Fuel And You

[Krishy]

exactly steve......oh and street credz yo......nothing says flames then a burnt out rear bar and half bootlid

[Madaz]

hahaha yeah forgot street credz

love that Avatar of yours

[Krishy]

cheers steve.....thanks for creating it

[Madaz]

your most welcome thanks for the flames to be able to create it

[J_Red33]

As far as different fuels go I've almost only ever run my R33 on Untimate or 8000. However my girlfriend & I have experiemented with our other cars.

Her E46 BMW 318i - The 115Kw 2.0 twin cam manual model, not a wheezy old 1.9 the series 1's - is a particularly fussy bugger that will ping like crazy on anything less than 98 octane fuel (it just about stopped in its tracks on 1 tank of 91 she stuck in it once), but there is only one fuel that it has ever truely liked & that is Mobil 8000.

Every other fuel including BP ultimate & United E85 makes the engine seem unresponsive especially at low revs, & it will sometimes ping with these fuels depending on the conditions. I thought it may have been just 1 BP station was giving inferior fuel, but since she moved in with me from the inner South eastern suburbs to the western 'burbs the pattern has remained the same. The reason for this I can not say, but it could be that the fuel that Mobil is selling just hits the sweet spot for the Beemers tuning. There could obviously be timing issues with the E85 blend, but the reason for BP fuel being different raises a few questions.

At the other end of the spectrum my 100KW 4AGE engined Corolla loves 98 octane fuel, but is not particularly fussy what fuel I put in it even though I run a fairly advanced base timing of 18 degrees & it has 10:1 compression.

The only fuel it seemed to have trouble with was Vortex 98 & even then the main problem was that it seemed to suck that tank of fuel a lot faster than usual. I can not be 100% on this one though. May try it again this week, if the problem is not repeated then I may use it more often since they have a servo in a convienient location for me.

the main problem you'll find with skyline drivers, is the need versus the convenience.

Theres nowhere near enough e85 stations to make daily and long distance drives practical, the distance between stations is often not feasible for those who drive around the state a lot... at least with 98 you can find it in most stations...and then there is the reduction in efficiency, which means those on e85 have to fill up 20% more often than those with a tank of petrol (ala lpg, a low density gas)...I'm all for alternative fuels, esp if theyre environmentally friendly (which e85 is) and cheap per vol (whcih e85 is) but we cant really tune our dailies for it until stations start offering it. Even with nisstune, it'd take a laptop to program an alternate fuel map - who wants to do that? Its just not practical.

I can say confidently, that when our oil reserves run out and we get forced to use e85, there wont be a proble, but till then, keep tuning for 98 ron- unless you're a trackhound and can get tankers delivering the good stuff....

-D

Just a little point that needs to be made. While Ethanol is considered greener than regular petrol & its a renewable resource, it is not by any means truely green.

A little known fact that sugar companies as well as the government fail to mention is that there is a significant amount of energy required to turn the sugar into ethanol, enough that the difference between producing petrol & ethanol isn't as far appart as these companies would like you to believe.

I won't for a second argue that it's better to do nothing & paying increasingly higher rates for petrol that is getting harder to find, but this stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be.

hi guys i seem to be going using so much fuel the past few weeks but the distance and style of driving hasnt changed, any ideas?

all of those don't inherently give you bad fuel economy

o2 sensor will only + - fuel by 5%

spark plug will effect boost load but not really chew through your fuel

coil packs go hand in hand with plugs but IMO wont chew through your fuel

i had this issue with my car coming back from our melbourne trip and to tell you the truth i never found or sorted the problem out

Only 5% you reckon with the O2 sensor?

A few weeks after I had my exhaust put on my 33 my economy all of a sudden bombed from an average of 13.5L/100km to about 15L/100km.

Turned out my O2 sensor was dead & pulling it out of 1 dump pipe & placing it in another was enough for it to stop working. I could see raw fuel coming out the back especially when it was cold.

Went & bought a new sensor & within 2 tankfulls of fuel it was doing UNDER 12L/100km being driven the same way it was before & not an ounce of smoke, so that works out to about a 20% reduction in fuel consumption just from changing the sensor. Paid for itself within a matter of weeks.

[D_Stirls]

A little known fact that sugar companies as well as the government fail to mention is that there is a significant amount of energy required to turn the sugar into ethanol, enough that the difference between producing petrol & ethanol isn't as far appart as these companies would like you to believe.

Can you explain that to me????

The ethanol is created from molasses which is a by-product from the refining of white sugar. And as for turning Sugar/Molasses to ethanol it takes no energy.

Sugar + Yeast = Ethanol + CO2

Edited May 1, 2010 by D_Stirls

[JMW]

Only bad experience i had with fuel was running "on the run" servo's Extreme 98 in my old 33. The knock went from under 20 on bp ulitimate under all conditions to 230+ under load on the Extreme. A talk to the tuner and all was summised, OTR Extreme 98 is a 10% ethanol based fuel, therefore o retune would be needed to run on it. Swithched back to BP and no further excessive knock reading.

[J_Red33]

Can you explain that to me????

The ethanol is created from molasses which is a by-product from the refining of white sugar. And as for turning Sugar/Molasses to ethanol it takes no energy.

Sugar + Yeast = Ethanol + CO2

Been doing a bit more research,

I think maybe the information I'd read up on/heard about was a bit too generalised.

Specifically the issues I mentioned are more to do with producing ethanol from things like corn cobbs, straw as well as the remaining fibres from sugar caine, not the molasses. The general name for this is cellulosic ethanol.

To extract the sugars from these they need to be cooked at a fairly high temperature to first extract the sugars before being fermented with yeast.

However if you've ever been a beer brewer, which uses the same process to produce ethanol/alcohol you would know that the yeast requires a set temperature range to turn the sugar into alcohol. In cooler weather you may need a heat plate as the temperature required for a lot of brews it between about 21-28 degrees.

The yeast they use to make ethanol requires 35-40 degrees to work & even working in places like Queensland, if you want to produce a lot of ethanol in a fairly short amount of time it is going to take a reasonable amount of energy just to get it up to the working temperature required to produce the ethanol.

With Cellulosic ethanol production, the amount of energy required to both cook & then ferment to produce ethanol means that not much more energy - if any - is produced than was required by a dirty coal power station. Places like Australia & Brazil (Brazil does both) are some of the few that are doing it the other way & producing it directly from sugar however, it's being argued that this will also start jacking up sugar prices you see in the supermarket long term. The amount of land required is also a major issue.

Brazil has also now had to set some major land limitations to stop the ethanol producing companies from clearing precious forests/eco systems & as of February 1, set a 90 day period of a 20% blend limit of alcohol in petrol due to a lack of supply. They have not reached their land allocation limit, but considering they already use 1% of the nations land & the limit is 7.5%, it is quite clear the demands for land just to produce energy are going to be quite high in the future.

Sugar based ethanol is definantely a lot better with the amount of energy it requires being only about 1/8th of what it produces, but it's not perfect.

Edited May 2, 2010 by J_Red33

[Fishpaste~]

also remember that the emissions that are produced from creating and using the ethanol are then used to feed the next crop (we burn/produce the fuel, create CO2, plants feed off of CO2 to grow, in turn release O2, we cut them down and use them again) and that is alot more environmentally friendly than petol

[Altia_R34]

BP 98 octane in my opinion! is good and safe

[Madaz]

I've made alchamahol before didn't use any special heating methods and stuff just lots of yeast lots of sugar and lots of fruit you could say it was likened to a fruity lexia

[Damo_R34]

BP 98 octane in my opinion! is good and safe

Any results or testing to back up your claim?

[Dohmar]

I've made alchamahol before didn't use any special heating methods and stuff just lots of yeast lots of sugar and lots of fruit you could say it was likened to a fruity lexia

lol steves special moonshine?

could be like homer simpson at the bowser pumping alcohol

"one for you"

"one for me"

"one for you"

"one for me"

-D

[180or200]

As far as different fuels go I've almost only ever run my R33 on Untimate or 8000. However my girlfriend & I have experiemented with our other cars.

Her E46 BMW 318i - The 115Kw 2.0 twin cam manual model, not a wheezy old 1.9 the series 1's - is a particularly fussy bugger that will ping like crazy on anything less than 98 octane fuel (it just about stopped in its tracks on 1 tank of 91 she stuck in it once), but there is only one fuel that it has ever truely liked & that is Mobil 8000.

Every other fuel including BP ultimate & United E85 makes the engine seem unresponsive especially at low revs, & it will sometimes ping with these fuels depending on the conditions. I thought it may have been just 1 BP station was giving inferior fuel, but since she moved in with me from the inner South eastern suburbs to the western 'burbs the pattern has remained the same. The reason for this I can not say, but it could be that the fuel that Mobil is selling just hits the sweet spot for the Beemers tuning. There could obviously be timing issues with the E85 blend, but the reason for BP fuel being different raises a few questions.

At the other end of the spectrum my 100KW 4AGE engined Corolla loves 98 octane fuel, but is not particularly fussy what fuel I put in it even though I run a fairly advanced base timing of 18 degrees & it has 10:1 compression.

The only fuel it seemed to have trouble with was Vortex 98 & even then the main problem was that it seemed to suck that tank of fuel a lot faster than usual. I can not be 100% on this one though. May try it again this week, if the problem is not repeated then I may use it more often since they have a servo in a convienient location for me.

Just a little point that needs to be made. While Ethanol is considered greener than regular petrol & its a renewable resource, it is not by any means truely green.

A little known fact that sugar companies as well as the government fail to mention is that there is a significant amount of energy required to turn the sugar into ethanol, enough that the difference between producing petrol & ethanol isn't as far appart as these companies would like you to believe.

I won't for a second argue that it's better to do nothing & paying increasingly higher rates for petrol that is getting harder to find, but this stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Only 5% you reckon with the O2 sensor?

A few weeks after I had my exhaust put on my 33 my economy all of a sudden bombed from an average of 13.5L/100km to about 15L/100km.

Turned out my O2 sensor was dead & pulling it out of 1 dump pipe & placing it in another was enough for it to stop working. I could see raw fuel coming out the back especially when it was cold.

Went & bought a new sensor & within 2 tankfulls of fuel it was doing UNDER 12L/100km being driven the same way it was before & not an ounce of smoke, so that works out to about a 20% reduction in fuel consumption just from changing the sensor. Paid for itself within a matter of weeks.

Am I reading this right, are you useing E85 ? Is the car in question a flex fuel ?, flex fuel cars have a sensor in the fuel tank to adjust the computer as needed, I wouldnt be useing it if it's not!

your engine would be running crazy lean at full throttle!

[J_Red33]

I gather you're on about the BMW.

In that case I very much doubt it, but I don't really know. Having said that if it was me putting fuel in that car it wouldn't have been anything other than pure 98 - or even 100 - octane petrol.

It does state in the manual that it is ok to run it on lower octane fuels & her father use to run it on that all the time ("It's all the same" he says...) so there must be some adjustability in the system, from having driven it on low octane though I think it relies heavily on the knock & O2 sensors for this.

My girlfriend now runs it exclusively on Mobil 8000.

Edited May 5, 2010 by J_Red33