E85 (Bio ethanol)
Turbo Mini Forums

So even in the depths of rural Suffolk we now have it (local Morrisons just updated their petrol station) and I tried it on my lawn tractor/mower last weekend and it was crap......

My lawn machine is a low compression John Deere (really green (if you get it)) so should run on anything..... but it hated the stuff.

So I did a bit of research and far from being a low grade fuel, E85 has an octane rating way above 4 star.

Possibilities of running turbos with higher CRs ???

Anyone thought about it ???

Probably more for the Fuel Injection few (the rest will have to file their needles quite a lot) but with dual tables it raises interesting possibilities.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

It was talked about a while back but I think it was just talk:

http://www.turbominis.co.uk/forums/index.php?p=vt&tid=282343

Thanks Rob - I don't know how I missed that thread, it's only a few weeks old....

But we have it here now - apparently Morrisons are committed to installing it on as many of their Fuel forecourts as they can - for the "green" aspect, which is total crap (don't get me started on that one....) so I thought it might be worthy of further debate...

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

Well Rod I will be using it on next years Race engine which will be a K16v turbo but this years engine is good old 5 port HIF turbo so no E85 for me,

like rob said we ran trough the pros and cons of this in the last thread.
but it most defently has a place in an EFI turbo......

My brother is in engine development and he warned me off it, said that it is only really suited for modern engines and that I should only use 5% in a full tank use it in an older engine and you may be asking for trouble.

Own the day

You are already puting at least 5% ethanol in your tank when you fill up at the pump with unleaded

Edited by Sprocket on 1st May, 2009.

We have used E85 in a mate of mine's race car and saw an improvement in power of about 15% all that was changed was an increase of fuel it was not a mini though. I have heard of similar gains across many different turbo vehicles so I can't see why it would not work on a mini I am going to try it in mine. Because E85 is an alchol based fuel you require about 20-30% more fuel to achieve the correct air fuel ratio than when using petrol this is the reason your lawn mower ran badly.
It has a calculated octane of 115 so is very knock resistant and cools inlet charge temperatures greatly.
One down side is it is hydroscopic so it absorbs moisture and when this happens it creates an acid which may attack some rubbers, plastics and metals, but if kept sealed isn't a problem.

Given half a chance I would run e85, but my nearest station is so bloody far away its impossible for me currently :(

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???