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  #46  
Old 09-05-2006, 05:48 AM
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Originally Posted by longassname
By that logic you could barely make any power with nitromethane.

Not logic, that would be science my friend.
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  #47  
Old 09-05-2006, 09:32 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by benebob
Not logic, that would be science my friend.
That depends on who you are talking to. Ethanol would be amazing for me t run n my car

Tom
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  #48  
Old 09-05-2006, 10:16 AM
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That depends on who you are talking to. Ethanol would be amazing for me t run n my car

Tom
Why because it is a consistent underperformer when compared to gas? Seems like Bill should be using it instead of his solid rocket fuel.
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  #49  
Old 09-05-2006, 11:43 AM
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I'm not sure what point you are trying to make now but the scientific method uses logic. It's not very scientific to grab a characteristic like less btu's per volume and jump to a conclusion of why bother if you get lass bang. Less total bang? nope, you spray more of it in and you get more total bang. Less bang per $? not at current prices. Less bang per volume? maybe a little but not following directly by the btu's released by the combustion of a set volume. During and imediately after igniton ethanol burns slower than gasoline while in the later stages of combustion it burns faster. The result is more of the engergy from those btu's is transmitted through the crank instead of lost heating up engine components.

I think we've discussed earlier how the larger volume of fuel injected with e85 is actually a performance benefit thanks to the cooling effect of the extra fuel for vaporization and the extra mass to carry heat out the exhaust.




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Not logic, that would be science my friend.
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  #50  
Old 09-05-2006, 11:45 AM
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You are just completely missinformed there.



Quote:
Originally Posted by benebob
Why because it is a consistent underperformer when compared to gas? Seems like Bill should be using it instead of his solid rocket fuel.
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  #51  
Old 09-05-2006, 12:08 PM
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You are just completely missinformed there.
Then explain it to me and show me proof. I've yet to see any and everything I've read on ethanol isn't good. Sure you can tune an engine to run on it better but you can also tune an engine to run on leaded race fuel too.

If you we're so high up on your $%^ box you would've realized I was asking why someone would go to it. In reality one should simply ditch gas/ethanol altogether and covert to propane... Properly tuned not much else out there can compete.

Oh and if I'm so mis-informed then why does the general racing community aside from dinosaur mullet boys who can only go in a straight line a 1/4 mile of the time shy away from this wonder product?
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  #52  
Old 09-05-2006, 12:42 PM
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No need to get pissy. I'm not trying to argue with you but it's hard not correct you when you come into a thread that has been more throughly discussing the in's and outs of a fuel and you throw out something negative that doesn't make any sense. What am I supposed to do, not correct you? If I didn't somebody would be flaming you right now instead of me courtesly sharing my knowlege. If you can, ask yourself honestly, do you really think you know everything about e85 and I'm completely off my rock or is it possible you should try to consider what I have said with an open mind. I'll look back and make sure I'm not confusing this thread with another but I think I have already explained most of the major reasons why you can expect more power from e85 than gasoline.

I've got to call you on your logic again as well as your premises with the attempt to use the racing communities actions as an expert opinion to bolster your position. The racing community does not shy away from ethanol. Everyone knows ethanol makes more power. It's for exactly that reason that it's use is limited to certain classes of racing. Racing classes are used to limit performance.
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  #53  
Old 09-05-2006, 12:47 PM
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Ok, my appologies...I haven't explained the performance aspects of ethanol in general or E85 more specifically in this thread. I explained them in Phil's turbo thread where the subject first came up. I'll go copy and paste them into here so that they are in this thread.
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  #54  
Old 09-05-2006, 01:45 PM
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In 2007, Indy Racing League 3.5L Honda engines will run 100% ethanol
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  #55  
Old 09-05-2006, 02:42 PM
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eh, i'll just start from scratch here.

Gasoline is a petroleum product produced through distilling and cracking crude oil to come up with a mixture of hydrocarbon chains between 5 and 12 carbons in length. Shorter hydrocarbon chains are in their gaseous state at typical environmental temperatures. Longer hydrocarbon chains make up diesel, oils, etc. The 8 carbon long hydrocarbon octane is considered the best for the naturally aspirated internal combustion engine. This is the basis of the octane rating. A fuel with an octane rating of 100 has been tested to perform the same as gasoline that is comprised of 100% octane. The gasoline which is sold at the pump which is a mixture of all kinds of hydrocarbons between 5 and 12 carbons long has additives in it which control burn rate etc to make the fuel act more like octane and thus increase it's octane rating. The higher the octane rating a fuel the better it will run and the more power that can be generated with higher compression Thermal efficiency increases with compression so higher compression engines produce more power. The same is true for forced induction.

So what's a hydrocarbon anyway? Carbon is a tetravalent atom which means that it likes to bond with 4 other atoms in single bonds. Carbon likes to bond to other carbons and form chains and latices and the like. A hydrocarbon is a molecule that is comprised soley of carbons bonded to other carbons with hydrogens "saturating" the molecule attaching everywhere another carbon isn't attached so that every carbon has 4 somethings attached to it. When something other than a hydrogen or carbon is bonded to a carbon it is called a functional group.

Ethanol is ethyl alcohol. An alcohol is a hydrocarbon on which a Hydrogen has been replaced with a hydroxyl functional group, an OH. Ethanol is a carbon chain 2 carbons long with a hydroxyl group. It has the empirical C2H6O but can also be written as C2H5OH to help you visualize that you have two carbons attached to eachother and that the three single bonds on the one carbon are saturated with hydrogens, two of the single bonds on the 2nd carbon have hydrogens, and the third single bond has had a hydrogen replaced with the OH hydroxyl functional group. The hydroxyl makes ethanol a liquid at room temperature. It is much bigger and much heavier than a hydrogen. Because of this ethanol produces less btu's per unit weight burned than gasoline. That does not in any way indicate that ethanol makes less power than gasoline. It simply means you need to combust a greater mass of ethanol to release the same amount of heat energy. This says nothing about the comparative amount of heat energy that can be released during combustion of the two fuels in the same engine or about how much of that energy is turned into kinetic energy. You can and typically do combust a larger mass of ethanol than gasoline in the same engine and do produce more heat and more of that heat is converted into kinetic engergy. The main drawbacks of ethanol are that 1) A cold engine is dificult to impossible to start with 100% ethanol. Gasoline is mixed with ethanol to make it startable. 2) when combusted with with water pressent formic acid is produced which accelerates engine wear. It is not highly corrosive like methanol which was responsible for the majority of engine damage when alcohols were mixed with gasoline in 70's fuel shortage but it does produce formic acid when combusted with water present and this downside must be combatted with acid nuetralizing motor oils etc.

E85 is a mix of gasoline and ethanol, 15% gasoline and 85% ethanol. A cold engine will start with E85. E85 burns slowly during the inital phases of combustion and rapidly during the later phases of combustion. These characteristics increase the amount of energy that is tranmitted to the crank and decrease the amount that is lost as heat through the engine. It is also very resistant to detonation. E85 has an octane rating of 105. It will run better and produce more power in a high compression engine or engines with forced induction than premium unleaded gasoline will. By volume approximately 30% more E85 must be injected than gasoline to obtain the propper afr for E85.

E85 and the SVX: The engine management system of the svx carefully times the injection of fuel to use it to cool the air fuel charge increasing it's density and improving performance. It times fuel injection to end just prior to the intake valve opening. The fuel is injected onto the hot intake valves where it is vaporized cooling the valves and cooling the intake charge. The larger amount of E85 vaporized increased this cooling effect and increases the density of the intake charge. This is always beneficial and particularly and hugely beneficial when forced induction is used and intake temps are high. The additional mass in the combustion chamber when E85 fuel is used provides more mass to carry heat out the exhaust. The combustion chamber is better cooled and exhaust gas temps with E85 are much lower than they are with gasoline. For turbo applications this gives them more mass pushing their turbines with less heat damaging their turbos. It also prevents piston failure from heat and reduces the burden on the engine's cooling system.
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  #56  
Old 09-05-2006, 02:44 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by benebob
Why because it is a consistent underperformer when compared to gas? Seems like Bill should be using it instead of his solid rocket fuel.
Well Ben bang for my buck comes in huge right here. E85 has a octane rating of 105 if I remember correctly. this alone will allow me to run more boost on stock internals without risking detonation. Those higher boost #'s along with Micheal's explaination of how much better ethanol enters, burns and exits the chambers will increase the engines perfromance dramatically and for a forced induction car do just as much as $7 per gallon 105 race fuel only ringing in at a glorious $2.25 per gallon. So bang for your buck is severley increased there. We are also testing components on the stock SVX fuel system to see how they hold up to extended exposure to E85 that has been contaminated with water. So this should also help those that fear this fuel come to terms with the fact that we really should look somewhere else than the dinosaurs for fuel to keep our cars going. Not trying to deny that the fuel does burn at much less of a BTU per volume BUT there are gains that you are merely hiding behind these disadvantages.

Tom
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  #57  
Old 09-05-2006, 03:27 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TomsSVX
Well Ben bang for my buck comes in huge right here. E85 has a octane rating of 105 if I remember correctly. this alone will allow me to run more boost on stock internals without risking detonation. Those higher boost #'s along with Micheal's explaination of how much better ethanol enters, burns and exits the chambers will increase the engines perfromance dramatically and for a forced induction car do just as much as $7 per gallon 105 race fuel only ringing in at a glorious $2.25 per gallon. So bang for your buck is severley increased there. We are also testing components on the stock SVX fuel system to see how they hold up to extended exposure to E85 that has been contaminated with water. So this should also help those that fear this fuel come to terms with the fact that we really should look somewhere else than the dinosaurs for fuel to keep our cars going. Not trying to deny that the fuel does burn at much less of a BTU per volume BUT there are gains that you are merely hiding behind these disadvantages.

Tom

Not hiding one bit. Remember propane would be a much better choice and CHEAPER than E-85. Longa$$name seems convinced that e-85 is the same is race ethanol (which it isn't and never would even come close). There's this certain equation that Einstein came up with that proves the truth about E-85. Sure there's advantages and disadvantages to everything. Ethanol isn't the answer since it takes more than a gallon of gas to produce a gallon of ethanol. Why else would Bush support it?

Still waiting for you'r proof there L... Oh right YOU'RE WRONG SO THERE ISN'T ANY!
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  #58  
Old 09-05-2006, 03:45 PM
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The E85 mr2 must be fake...no way it consistantly is running 11.5s at MY elevation with such JUNK... I haven't seen it do so countless times either, and there is no way it ran a 11.2 in sac with using such a fuel. Obviously the gasoline it used to run on is far superior.

When it comes down to it E85 beats out 93 octane and even 100 octane. The only place that it loses to a standard type fuel is when you get into the 110octane lvl and do you really feel like buying such a fuel?

It takes more than a gallon of gas to produce a gallon of E85? First of all they are refined in two different ways that are fairly independent of each other. Did you know it takes roughly a cup of oil to create a soda bottle? Does that mean that same cup of oil would have been able to be turned into gasoline? No. Plain and simple, no.

I know very very very little about E85. This is both good and bad. Since I don't care about it either way I am not biased and will not take sides on what is better. What I DO know is that I have seen VERY fast cars run it even though they are daily driven and have been using the stuff for about a year now. Sure they have had their share of problems...but what 11 second car doesn't? Do I think/they think it was E85s fault? No.

Why doesn't the entire race community adopt the fuel you ask? Well, since you have forgotten how reluctant people are to change, because they would be using something they dont know how to tune on and heaven forbid there be a learning curve...then I will just leave you with a few comments.

Pushrod engines will always be superior
Engine management? Whats that?
AWD is a HORRIBLE system that will never see mass production
Supercharging and turbos can't be reliable, there are too many variables.
Airbags? Nah, my steel car keeps me safe.
Alch/water cooling is crazy talk and there is no way it could work
Black is actually white, they had a press confrence yesterday.
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  #59  
Old 09-05-2006, 03:53 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Duckie
The E85 mr2 must be fake...no way it consistantly is running 11.5s at MY elevation with such JUNK... I haven't seen it do so countless times either, and there is no way it ran a 11.2 in sac with using such a fuel. Obviously the gasoline it used to run on is far superior.

When it comes down to it E85 beats out 93 octane and even 100 octane. The only place that it loses to a standard type fuel is when you get into the 110octane lvl and do you really feel like buying such a fuel?

It takes more than a gallon of gas to produce a gallon of E85? First of all they are refined in two different ways that are fairly independent of each other. Did you know it takes roughly a cup of oil to create a soda bottle? Does that mean that same cup of oil would have been able to be turned into gasoline? No. Plain and simple, no.

I know very very very little about E85. This is both good and bad. Since I don't care about it either way I am not biased and will not take sides on what is better. What I DO know is that I have seen VERY fast cars run it even though they are daily driven and have been using the stuff for about a year now. Sure they have had their share of problems...but what 11 second car doesn't? Do I think/they think it was E85s fault? No.

Why doesn't the entire race community adopt the fuel you ask? Well, since you have forgotten how reluctant people are to change, because they would be using something they dont know how to tune on and heaven forbid there be a learning curve...then I will just leave you with a few comments.

Pushrod engines will always be superior
Engine management? Whats that?
AWD is a HORRIBLE system that will never see mass production
Supercharging and turbos can't be reliable, there are too many variables.
Airbags? Nah, my steel car keeps me safe.
Alch/water cooling is crazy talk and there is no way it could work
Black is actually white, they had a press confrence yesterday.

Hmmm.. Lets see, give it 20 years and you won't have a home so it really doesn't matter. All that corn growning in the midwest will run your wells dry by then. At least I'll have ethanol to get crappy mileage and less power out of.
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  #60  
Old 09-05-2006, 04:34 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by benebob
Hmmm.. Lets see, give it 20 years and you won't have a home so it really doesn't matter. All that corn growning in the midwest will run your wells dry by then. At least I'll have ethanol to get crappy mileage and less power out of.
Good to see a sense of humour coming back to this discussion.

Ethanol being produced from green crops [can be sugar cane, can be corn, can be lots of things] ensures it is CO2 neutral, because the CO2 it releases to the atmosphere is re-absorbed in the growing process. As CO2 is known to be a major contributor to global warming, then by that definition using ethanol fuel is a Good Thing, at least it's less harmful than gasoline.

It is costly to produce at present, but not gallon for gallon. Production percentage costs in the US can be around 75% mark, but in Brazil their advanced production distillation methods with sugar cane are way better, about 25%, so improvements are on the cards for the future.

The only grey clouds on the horizon are the ones you mention Ben, massive production will require massive acreage. This in turn will use up possible food production acreage, and world food surpluses are being used up very quickly over the last few years.

So there is yin and yang, as with everything else.

Because ethanol fuel comes from a renewable source, unlike oil, which is dwindling, it has to figure as a fuel for the future. Propane can be generated from coal stocks too, so there will always be a place for that fuel as well in reciprocating engines, so long as the price structure suits.

Joe
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