Does it make sense? Re: <VV> E-85 LONG - future?

[werp knarly]

fred,

i think those of us who want to switch are looking at making a purpose built 
vehicle for driving around town or short trips

sometimes its not about today, but tomorrow, which signs point to it coming 
sooner than we think,

and pollution is a problem either way, the CO2 from ethanol comes from the 
biomaterial used in production which in turn takes it from the air

check my post with the link to converting dodge dart to run on alcohol, lost 
about 80% of the fuel economy on 100 ethanol, no change in compression 
needed, but i bet it would run better if he did

current US e85 vehicles don't change compression ratios, but that turbo idea 
looks great! love the HP increase

again its not corrosive, its a solvent, like gasoline, but more so and 
cleaner, its what's in all those little bottles of "gas line anti-freeze", 
the "gunk" that ethanol get out of a car's fuel system is what's left behind 
by years of using gasoline.

the problem is older rubber seals used in the 60's and maybe into the 70's 
replacement seals and rubber should be fine, maybe replace hoses with "fuel 
line" instead of "gas line" a mistake you never want to make when working 
with diesel.

Thanks!

Joe, Lisa, Teegan, and Mina
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <FrankCB at aol.com>
To: <PIROCZ at aol.com>; <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2005 9:39 PM
Subject: Does it make sense? Re: <VV> E-85 LONG


> In a message dated 8/21/05 8:06:38 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
> PIROCZ at aol.com
> writes:
>
>> Has anyone looked into running the E-85 fuel in there cars. It's rated at
>> 105
>> octane and is selling for aroung $2 a gallon.
>>
>
>        Well, Brazil tried running most of their cars on ethanol (grain
> alcohol) a few years ago, but the idea became so popular that they had 
> shortages of
> alcohol throughout the country.  So the sales of alcohol powered cars
> plummeted since people felt that their ability to refuel might completely 
> disappear.
> Now, however, with the skyrocketing price of crude oil, Brazil is starting 
> to
> again market cars that can burn ethanol.  But these newer cars are 
> different
> in that they can also (or instead) burn gasoline so the owners can buy
> whichever fuel is cheaper or available at any given moment.
>       In line with this, Saab has created what they call a "BioPower" 
> engine
> in a car already being sold in Sweden.  According to the July 2005 issue 
> of
> Popular Science magazine, this car "could hit these shores next year".  It 
> has
> a sensing device that analyzes the fuel flowing into the engine (maybe by
> measuring refractive index?) and adjusts the computer control to 
> compensate
> whether the fuel is 100% gasoline or 85% ethanol (with 15% gasoline) 
> [called E-85]
> or ANYTHING IN BETWEEN those 2 extremes.  So on a trip you could start out 
> with
> E-85 and refill with pure gasoline at the first stop and then E-85 for the
> next refueling.  You might end up with E-23 in your tank after the first 
> stop
> and E-68 after the second and the computer would adjust the A/F ratio for 
> the
> injectors as well as the ignition timing.
>       Popular Science states that the octane rating of E-85 is about 110,
> considerably higher than even premium gasoline.  But you can't readily 
> change
> the compression ratio of the engine each time you fill up your tank with a
> different octane fuel.  The Bio Power Saab engineers have developed an 
> ingenious
> solution by varying the boost level of the turbocharged engine based on 
> the
> composition of the fuel.  With 100% gasoline the boost level is about 6 
> psi
> producing 148 hp; with E-85 the boost level is increased to about 14 psi 
> raising the
> power to 184 hp.
>       Getting back to your question, the article states that E-85 has 
> about
> 75% of the energy of straight gasoline, so paying $2 for E-85 is 
> equivalent to
> paying $2/75% = $2.67 per gallon for gasoline.  Therefore the price of 
> E-85
> would have to be less than $2 OR the price of gasoline would have to be 
> greater
> than $2.67 to even consider changing over to E-85.  However, this assumes
> running the same compression ratio for both cases.  If you increased the 
> CR to
> take advantage of E-85 you would then improve the mpg as well as the power
> output.
>       There are additional costs involved with converting an existing car 
> to
> E-85.  Alcohol fuels are more corrosive than gasoline so the entire fuel
> system would have to be modified.  In addition, the stoichiometric ratio 
> for E-85
> is about 10 to 1 A/F compared to 14.6 for straight gasoline, so 
> carburetion or
> fuel injection control would have to change.  So at this time, it does not
> seem economical to convert engines from gasoline to E-85.  However, if the 
> price
> of gasoline rises substantially OR the cost of ethanol can be reduced (our
> sugar costs us about 2X world price because of US government control) then 
> it
> could make sense to BUY your next car with flexible fuel capability.
>       Even if we have to subsidize alcohol fuel production, I for one 
> would
> rather have my money go to Joe Corncob than to Mohammed Osama.  Besides, 
> Joe
> Corncob is not likely to use my money to commit acts of terror against me 
> and
> my countrymen.  But that discussion is getting us rather removed from 
> fueling
> our Corvairs.
>       Frank "verbose" Burkhard
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