Running on E85

[chesterx]

Any thoughts on how to convert a 51 Plymouth to run on E85?

[greg g]

About a month ago thee was a pretty extensive thread on this. Might wanna try the search button. One of the posts was about veggie alcohol vs aluminum as in carburetors.

[50 Deluxe]

Thanks to a wife who got 5 gallons of E-85 for me and I accepting it without question, I can give you a few hints on what may happen using E-85. In my 49 Plymouth p-20 the first thing to go was the float in the carburetor, the solder melted in 6 places. The rubber in the fuel pump turned to mush. My fuel gauge was next to die.

Then I ask some questions of the better half, her comment “I got the good stuff for you” in other words it was my fault. After soldering the float and replacing the rubber in the fuel pump, I found out the original lines were stainless steel and the values in the engine can hold up under the stress of E-85. So the next time the wife gets fuel for me I’ll be ready to make another run at the corn.

[Frank Blackstone]

Also tried veggie oil versus aluminium. Any other key words that were know to be in the thread? Thanks, Frank

[greg g]

http://www430.pair.com/p15d24/mopar_forum/showthread.php?t=6438&highlight=ethanol

[bob westphal]

Hey guys,

Remember, Arco and several other oil companies are selling gas that is 10% alky and lots of people are buying it. I've been running my cars (P-15 included) on it for many, many years now with no problems at all and I've seen no drop in milage or power. E-85 has only 5% more alky than the gas Arco sells. What's the big deal??

I just read through the thread that Greg posted. It appears that there is a great concern that alky eats aluminum. 'Tain't so!! I used to race go-karts with 100% alky fueled Briggs 5 hp. engines. These engines are all aluminum except for the cam, crank, valves, bolts & wrist pins. The carbs are also poorly cast aluminum with a few steel parts like needle valve and butterfly. The carb diaphram was also stock made from what ever the factory produced. I'm assuming neopreme. We ran these engines at 7K rpm for hours at time. All parts had to be from the factory and fit factory specs. There was absolutley no deterioration of any part from fuel. The only modifications we did other than finely tune the factory specs were to enlarge the carb jet and advance the timing. If you let the engine sit around without running for a year or so you might have to clean out the carb due to corrosion. That's funny, the same thing happens when you let it sit around with gas too.

There also has been some concern about the low efficency of our old flatties. The design of the Briggs engine is very similar to our engines. These engines weren't made to do what we do with them but they do it well. The alky gives us at least a 20% gain in hp. More if we fine tuned a little more. The only failures we had were from too many Rs.

In short, if you have real rubber parts in your engine and you want to run anything with alcohol, you should replace these parts. I doubt that any mods will need to be done to our old engines to run on E-85. If anything you might need to advance the timing a degree or so.

[Young Ed]

Yes I run the 10% stuff in my cars too. However E85 is 85% ethanol-thats a lot more then 5% extra. Still be interesting to experiment with an E85 flathead. The biggest downfall I see is once you set it up for that you'd have to run strictly that.

[Merle Coggins]

I don't have a choice around here but to run 10% ethanol blend. It's mandatory 'round here for emissions. I don't notice any difference in any of my vehicles, but some claim that there's a significant difference in mileage if they drive 30-40 miles out of the regulated counties to get "regular" gas.

Also, like Ed says, the E-85 is 85% Ethanol and 15% gas. The alcohol that you ran in your go-carts was probably Methanol. That's a different alcohol and isn't as corrosive.

[50 Deluxe]

Some more clarification of running on E-85: We here in southern Illinois have the option of running 10% at what ever octane rating the gas company provides or 85% (E-85), we cannot find any regular gas anywhere. My 07 f-150 along with many other brands of cars and trucks run on E-85 (my 49 Plymouth sometimes does). E-85 is cheaper and it has a lower gas mileage. It cost a lot to produce (the government is supplementing the production cost at present, which is money spend here in the US rather than sending to the desert). Most farmers are happy with the product and a resultant of the process after the ethanol is produced is a corn meal that is feed to the cows. Ethanol is also made using wood, soy and some other plants. We have six new plants starting operation around here in the next few months. Bush just passed a bill that makes E-85 and Soy diesel mandatory for all in a few years

[Merle Coggins]

E-85 in NOT a reccomended fuel in my '06 F150. You need to check your operator's manual to see if you have a "Flex Fuel" vehicle.

[Young Ed]

Merle in the twin cities here we have stations that sell the no ethanol gas specifically for collector cars. The pumps say collector cars and small engines only(you can use it in lawn mowers etc). When its really hot out I try to get that stuff for my cars. Usually 1-2 tanks in july. Rest of the time I run the reg 10% stuff. Now as far as that last explanation of E85 I'm a little skeptical. Seems like switching a carb engine from 87 to over 100 octane would cause some issues.

[Plymouthy Adams]

why is GM is making such a big promotion of the flex fuel..like it is new technology...

In 1993 through 1995, Chrysler offered M85 flexible-fuel versions of the Dodge Spirit and Plymouth Acclaim with an MPFI 2.5 L 4-cylinder engine. FFV Chrysler minivans were also offered beginning around the same time, with a version of the corporate 3.3 L V6 enigne.

[Jeff.P_46]

It takes ~1.4 gallons of E-85 to equal the energy content of 1 gallon of gasoline.

Jeff

[bob westphal]

We were running ethanol in our karts. At least that's what was printed on the drum. I realize that most of us are too young to remember but internal combustion engine were originally built to run on ethanol. Yes, it takes more alky to the mile but if you increase the effiency of you engine by raising compression, better breathing and etc. you can gain that mileage back. This is true with warming up any engine. I learned this when I first started hopping up engines when I was a youngster. My milled head gave me an extra 3 mpg. The one thing that most speed demons did to drop their mileage was to put too big of a carb/carbs on the engine. The name of the game to power and mileage is volumetric effiency. What do you think the manufactures are doing to the engines today to get more mpg. As a result we get lots more power. i.e. 250 hp 2 liter 4 bangers that give better than 30mpg, 3.1 liter V-6 that gets 32 mpg at better than 80mph. The modern engines are the best candidates for alky because of their V.E.

[waveraider_2000]

For what you save in money at the pump it's not worth it. It gives less mileage for one thing and it's shelf life is about zip. In my way of thinking it is just plain crap! I store my antique cars with either Sunoco 110 leaded fuel, it has a shelf life of over a year and half, or AV100 --- it's shelf life is very close to Sunoco. Sure, it costs a bunch but so do parts, and I would rather drive my cars than take them apart and fix what the E-85 screwed up!