old transmission fluid from what I hear…).
  • BioDiesel is technically a chemical process called transesterification, where the glycerin is separated from the cooking or vegetable oil, to thin out the fuel and remove all the un-needed elements of the oil. You basically wind with two layers of liquid when the process is over. The fuel remains on the top while the glycerin stays at the bottom in a darker brown layer.
  • If you make BioDiesel and you take the pure fuel oil and pour it in your tank this is called B100. Other wise known as 100% Bio Diesel (100 = 100%) This contains NO petroleum fuel. The cool thing you can do with this is that you can mix your BioDiesel “concentrate” (if you will) with normal pump #1 or #2 Diesel fuel. To make any blend you prefer of petrol diesel and bio diesel. This would subsequently be called BXX where the XX indicates the percentage of Bio Fuel in the blend.
  • There is another semi-popular way to use cooking oil as a fuel and these are called SVO systems or Straight Vegetable Oil systems. These use super heated waste oil as a fuel alone. These systems are somewhat subject to variation because of the simple matter that all used cooking oil samples from restaurants are not created equally. These systems are NOT EPA approved or subject to any extensive testing like the BioDiesel blends have been subjected to.
  • There is as of right now a tested standard seen ok by the ASTM (American Society of Testing and Measurements). The accepted B20 blend is under the ASTM D6751 label. This is from what I understand a difficult label to get for an approved fuel, so you know it’s gone through the ringer.

Some articles from the National BioDiesel Board (NBB)

  • http://www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/fuelfactsheets/Myths_Facts.pdf
    This is an awesome summation of the Myths and facts dealing with the fuel, I feel that the important information here is the issues dealing with if the fuel has been “tested or not yet”. Good point about the ASTM standards being set, engine warranties, etc.
  • http://www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/fuelfactsheets/emissions.pdf
    This is a great emissions comparison sheet of BioDiesel related
    to petrol diesel fuel, look at the reduction in emissions!!! Only issues are the NOX (nitrous oxides), but as noted can be reduced with new technologies and further refinement… (Maybe leave that up to the chemists…)

Important Facts about BioDiesel B100 or B20

  • You will absolutely need to check and replace your fuel filters more often when initially converting to BioDiesel. The oil fuel itself is a very effective solvent, and it will clean out the entire gunk behind your fuel filter that resides in your gas tank and fuel lines.
  • There are things to be aware of when trying to use the BioDiesel in colder climates. B100 has a relatively warm gel point. B20 is much better at combating cold “gelling” because of the agents present in the 80% petrol.
  • There are warnings on NBB’s site that say you should be careful about using BioDiesel in some older cars because of the fuel line and seal materials. The “elastomers and rubber” can degrade over time because of the solvent nature of the fuel.


This is the methodology that I used to make B100 out of virgin, fresh, un-Mcdonaled cooking oil.

  • 1 liter of new vegetable oil
  • 200 ml of Methanol, 99+% pure
  • Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH)
  • Blender or Processor (I will revisit this topic later, there are some issues dealing with the process and plastics).
  • Scale with the resolution of at least a tenth (0.1g)
  • Way to measure the Methanol and Oil
  • Glass mason jars for settling

Simply put…

  • Put 1 L of vegetable oil in a blender.
  • Measure out 3.5g of sodium hydroxide (must be pure)
  • Measure out 200 ml of methanol (must be pure)
  • Carefully mix the NaOH and the Methanol in a glass mason jar, swirl for 5-8 minutes.
  • After the methanol/NaOH mix has become totally mixed (should be cloudy, and there must be no NaOH particulates on the bottom of the jar) you must pour the meth/lye (NaOH) mix in the veg oil.
  • Run blender on lowspeed for 10-15 minutes regardless of quantity.


You must use a complete GLASS blender with no plastic parts or you will not get more
than one test batch out of it. It will split and crack (I am assuming from the chemical reactions),
then spill everywhere… If you need to make larger amounts you will have to
get something you can mix safely in. (Thick plastic, like a race gas jug for example).



- Sander

Top