Does anyone here make fuel?

e85man · Post by **e85man** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:58 pm

I have owened a flex fuel ranger for 3 years and have yet to put one tank of e85 in it. The closest place that sells it is 2 hour drive. I've read ton's of info, and am very interested in a still. Does anyone make there own E85? Is it cost effective? Thanks a lot.

AfricaUnite · Post by **AfricaUnite** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 3:15 pm

Just curious by E85 do you simply mean 85% ethanol? If so I do but have yet to try any as fuel.

-AU

EDIT, I have spent the past hour reading about E85, I make 85% alcohol but am very hesitant to put it in my gas tank because of that 15% water remaining. I would add a supplimental 10% alcohol to my fuel (currently E10 where I live) but im going to have to read up on making it safe for my vehicle. Thanks for bringing this to my attention I'll be following this post.

-AU

decoy · Post by **decoy** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 5:58 pm

you should be ok with 85% alcohol 15% water

water is desolved into the ethanol which alows it to disolve into the fuel..

if you have water in your fuel tank you pour a litter of metho int the tank to burn it thru the engine ...

FireH20 · Post by **FireH20** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 6:40 pm

E85 means 85% ethanol , 15% gasoline. I wonder if you can put pure ethanol or ethanol/water mix in that kind of engine. I know that if there's any gas in there, it will precipitate any water out of the ethanol, which isn't good.

I've also been wondering what makes a car flex fuel capable. Is it just the computer settings, or are the materials different. More resiliant metals or seals or gaskets? If it's just computer settings, I've seen programs you can run on your laptop to connect to the chip and twiddle with the settings (voiding your warranty in the process!) Theoretically, if you knew the settings you could make any car compatible.

Or not.

There are fewer than 600 stations in the US that sell E85, mostly in the Midwest.

But I think all cars can handle some percentage of ethanol. I know gas in NY state is already at least 10% eth by law.

Brett · Post by **Brett** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 7:23 pm

id say from reading that the differences are

at least i would hope the differences are

a dual fuel car will have parts that wont degrade with the alcohol, usual fuel lines wont like the alcohol same as any rubbers or plastics in the fuel line.

They will adjust the metering of the engine so more fuel is injected and maybe even alter the timing of the engine, all simple stuff to figure out n adjust for.

rectifier · Post by **rectifier** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 12:20 pm

Making E85 is hard, you have to dry your ethanol before mixing with gas. Otherwise, you'll get gasohol and water, separate in your tank... not good.

If you want to burn pure ethanol, you can run down to 80% if you don't mind a steamy exhaust - but you would have to remap your injection, rejet a carburated engine (the easy way), or run with the manual choke on partway (the stupid way to burn ethanol in your lawnmower for fun when experimenting

)

Most rubber these days can handle the ethanol, remember a lot of gas has ethanol blended, especially gas from stations such as Mohawk (which contains something like 15% EtOH I think?).

Making ethanol fuel is only cost effective when gas is over ~$1/L and you would have to make a lot of it with huge mashes to use it daily. I mainly just have my fuel column for fun, and in case some kind of disaster cuts off the fuel supply.

TEC · Post by **TEC** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 3:01 pm

If the water separates from the gas/ethanol mixture, wouldn't it be simpler and cheaper to separate it then? Kind of expensive to make 100% ethanol, but gravity will separate water from gasoline.

Brett · Post by **Brett** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 3:39 pm

i was wondering this, kinda like the bio-diesel making concept, put it in a large tank let the water seperate out n then syphon of the good stuff leaving a margin for the crapy water

rectifier · Post by **rectifier** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 4:19 pm

I don't know much about the mixture as I've never mixed the two... it may form an emulsion such that it cannot settle, or it might settle. Since most hobby gasohol producers dry their ethanol first, I assume it's not as simple as leaving it in a tank to settle.

Actually TEC, drying ethanol is surprisingly cheap as I discovered on a site about fuel-distilling... silica gel will do it and is both cheap and reusable by drying it in the sun, and supposedly a bag of corn grits can do it too! And you can throw them into your next fuel mash.

Remember though that 100% ethanol doesn't like to be 100% ethanol, it wants to be 95% ethanol. If you leave it exposed to air, it will absorb moisture rapidly, so you have to dump it right into the gas and hide it in a sealed tank.

It's a lot simpler (and cheaper) just to use pure 80%+ ABV spirit, so I'd say if you're really interestend in fuel, spend $200 on a really beat up old carburated car or motorcycle and play with that instead of your real car.

nanosleep · Post by **nanosleep** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 10:37 pm

I have mixed gas and ethanol and did not get any seperation. I estimate the ethanol was near 95%. I didn't bother measuring it, but it was made in a 6 foot packed column with good reflux. No vacuum, benzene or other purity improvements. The mix was 50/50 with 93 octane gas from the local store. The mix was very well shaken at first, but allowed to sit for several days without any movement. One theory is the 93 octane already contains ethanol and possibly other agents to enhance mixing. I have yet to try this with 87 octane which should not contain any ethanol. I have also run this mix (and straight ethanol) in a Briggs&Stratton 5HP engine (very old style with adjustable main jet on the carb). Fuel consumption and performance was poor, but this engine has a compression ratio somewhere in the 6:1 range.

pothead · Post by **pothead** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 5:43 am

I have read that even 87 octane contains some ethanol. (at least that is what the pumps at a few of my local gas station read)