I live in the heart of ethonol land, and we've had stations selling "E85" gas for those Ford and GM Flex Fuel vehicles for quite some time. I'm not sure what the difference is between that swill and the new 15% stuf the EPA has just approved. I've never seen anyone filling up at those pumps.

I'd never put in anything over 10%. Despite what the EPA has authorized, the NTSB and most of the major auto makers have protested the decision because of the damage it can do to the cars and the lousy gas mileage the cars would make.

When I travel to visit family in the Tulsa area, there is one station that boasts selling fuel with no ethonol in it. Despite that gas costing 10 cents more a gallon, I always fill in and the difference in the way my wife's car performs is very noticable.

 

The car inboard computer adjusts how much fuel is injected into the cylinders based on the concentration of ethanol. I would guess the car will perform poorly with higher concentration of ethanol. Ethanol has a higher vaporization point than gasoline. So in cold weather states, it would be a problem to start the car in the winter.

 

if your car is not tuned to use ethanol... don't use it. it will have Lean condition problems.

I'm using 3 gal E85 and I have to tune the my car to accept it. I love corn:yes:

 

Have you custom tuned your engine to run on E85? How are you getting around the corrosion problems to some interior components. From what I understand, it's those more corrosive resistant parts more than the tune that seperates a "Flex Fuel" engine from the rest.

Beyond that, the fact your running a high compression turbo charged engine gives you an advatage over those of us with N/A engines. From what I've read, higher compression engines don't suffer the same performance effects when running higher ethanol mextures. I didn't quite understand all the physics/chemistry behind the reasons.

 

I wish they would make a mazda flex.
When you use ethanol, you get a little more power.
But I guess prices here in the US would be really high.
In Brazil ethanol is much cheaper. And Diesel is even cheaper, while here is astronomic high. lol

 

Yeah, ethanol is cheaper in Brazil because they are a major sugar producing country. Brazil doesn't need to import sugar to make ethanol. Brazil has to import oil since they don't have any significant natural oil reserves of their own.

 

I'm not sure you actually get more power from ethonol laced fuel since ethanol yeilds less energy when burned. The people I know who have owned flex fuel vehicles have reported their mileage dropping by 20~25 percent when they decided to run E-85. My brother-in-law with a flex fuel Chevy Suburban also commented that while he got worse mileage, the vehical also ran like crap...the engine was really rough and sluggish with a noticable drop in power.

I hear they can make ethanol out of other materials like algae and sugar cane which might work better, but based on what I've read and talking to those who've been down that road, I'm not convinced that corn is the way to go.

 

I Brazil we make ethanol out of sugar cane, and yes, you get more HP.
Every car they make and it says flex they give 2 HP. It's not a big difference, normally 10hp extra, but you can tell on the highways.
Every time I had to drive on a highway, I would use ethanol.

I am not joking abt I am abt to tell. lol
One time I ran out of gas on the middle of the road and I was close to a pharmacy, I went and got abt 10 bottles of alcohol and used on my car (it was flex). It worked, poorly but it did. lol

They also make diesel out of everywhere. They call BIODIESEL and you don't even have to change engines that are already diesel to work with it.

And you also have the option to use compressed natural gas on your car. To install is expensive, but it's so CHEAP to use. Normally cabs have it bec it's cheap to run with it, but you loose a lot of power.

My father had an old jeep and installed a butane gas cylinder (just like old time to cook) on it. lol

 

e85 allows you to run higher timing without having knocks. its allowing the octane level of premium to be higher

 

corrosion is a myth, I run 8-10 gallons E85 in my car every fillup, the rest 91, and can still keep the afrs below 12.0 with boost on stock injectors so booyah eat some corn fuel. ( btw my car is not stock nor a speed 3)

next tank will be full E85 lets see what happens..probably go up half a point in afr but no knocko plus lower cyl temps and it gives your pistons a bath

 

Ethanol doesn't give you power... its how you tune the car and how ethanol can help prevent knocks on aggressive tunes

 

Louisiana produces sugarcane and the govt pays them to not produce as much as they could. Just like with other vegetables. We could have ethanol readily available but why would u want to use a food source as a fuel. U burn the candle at both ends that way.

 

Well for one thing, growing sugar cane is more carbon friendly whereas drilling for oil is not. Yes, it requires tractors and other vehicles to grow sugar cane but it's still more carbon friendly than drilling and burning oil.

 

I understand that. I didn't mention gasoline or any other petrol product for a reason. I think we should find a way to leave all that behind. But when u use a food source to fuel ur vehicles u just trippled the demand for that product and now something essential for survival not as a fuel but as nurishment(sp?) becomes worth its weight in gold and becomes either too expensive to eat or drive, and what about when there is a drought, that triple then doubles on something as unpredictable as the weather. I'm for alternative fuels, but I don't see it being a big enough gain to jump to ethanol as the main supply of fuel. Jmo.

 

yah.. that's why i use it for additive purposes only

 

lol... well yah.. coz it has a higher octane rating lol

but like what I said... the car has to be tuned in a way for the e85 to work with the car

flex cars has sensors to determine if you're using e85 or gas, it will change the tune of the ecu automatically

 

Because we have the ability to tune for ethanol a typical Mazdaspeed3 sees the following hp increases over 93 octane which contains 10% ethanol.

25% ethanol = +10 hp
50% ethanol = +20hp
100% ethanol = +30hp

 

what are your skyactiv engines giving you for mpg's
i'm curious why the last couple of years they seem to have slipped in the number