E85 and a Suzuki

[Santos]

Well it turns out Rozelle United Petroleum now sell E85

Being the foolish latino that i am i going there tommorow to fill up a few jerry cans and test various blends.

I've got a microtech D5, vitara TBI and intake manifold that has been sitting in my rooms for months, i just been looking for a coily tank and vitara pump and work out a mod for the carby hat (if some one has a vit efi one cheap contact me ) I will do this conversion after a month with the motor in stock trim

Initially i think i will start by 15%, 20%, 25% blends with 95 vortex and keep an eye on things like economy, engine temps and maybe even bust out the gtech for quarter mile times (loss power not gained )

Progress on the tech/blog will be slow

Please don't post things like saying don't do it, save the 'i told you so' when i conceed defeat

[mrw82]

I dont like ethanol blend fuel for various reasons, but go ahead and try it for yourself although take a few precautions.

1) change all rubber fuel lines (including return and vent) to ethanol compatible hose, aswell as any seals in the carby, fuel pump, engine etc that will be in contact with the fuel, otherwise they will turn to goo and you will have leaks galore.

2) stay well and truly away from water. water crossings, mud puddles will all have to be avoided as the ethanol will harbour the water and contaminate the fuel and give you no end of problems.

good luck and keep us posted.
Mark.

[Gwagensteve]

This isn't an I told you so, Santos, as you are from a country that runs ethanol, so I am sure you are aware of what needs to be done, but for the benefit of the rest of us,

What e85 compatible fuel pump are you using?

How are you dealing with corrosion of the aluminium fuel rails etc?

Have you checked A/F ratios now, pre Ethanol? Your fuel system will have to deliver lots more fuel, and a lean out could be a real possibility with a fuel system that runs fairly low pressure and is fairly coarse in its resolution.

My understanding is E85 cars usually run stainless fuel system components (like fuel rails) and pumps with no copper in them as the e85 is very aggressive.

Steve.

[Santos]

To start with i am going to run the stock components and periodically checking there condition. I honestly don't know my current air fuel ratios but i don't think i am going to run pure E85 till after i do the efi conversion, in which case each of the components will be upgraded to suit and i will put a foot note.

I also am thinking i am going to go down and get a few inches of fuel hoses and leave them in a sealed container and monitor them too.

Lastly while still in stock config i am going to add some nulon valve salver (been told AT fluid works) to lubricate the mechanical fuel pump.

One question that someone might be able to answer for me is are brakelines interchangeble with efi fuel lines? Given the fact that brake fluid eats through everything it might be an option

Here's a basic run down printed in 1980
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Tr ... -Cars.aspx

[Gwagensteve]

If your'e still going to be running the original mechanical pump, you're going to need to be 100% sure the diaphram material is ethanol compatible. you don't want a sump full of E85.

I'd beg borrow or steal a wideband A/F meter before you start tipping lots of E85 into a carby car.

A stock sierra carby won't know what fuel is going through it and it won't know it now has to deliver 11:1 A/F (or whatever stoich is for E85) To tell you the truth, once the fuel system materials are out of way, i'd be booking some dyno time - you don't really want to be doing this research on the road.

I'm not familiar with the microtech D5, if it has wideband O2 sensing, ignition control and supports closed loop control then you should be able to run the car as "flex fuel" if you do the fuel system mods to support e85. if it doesn't support closed loop (or ignition control) then I think you'll be locked in to whatever fuel you tune it on.

(See I'm not being a hater, just working through the tech )

Steve.

[reprise]

Just a quick noob question........i calculated E85 to be 25% cheaper then regular unleaded, however heard E85 requires appox 35% more fuel to go the same distance as regular unleaded. Would that not make it more costly anyway, never mind all the other engine associated issues??


sorry for the hijack, but seeing as we're on the topic.....

[Gwagensteve]

IMHO yes, you're correct reprise. It's false economy unless an engine is built purely to run on, say, e85 and take account of the compression and ignition advance latitude it gives, however, at that point, it won't be possible to run anything other than the bland of ethanol it was designed for (say, E85)

It's always been cheaper to run my late model cars on 98 octane than 95 octane, as an example, and economy was markedly worse on 100 octane E5 than on 98 octane, to the extent it's not worth running it.

Steve.

[reprise]

Thought so. Cheers for the sig line btw.

[Santos]

so i made it out to rozelle with 3 jerry cans and let me say buying E85 is not easy. I had a long talk with the service station attendant before he turned the pump on. in the mean time a couple of people tried to use it to fill an old beaten commodore. He said its not suited for their car, and was only for saabs and other flexifull vehicles. I threw my full support behind the attendant.

Now i got just over 40L of the stuff
The false economy is an issue, the same goes for lpg, the trick i feel is to tune it so it runs superb on E85 and average on petrol (rather than the other way round)

There is a GTI on ebay at the moment that got heaps of resistance from redlinegti.com when he wanted to convert it to lpg. He had a basic impco mixer and convertor set up and had it tuned to get 7l for 100km. yes its was mainly on highway, was a lighter car, has DOHC and electronic ignition but the point is he got near factory petrol figures for the car

I am at this stage tossing up between going out and getting a microsquirt or building a jaycar programmable ignition box. The jaycar kit has an option for two ignition tables and knock sensor.

Since the microtech D5 will let me effectively make an electronic carb out of the throttlebody it has its appeal for an afternoon swap then do the ignition at a later date('the car is my daily driver, if i can't do it on a weekend i will not be doing it)

[Santos]

Well week one went positive, i filled up from half a tank of e10 to a full tank with optimax, then topped it up after several k's with plain jane regular. Drove some more than filled up with 3l of E85.

6 days later no sign of change in my motor, admitavely i was only at 10-12% with the blend but i am taking small incruments to allow the ethanol to flush the heavier gunk deposits from the fuel system.

I will be putting in 4.5l tonight and topping up my tank with regular, if all goes well will gradually get it to 20% ethanol blend as i feel this is the limit of a stock carb set up.

Also making sure to keep my driving style to light load and sub-5000rpm as a safety margin

[Mr-Hawk]

Nice to se someone else trying E85.

Ran 50/50 mix of petrol and E85 in my 413 for over a year, ran great.

Want to try this in my Vitara to, but the manual says max 10% Ethanol (tried that, no problems) thinking of changing injection points and try a bit higher concentration.

[Santos]

Funny enough is that suzuki don't recommend any ethanol for the sierra/sj413 here in australia

For the vitara just get one of those flexifuel convertors from brazil that are always on US ebay and keep and eye on the compoenents for swelling

[Gwagensteve]

Do you mean the snake oil 5000?: http://flextek.com/

You'd be better with a magnet on the fuel line, or park you car under a pyramid at night IMHO. How this little box that sits between the injectors (and presumably changes their pulse width a set %) knows what fuel you're using is pretty interesting, especially as I couldn't find any science on their site. May be it reads the fuels shakra?

Any car that runs closed loop will basically be able to fuel the car on e85, the devil is in the materials in the fuel system (consult a trained professional, according to the snake oil salesmen above) and whether the increased fuel consumption cancels out the benefit.

Steve.

[Mr-Hawk]

Funny enough is that suzuki don't recommend any ethanol for the sierra/sj413 here in australia

I don't have a manual for the 413 so I never knew, but I tried higher and higher concentration till it ran worse, 30-50% seemed to work fine.

All petrol that is sold here in sweden contains 5% Ethanol.

[MightyMouse]

The SAE published some very interesting pictures of engines that had been run on high ethanol concentrations for substantial periods.

None were pretty - significant buildup of deposits, valve and valve seat damage along with piston problems.

So apart from corrosion / degradation issues in the fuel system, engines not designed for high ethanol concentrations are going to have problems down the track.

IIRC cars designed for very high ethanol levels actually are started on petrol ( separate tank ) and then switched over when up to temperature.

[Santos]

i hadn't seen the flektek brand but i figured these systems worked like most aftermarked interceptors they gavered a reading from various sensors and then adjusted the injectors to suit. I am sure they hook up to an oxygen sensor and when an extremely lean mixture comes through it triggers the ' ethanol mode' and when petrols starts flowing through it goes overly rich and puts the interceptors back into ' petrol' mode.. a little more code and you got something inbetween.

OEM Closed loop operation probably can't handle ethanol in such high concentratios effectively. Sure the vehicle would run but most engines still run when out of tune, fuel economy and performacnce would be lacking and your back to the proliferation of ' i tried it but thats stuffs rubbish'

Mighty mouse i would love to see these photos and the supporting documentation, i don't really believe that the SAE are complitely unbiased but would like to read on there findings. Ethanol is not really that aggressive on metals as say methanol and many of the so called alcohol fuels knowledge stems from the petroleum methanol drag racing.

One of the main thing that consumers hated about alcohol cars when i was a boy was that you had to start it on petrol or spend 10 mins cranking it over for it to go. That was when everything was carb and the easiest cheapest way was just to have a small tank and an electric pump to squirt the ' primer' in it. There where other options of course like a mini electric fuel preheater but any other solution was not ' viable' since it just cost more to get to the end result. Brazils domestic car only policy was still in effect so the manufacturers could milk dated retrofitted systems rather than progress forward.

Since then however imports have come in and fuel injection ensures cold starting on ethanol is not an issue. The pressure vaporises enough ethanol to spark (definately not all of it but enough)

I didn't expect to convert naysayers in a week. This thread will be slow as only time came prove anything.

Hawk - was your SJ413 carburattor or Efi?


If one of the suzuki wreckers on this forum would like to donate a junk g13 motor so i can cut a chunk out of the block and head and leave it soaking in e85 for a month please PM me

On a side note there are suzuki's in brazil, they are not ' modified' for the brazil market like the commodore. All petrol is e20 there, although i am part of a brazilian 4x4 forum i rarely visit it. None of the owners have complained about their 10 year old or more motors falling apart. I only point this out because brazilians are often the worst when it comes to blaming a product for not doing something outsides its design parameters or it breaks due to a lack of their technical knowledge.

[Mr-Hawk]

i
Hawk - was your SJ413 carburattor or Efi?

Mine ran first the stock aisin carb, then I changed to an older Aisin from a Toyota car (manual choke and mecanical 2:nd port) ran good with both, mabye even a bit better with the older carb.

[M4tthew]

Funny enough is that suzuki don't recommend any ethanol for the sierra/sj413 here in australia

1993 SJ413 owner's manual page 18-19

Gasoline/Ethanol blends
Blends of unleaded gasoline and ethanol (grain alcohol), also known as gasahol, are commercially available in some areas. Blends of this type may be used in your vehicle if they are no more than 10% ethanol. Be sure this gasoline-ethanol blend has octane ratings no lower than those recommended for gasoline.

[MightyMouse]

Santos - a colleague is searching for the SAE paper ( i hope ) so should be able to post the pics tomorrow evening if all goes to plan.

Apparently the actually research was done by Orbital in WA

[Gwagensteve]

(Highjack) Why wouldn't the SAE be unbiased? Are they part of the great oil company conspiracy too?

Steve.

[Santos]

no oil conspiracies. SAE engineers are likely to tackle the problem as if it was a petrol engine, obeying petrol traits .
A good example is lpg, higher octane, great more advance, what people don't mention is as heat and cylinder pressure rises octane drops (less total advance) gaseous fuels do not behave as their liquid counterparts.

professionals in any field can quite often box themselves. Its why i asked to see the papers to read what they did. An untuned engine has a short lifespan regardless of fuel type

significant buildup of deposits, valve and valve seat damage along with piston problems.

does sound a lot like what happens to a leaded engine running on unleaded, valve and piston damage can also occur when a overly rich mixtures doesn't burn properly then exploding as it rushes out into the hot exhaust. It can be small continuous doses that go unnoticed over engine noise rathenr han loud attention drawing.

[GRPABT1]

Sometimes I think alot of you guys no waaaaaaaaay to much about engines and cars to be swinging spanners on old suzuki's lol. I envision someone of your expertise tinkering away on the latest audi or something like that lol.

[Gwagensteve]

If the reaseach was done by Orbital, they can't afford to be either pro or anti ethanol, the markets in which they sell their products will determine what fuel will be used in them, they just have to do the research to find out how to deal with it.

Santos, you need to stop getting so defensive. You're not really advancing your cause by saying "ethanol's the answer, so long as you build a motor for it" because if everyone swapped over to ethanol tomorrow, 3/4 of the world's population would starve within a year. This is especially true when that fuel is less thermally efficient and therefore more is required to achieve the same power.

I could say the same thing about biodiesel too - a motor built for biodiesel can potentially murder a ethanol engine for efficiency.

The fact is ethanol is an aggressive fuel with some challenging properties. The evidence seems to indicate at certain % and for certain periods, you might be OK. I understand you're trying to do some science, and you need to be applauded for this, but science isn't about bias, and is about very rigorous testing.

The science is currently indicating that ethanol isn't a very kind fuel for long term use in conventional engines not specifically engineered for its properties. The $$ spent and the rigorous nature of this reasearch means it can't be discounted as biased easily.

running increasing % of ethanol in your suzuki won't prove much if you have already started with an old, worn motor, haven't dyno'ed the motor on petrol and haven't ever checked ir fuel regardless of fuel. It's all anecdotal, and I can find anecdotal evidence engines can run on water, it doesn't mean I'd believe it.

Steve.

[Santos]

Firstly

Now...

I do not feel that i am being ' defensive' merely addressing negative concerns put in by others.

Most of the tech on this forum is anecdotal. I do not have the finances to do dyno run after dyno run. I am at the begining of my project, it will take time.

I have a gtech RR that measures hp/torque by checking the G force of X Y Z axis and ambient temp to give me a virtual dyno (many runs on petrol have giving me consistent figures at various times of the day on the same stretch of road) Once i am satisfied with my ethanol breaking in period i will do runs on the gtech. Eventually i can drain the tank fill it up with pure petrol and get a dyno run, then compare it with an blend run.

for now here is a link on some more interesting reading i got to get back to work
http://www.drivingethanol.org/motorspor ... stics.aspx

(and gwagensteve your facts and figures on ethnol causing world famine is also anecdotal, food for thought.)

[Gwagensteve]

Well, they might be anecdotal, but increased demand for biofuels has been implicated in increasing food prices worldwide. A massive swing to ethanol would have a very significant impact on the standard of living for most of the worlds poor as biofuel crops replace food crops.

Anyway, that's off the topic.

The link you sent is interesting, but it has a faint whiff of propoganda about it.

For a site advocating ethanol for a race fuel to not include any complete data for any petroleum based race fuel is a bit remiss, no?

Also, US pump gas is lower octane than aus/japanese/european pump fuel
(yes, and I know the different rating systems used between the countries)

and according to the site you linked:

For example, if gasoline is run at its preferred max power air fuel mixture of 12.5/1, it will release approximately 19,000 BTU's of energy, where ethanol run at its preferred power stoichiometric of 6.5/1 will release approximately 24,400 BTU's. By comparison, methanol releases slightly more, about 27,650 BTU's. The more ethanol there is in gasoline, the more powerful it is as a motor fuel. Typically, you can expect at least 5% more horsepower at the rear wheels of a vehicle running on E-85 than one burning gasoline only.

So, all that power producing ethanol in the fuel and all those BTU's... but 5% more power? Oh that must be because of the 30% lower energy value...

Yes, it does look like ehtanol makes a great race fuel, where fuel economy isn't important and cooling (not to mention hard cold starting, again, according to the linked site) isn't important, but as a road fuel for a road car engine? It doesn't look very clear cut.

Steve.

[Eff]

Race engines also get stripped down and rebuilt on a regular basis before the ethanol does its nasty work

[Santos]

I think i also saw the same report about biofuels rasing food prices, at the end of the report there was the positive spin that this is better for developing nations as it would encourage primary industries (something that third world economies rely on) The reporter said that it was cheaper for several african nations to import produce than produce it themselves
(now how ridiculous is that a poor nation buys outside because its cheaper and has no money cause there are no jobs in a primary industriy!)

So if the value of food goes up, its actually a benifit

In brazil petrol is out of the reach of the average citerzen, industries that are powered by petrol (agriculture, transport, everything) The competition of alcohol and petrol levels the field a bit (not completely as both are highly taxed) . I know i know i'ver been steering off topic.

The link was something a found late last night and i posted it during my lunch break today. I was specifically interested in the burn rate.

So, all that power producing ethanol in the fuel and all those BTU's... but 5% more power? Oh that must be because of the 30% lower energy value...

Yeah every racing catalogue from extractors to cams to high compression say 5% this, 10% that.

Still lets look at what they are saying, e85 has 14000BTU per unit and USA pump gas has 19000BTU per unit. Now if they both shared the same stoich of 12.59/1 then petrol would win out.

Now forget that.

Start with a 100cc cylinder, fill it with a petrol air mix of 12.5/1 Stoich
So 100/12.5 = 8.34cc of petrol
8.34cc x19000= 152000 Total enegy

Same 100cc Cylinder, fill it with e85 air mix 7.4/1 Stoich
100/7.4 =13.5cc of E85
13.5 x14000 =189000 Total energy

So overal in the 100cc cylinder
the e85 produced more power
(many hand make light work)
I have oversimplified this the Btu rating would be Btu/Kg but i figure it would still conform to the same scale.

Fuel economy from this same 100cc in a 1 cylinder engine.

At a glance petrol is on top with only 8cc and E85 with 13.5cc

13.5cc/8cc = 1.687 68.7% more fuel

To be completely fair though you have to measure it at the same energy

1 rotation of petrol stoich =152000 (as above)
1 rotation of e85 Stoich = 189000

189000/
152000 =1.243

If the petrol engine rotates 1.243 times i will produce the same power of 1 rotation of E85

1.243 x 8cc =9.994cc

So to get the same energy the engine needs to work harder.

13.5/9.994cc = 1.351 35.1% more fuel

Again oversimplified. It does show that the gap is a lot less than initially thought. The same engine at a constant speed on flat ground over 1000kms petrol wins out.

Still in the real world that 35.1% gap can be reduced further,igniton timing, compression, its why i stress on the need for tuning and treating an ethanol engine as a differnt beast to a petrol conterpart . The advantage of being able to be in a higher gear at a lower rpm also helps.

E85 cost me $1.24 per litre, the same day same station regular was at $1.69, if i where to be running at e85 on that 100cc engine it would cost me $1.67 to travel the same distance.

I am not currently running on E85, i hope to build an engine that runs on both fuels. I have decided to get the dual curve programmable ignition kit from jaycar and stick with my carb for ethanol volumes lower than 25%.

My engine is close to 240000 kms and i have bit for owned for 3 years, with over 45000k'ms travelled by me using e10 on a regular basis.

I have been planing to take it out and replace it with an engine that i am slowly rebuilding. It will be good oppotunity to strip it down and inspect its condition after long use with E10 (and the fuel months of higher ethanol blends)

The plus side of this is if E85 blends become widely available then mixing your own 95-98 Ron E10 with regular fuel will actually be cheaper than filling up completely with regular.

There is more interesting stuff in that link that i like to touch on but it's taking me a while to get this far so i might leave it for tonight.

Eff, I hear what you are saying but the only way i can disprove the possibility is to run the engine for long term. (hope that made sense)

GwagenSteve What did you mean by cooling isn't important?
Ethanol burns at a lower heat than petrol and absorbs more latent heat during vaporisation. So the engine runs cooler. If the problem is that the engine is running too cool than the short answer is fit a higher temparature thermostat. If you want to run petrol or e85 improve the cooling system with a bigger radiator or auxillary fan. It may be in fact that the temperature drop is enough to be an issue. Manufacuters have been running road car engines at hotter temparatures than nessecary to aid with emmissions. A few performance books i have read suggested that 70-80 is a good range.

Not having a go at you but on this forum ppl weld diffs, fab engine mounts and adaptor plates, put in bigger engines (which often require cooling system tweaking). Anything that needs to be modified in the cooling for long term running reliability is really trivial when you think about it.

Cold starting with E85 is a concern, particularly for people in the south, there are methods of overcoming this, a hurdle for when we get there.

At the moment i have 8l of e85 in a full tank So i am running just shy of 20% (in 8l of e85 i have 1.2l of petrol give or take)
Mr Hawks input was not the determine factor for me making the decision to increase the dosage ahead of schedule but did enter the consideration.

As an anecdotal mention without a choke it took me 2 timed mins to get the engine to operating temparature at 9pm this night given the conditions i don't think thats to bad, the engine drove 50kms across sydney and no sign of it running rough.

I understand your concern and i am keeping an eye on engine tempartures, keeping the engine at minimal load and other small indicators

[Santos]

Sometimes I think alot of you guys no waaaaaaaaay to much about engines and cars to be swinging spanners on old suzuki's lol. I envision someone of your expertise tinkering away on the latest audi or something like that lol.

You know the suzuki G engine was pretty advance for its time. I have Nissan/toyota friends who are suprised than an engine concieved in the early 80's has an all alloy block.

(sure it wasn't the first production car to have it, that honour would probably be held by some european car).

Add the fact that it is used in FWD/RWD vehicles, can be set up in many configurations 8v, 16v, SOHC,DOHC, carburated, single and mulitpoint injection, individual coils and large amount of interchangeble components between the 3 main blocks.

So next time you are spinning spanners on the old suzuki marvel at the ingenuity of a ' small time' japanese car manufacturer.

I know i'm such a suzuki otuko

[cj]

I thought petrol stoich was at 14.7 and E85 at 9.7 or petrol max power stoich at 12.5 and E85 max power stoich at 6.9

[Gwagensteve]

the cooling thing was a typo - cooling is critical in a race engine that might be a peak HP for long periods, but the trade off with cold starting and economy is more of a problem with a road car- that was my point.

You've done a lot of maths and typing there Santos, but your link provided you with that answer:

Latent heat - 13,160 BTU/lb for Ethanol, 18,700, worst case for US petrol - which is 30% more latent heat. therefore to produce the same power, you're going to loose about 30% fuel economy.

That's 100% ethanol to US 87 octane (R+M/2)

You'll be somewhere inbetween the two figures for E85.

Steve.