the lack of e85 gas stations in new jersey makes it impossible to run E85. but there are some 10% ethonal gas stations, so my question will i need to tune for 10% ethonal, will i see an increase in power? or should i avoid at all costs?

 

you will see no difference. in these parts, all gas is E10, unless specially designated as non-oxygenated.

 

i see it in PA and wanted to know if it was worth the trip before a track day or not

 

i didnt know there were gas stations that WERENT 10% ethanol...lol

 

yep here in jersey we are hardcore polluters

 

Yeah I thought everywhere was 10% ethanol now.

Either way every year built in the last maybe 20 years is built to run up to 15-20% ethanol.

 

You do not have to tune to run 10% ethanol. You could possibly get a SMALL benefit if you tuned the car for 10% ethanol, but the trouble to do it would outweigh any gain you might get.

You will not see any performance gains from running 10% ethanol fuel. You may actually have a small performance loss.

 

We have a few in WI that advertise 100% gasoline like it is something special...

True. Cars are tuned from the factory for 10% ethanol.

False. See above and below.

False. Ethanol in gasoline does many beneficial things to your car.

Ethanol has a higher knock resistance then gasoline.

Ethanol burns cleaner then gasoline. Since I converted to E85 I have not had to clean my rear bumper. On gasoline I did not even bother cleaning it because I could not keep up.

Ethanol requires more fuel and the additional fuel provides more cooling in the combustion chamber and cools the EGTs

You will probably loose HP on on 100% gasoline. It will burn hotter causing hotter EGTs causing higher engine temps causing your IM to heat soak faster.

There are much more gains to running E85 or 100% or 90% gasoline.

 

No. We've been running 10% ethanol in our gas for a couple years here in the midwest. You might want to clear your fuel trims before you run it for the first time, for the best immediate results, but idk if that really matters.

 

It does not matter in closed loop. The ecu can adjust but it will probably effect your LTFTs. No biggie as long as your tuner didn't do something crazy with your tune.

There will be a difference in Open loop.

If your car is tuned for E10 it will run richer with 100% gasoline.

If you car is tuned for 100% gasoline it will run leaner on E10.

 

Cars are tuned for 10% ethanol by simply running extremely rich. The actual tune is for regular gas. They have to tune for regular gas, then make it run rich because not all states mandate 10% ethanol.

Ethanol does have a higher octane rating, however gas with 10% ethanol with an octane rating of 91 is still only 91 octane.

Ethanol has 30% less energy potential than regular gas (because ethanol burns cooler it creates less energy).

The main advantage to running ethanol is that E85 has about the same octane rating as race gas, so you can run much more timing and higher compression (either through forced induction or other means). For 10% ethanol gas you really get no advantages at all and lose energy potential.

 

what ever gas you run normally. make sure its in the tank when tuning. plain and simple, nothing hard about it.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/au...10ETHANOL.html

"Last year, nearly three-quarters of the gasoline sold in the United States contained some ethanol, according to the American Petroleum Institute. "

Although only a hand full of State Require the use of E10 it is still much more popular then 100% gasoline.

I prefer cooler burning fuels over Hot burning fuels. Esp in Forced Induction vehciles where heat becomes such a big issue.

There are many other advantages. That is the main one.

Not really. Energy loss potential turns into a cooling benefit. Why else do people run meth injection with a 90% methanl to 10% ratio? The water does the cooling. The more fuel/fluid in the combustion chamber the better the cooling the lower the EGTs.

 

wait wait wait, here in oklahoma there are a lot of ethanol stations, and scattered 100% gas ones. ive always been told that ethanol reduces engine performance, causes much faster engine wear, and burns faster which means u run out of gas quicker

i have been seeking out 100% gas stations and using ONLY those, i refuse to go to ethanol stations.

is that right? or is ethanol actually better for my car?

this thread is confusing me, lol

 

You have been lied to and manipulated by narrow minded people.

IMHO ethanol is excellent for your car.

If you look at the BIG hp Supercharged LSJs on this forum then are all running ethanol.

Area47 - 347whp
SS/SC Crazer - 343whp
Me - 329whp

Not to mention most ZZP cars run e85. And they are are the top of the HP list categories.

https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/dyno-results-170/official-dyno-thread-take-3-a-163306/

 

10% ethanol in your gas is not going to hurt anything.

Most of the time, its "UP TO 10%"... its not saying that there is exactly 10% in there... some on the other hand are full 10%...

For the every day normal person... You will not notice the 10% ethanol... at all...

 

True, however E10 with an octane rating of 93 still won't let you run enough timing to compensate for the loss of power between it and regular gas at 93 octane. The amount of power loss isn't huge, we are only talking about maybe 5 or 6 HP, but regular gas has more power potential than E10.

E85 is a totally different story. There is alot more you can do when running E85 to get huge power gains, but E10 gives no real benefits as far as power is concerned.

Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking Ethanol at all. Just saying that between E10 and 100% gas, "100% gas" on a stock car or GM tuned car is going to net slightly higher HP numbers than one running E10.

 

ok well wat about on a non-performance minded stand point. i dont have any forced induction, therefore heat is not a problem. i have a lt sedan, and im looking at wat gets the most mpg's and the one that causes least wear on the engine. i have replaced 3 burnt out spark plugs so far and i was told it was because of the ethanol in the gas i USED to use. true? or is it something else?

 

you lose about 20-25% MPG with E85...

and no, the ethanol did not hurt your spark plugs..

 

correct on both accounts. its important to remember that (in cali at least) average price of gas is about $3.10 and the average price of E85 is $2.50 This helps ofset it a lot.

 

You will get better gas mileage with 100% gas than with E10, about 5% better. So if you get 32 MPG on 100% gas you would only get about 30.5 MPG on E10.

E10 will not harm the engine in any way, and will not cause any additional wear. If anything the ethanol will help keep carbon deposits lower.

Ethanol in the gas has nothing to do with burning through spark plugs.

 

sounds like someone is running rich

 

how does running E10 change your AFR's though? Around here everthing is E10. Wideband bounces around from 13.9 to 14.5, is this normal (stoich) for E10?

 

wawa is 15 or 20% i forgot... i know for a fact sunoco and shell is 10% which is why i go there. wawa is good for food and the big ass iced teas.

 

for all practical purposes, it has no impact on AFR.