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Hi guys,

I was thinking about upgrading my injectors to ID2000’s & switching to e85 but have since changed my mind after talking to the tuner who was responsible for the gtr which i now own.

He thinks that e85 is still not stable & even did a test on e85 recently from a Caltex servo which only had 71 ethanol (name disclosed)...imagine what this would do if your car was highly tuned for 85 ethanol?!?!

He also said that when buying this fuel, you should only buy from new servo’s which have poly tanks as the older concrete tanks are reacting to e85.

Anyway, i thought i’d share this with anyone else who is sitting on the fence as i have been for quite some time, now my mind is clear 

When e85 becomes more readily available in another 1-2yrs time, i ‘might’ then make the change...then again, do i really need more than 400awkw?

regards,

marko

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Well its no secret that caltex ethanol varies from e70 to e85 they state it themselves, it then comes down to the tuner where they will make the tune have some headroom to account for the change in ethanol content. Im on the caltex ethanol and my tuner was very confident that hes tune would handle anything in between 70 and 85.

Well thats not very surprising considering on the info page for Caltex E-Flex it clearly states -

Bio E-Flex is specially formulated to meet your flex fuel car's requirements all year round. Different seasons can change the way fuel performs in your engine, so Caltex will adjust the blend of ethanol from 70 to 85% between seasons to ensure your engine performs correctly.

From here http://www.caltex.com.au/ProductsAndServices/Pages/BioFuels.aspx

It is something to be careful about for sure. Fineline found out a bit more about it and they just have 2 blends. It would be nice to know when they switch between them though.

If un-regulated E85 is troubling you...buy 200 liter drums from CSR and stress no more :thumbsup:

yes - that is what the tuner suggested for gauranteed quality (csr) but my car is registered & more so a weekend warrior...if it was a race car i wouldnt hesitate to run csr

I have always used the E85 from United Rozelle.

And in actual fact its E90. I test every batch i get and has always been consistent.

I have also tested our local Caltex and they had E77.

Caltex also charge more for their E85.

For me E85 is well worth it :)

Thanks for telling us something we already knew Marko :thumbsup:

not everyone knows this as it was news to me.

anyway...united servo sounds like the best option but wont be practical for me as i like driving out of sydney & getting away from the rat race

I know Haltech are adding support for an Ethenol sensor (same as the new e85 commo uses), so your tune can change the match the ethenol %. I'm sure other ECU makers are doing the same too. In reality the blend is never going to be 85% all the time, so these sensors will probably be the way forward for us.

But I live in tassie, so I can only buy E85 in 200l drums for the forseeable future

I know Haltech are adding support for an Ethenol sensor (same as the new e85 commo uses), so your tune can change the match the ethenol %. I'm sure other ECU makers are doing the same too. In reality the blend is never going to be 85% all the time, so these sensors will probably be the way forward for us.

But I live in tassie, so I can only buy E85 in 200l drums for the forseeable future

Just do an AFR over RPM table with a wideband then overlay that over a EGT over RPM table and have it pull timing out if it exceeds any parameter.

Oh wait, you said Haltech. NVM

Marko,

Mine has been tuned on the united stuff and has run both that and the Caltex stuff AFTER the tune. Both have copped a beating its just that my tune is not on the very edge of what can be had. Yes when I can I do make the effort to go to Rozelle.

How often do you drive it? Just take a jerry can. No big deal.

If your REALLY worried about it... get it tuned on United and if you have to fill up with Caltex just pull a few degrees of timing out of it.... Remember on the Caltex stuff you will be running a tad richer (as there is more petrol).

Man up... do it. You wont be going back. :cheers:

He thinks that e85 is still not stable & even did a test on e85 recently from a Caltex servo which only had 71 ethanol (name disclosed)...imagine what this would do if your car was highly tuned for 85 ethanol?!?!

It would...run richer...and you might have to clean/replace spark plugs after a while...not end of the world stuff here. Consensus a while back was to have two selectable tunes...one for E70, one for E85. Or a happy medium. Or throw in some unleaded petrol to balance things out if the ethanol content is too high.

From the real world stories I've heard of Caltex E-Flex, the difference between E70 and E85 blends wasn't enough to totally throw out your tune provided it was safe enough and not tuned on a knife edge. I'll be tuning to run on E-Flex soon, so I'll report back here :)

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