Who is brave enough to try this:

[lbrombach]

I figure that a car that can run on E85 could probably run on E100. No blending necessary. If you mix alcohol with water in it,with gasoline we know that it will not mix. SO WHAT? It is not that the water comes out and drops the bottom, it is the water/alcohol mixture that does, and you'll simply burn E100 until you get to the gas on top, then you'll burn that. It probably will run funny during the sudden switch, or you can just make sure you don't get the fuel that low. Add more watery etoh. I don't believe that yur car will come to a screeching halt.

Might have problems if you try to blend to make E10 to E30 for use in your non-converted/non-flex fuel car. I might be brave enough to try it if I had a flex fuel car.

Thoughts?

[Husker]

A car if properly "jetted" will run fine on 160 proof or above, as long as you have drained out all gas prior to switching over. Also, once you have switched, you can not "go back", unless again, you fully flush out the system.

I am pretty sure that a combustion engine actually works better with EtOH with some water in it, than true anhydrous (I have no experience, this is something I have read).

H.

[absinthe]

yeah you get more power running with a 80% ethanol and 20% water mix than straight ethanol...

and i think you need a fuel ratio of around 8.5:1 something like that i cant remember

[LOGGONON]

Yes cars will run fine on 90odd%. Carbs can be re-jetted or tuned. EfI can be reprogrammed or tricked. Timing will advance a little. I dont think that u will get more power from water in the mix. though it will help 2 keep the clyenders cooler, though at high temp and compression the water will nearly explode (rapid expanction) this may give you a few horse power. Personally 90% would be the bare min for a motor in my option.
moth balls may work the same way as in protrolum fuel to boost the octane my about 10-15 points. higher octane = better mileage more damage. personally i treat motors like toys. so ill feed them anything at least once. P.S i broke a lot of toys as a kid.

[absinthe]

higher octane = better mileage more damage.

not really true...

higher octane just means it burns faster. theres no more energy in the fuel...

with a higher octane you can up the timing and get more power without anymore damage...

unless you rev the crap out of it...

higher octane than normal is 100 times better for your car than lower than its tuned for..

as the lower octane will cause detention, knocking and allot of other nasties...

the reason you get better mileage is the small power boost you get so you don't have to put your foot down as far..

but causes allot less damage than changing down a gear and revving the engine more to go up a hill

[LOGGONON]

OK from my experience with knock is that when the piston is coming towards TDC- top dead center. The plug puts out a charge. the higher octane fuel placed into the chamber the faster the burn. So the point of it all is to ignite the fuel at complete top dead center. and when a motor will knock, its when the fuel is ignited a tad before top dead center, Hence trying to send the piston in a reverse motion to the crank-shaft. loosing a lot of kenitec energy (power). usually the higher the octane the higher the temperature of the bore. With these temps and the friction places on the rings they will deplete a lot faster than a colder cylinder. And since nearly all cars produces have a ring gap set for a certain fuel range (most manufactures set the gap with a 15-20% use of e85 tolerance). Though this is slightly getting into the nitty gritty of things. And motors will live with the changes just fine.
U mentioned in the other post a fuel ratio of 8.5:1. (i think u meant compression ratio).
The fact is that E85 is much like LPG. Where the compression is good around the 13:1 mark. Where 8.5:1 if more suited for a forced induction system, Turbo, Screw charger Or Nitrous ECT.

[Pontikka]

So the point of it all is to ignite the fuel at complete top dead center.

No, the point is to get the pressure spike to just after TDC. A given fuel always burns at the same rate, so we have to put more ignition advance on higher revs (and different engine loads) to get the pressure spike at the right time.

And 8:1 fuel ratio is just fine for ethanol. I would suggest compression ratio of 12:1 for high power turbo engines and mayby something like 14:1 for naturally aspirated engines. This is with a proper engine management system, like MegaSquirt.

[bcubed]

Actually, I have run 140-proof whiskey through my Honda CB 250 Nighthawk when I ran out of gas 5mi. short of my destination. The bike wasn't all that happy about it, but it got me there.

IIRC, the two differences with ethanol fuel are that 1. It requires a richer mixture and 2. It's around 107-octane [(R+M)/2], and should use a higher compression ratio.

I'm actually building a bike around 1/3 of a Corvair engine (900cc twin) and I'd like to tune it to run on either Ethanol or premium. I'd like to bump the C/R to 10:1 or so and use an adjustable-mixture carb to optimise for either of the two seperate fuels.

[CanadianRye]

higher octane = better mileage more damage.

not really true...

higher octane just means it burns faster. theres no more energy in the fuel...

with a higher octane you can up the timing and get more power without anymore damage...

unless you rev the crap out of it...

higher octane than normal is 100 times better for your car than lower than its tuned for..

as the lower octane will cause detention, knocking and allot of other nasties...

the reason you get better mileage is the small power boost you get so you don't have to put your foot down as far..

but causes allot less damage than changing down a gear and revving the engine more to go up a hill

Very close, but I'll add to it a little.

You're correct about power. A higher octane rating does not mean that fuel has any more energy.

All that higher octane does is allow you to take full advantage of your particular engine. If it needs it, it will help. If it doesn't need it then you are just wasting money.

Octane is resistance to preignition. It's speed is more a characteristic of the fuel, not the octane. A faster burning fuel (like some of the race fuels) will can require less timing to account for the fast burning combustion.

CanadianRye.

[Dnderhead]

Boy do you deed some reading see topic below ( does alcohol burn hotter) that is a start --you guys are way off you better look up other things as well
as octane rating --anti detonation-index not more power -- really just the opposite --strait fuel has more power and heaver fuel has more yet
(as diesel) you can git more power out of alcohol because it contains o2 so you can cram more in and still have it burn so you can git buy with smaller
engine if it setup for it-- as advance timing /high compression/larger jets in carb Not going to git into all because I'm not that good on computer

[Old_Blue]

What Dnder tried to say. Makes a gocart fly.