Great video Eric, appreciate you taking time and money to run these tests that most guys don't have the means to accomplish. I don't think anyone was implying E85 was gonna blow away 110 race gas in power numbers, 99% of people are comparing what they can get at the pump, so E85 vs 93 or 91 octane depending on where you live. E85 being 100-110 octane depending on what ACTUAL % of ethanal you are getting at the pump, it undoubtedly will make more power than 91 or 93 octane, bearing in mind you are actually tuning for the fuel change vs regular pump gas. With 110 being 15-20$ a gallon (local price 5 gallon pail) and E85 being ~3.60$ a gallon (pump), I think its a no brainer for street guys and weekend warrior setups, its cheaper than 93 in most places even. Bear in mind you need more E85 than 110 or regular gas because you need more E85, but 20-35% more fuel being used on E85 is still leaps and bounds cheaper HP per $ than 110. I also think the cooling effect that E85 has on a motor is also very hard to quantify in a dyno room vs real world or track use shoved in a tight engine bay where the motor is getting heat soaked. Just like you mentioned in the video, I know many turbo guys swear by E85 for its cooler burning properties because turbo cars obviously product a TON of heat. I don't think anybody with the money and the NEED to run 110 is taking time to argue about E85 online, I think they are too busy at the track or the strip with their race car for that 😂
The laminar flame speed (and also the flame kernel development time) of ethanol is faster than gasoline. So the effect of that is exactly what you saw (same timing makes ethanol combustion phasing advance) so CA50 tends to advance with ethanol for a given spark timing. Glad someone finally is getting this info out there I wish you had a gen 5 LT to show this even more and the HoV effect…
Holdener has tested something called oxygenated race gas. It outperformed straight gasoline in high compression engines as I recall. Very interesting results-you really do have to test the theory on your application! I don’t have pump E85 anywhere close, so I’m not tempted to use it. No power adder, either. Great test, thanks Eric!
There's a substantial difference between the words 'tighter timing' and 'more timing'. Tighter timing refers to placing the ignition timing event closer to just after the peak cylinder pressure event. In an ideal world, you would have peak cylinder pressure from combustion happen at ~14 degrees after top dead center. Some people say 16-18, and that is safer, and easier to achieve, so a more realistic number to shoot for. It's like pushing someone on a swing, you gotta time your push just right to add momentum to the swing. Different fuels take different timing because they burn at different rates, and thus the relationship of maximum combustion pressure and where the piston is in its stroke will also change.
I did the same test about 5 yrs ago on a 383 pump gas motor. Got pretty much the same results. Used pump93 and pump E85, lost 5 hp with e85 but gained torque through the entire rpm range as much as 17 ft/lbs at one point and lost at 6500rpm, no timing change. Nice vid.
Found your channel via the Old Mans Garage. Subscribed tonight and watched this video. I’ve got a 565” BBC stick shift 55 Chevy that I switched to e85 this year. It runs great but didn’t seem to gain any power. A timing bump did not seem to help. Anyway I found your results very interesting. Thanks for your efforts.
I noticed the same thing with E85 on my Draw-thru turbo builds too - it keeps picking up torque until you run into the limits of the ignition system. 12.8 AFR it pulled like pump gas, 10.8AFR (gas scale) it felt like it picked up 10ft/lbs at the wheel (this is on a 130whp Turbo Buell M2 I built that makes 105ft/lbs at the wheel). I also tried adding in more timing and the trap speed didn't move and I blew the front headgasket after about a 50 runs. I went back the the same timing I ran on pump 91 and actually pulled out an additional 2 degrees below peak torque and the trap speed stayed the same and I never had issues with headgaskets from there on out, even on higher boost.
Good stuff again. Many internet folks don't realize that as measured in test engines by the science guys at places like SWRI and such, the flame speed of ethanol is somewhat faster than gasoline (well iso-octane is what they test cause we all know how much pump gas varies). If you're not octane limited on your gasoline tune, it makes complete sense that ethanol may want a little less. Wondering if it liked the richer mixture because it cooled off the charge that much more with the added ethanol.
It burns slower just like higher octane race fuel,makes less heat than gasoline also,so you can add timing because it needs more lead time sometimes but that all depends on chamber efficiency/quench which LS have pretty good chambers
Great information! Rumor has it that there is work being done to develop a dual plane BBC intake manifold with a 4500 flange. I have one on hand if you want to take a look at it.
It's nice to see the usable powerband improvement with E85 vs race gas, but it feels like comparing E85 VS Pump Gasoline 91-93 VS Race gas is more compelling
After 4 years of running same engine/car on the dragstrip with E85 I can say there are within reason no absolutes with e85. I use Lambda on my af guage with a Go Pro recording all the way from burnout to finish line to back to trailer.Read plugs too sometimes. E85 is a fuel that is really good based on how it's tuned, temperature outside, and the engine combo. If you don't let engine get to 170 you won't know beans, and if the engine gets above 200 some combos you might have questions about why did I run that ET When it didn't do that before. Timing for NA I run the same 36 degrees as I would on race gas as my combo does not go any faster with more. One thing I think I've found is that with different intakes it behaves differently, again depends on engine combo and the temperature thing. So if I were summing it up I"d say, start out with a basic safe tune and let the cars timeslip along with O2 sensor tell you what it needs and change in small increments jetting /air bleeds etc. I will also say there are a bunch of "experts" out there that only know one part of the story with E85. Good video Eric!
Great test! So gas timing was 29* and bumped to 30* up top and that would put E85 at 27* bumped to 28* up top for best results? Curious on the best AFR’s between the fuels- did this end up near 13.0 on gas and maybe down around 12.0 with the 4 jet increase on E85? Definitely busting some myths!
E85 burns slightly faster than most gasolines except when very lean. The only time you should pick up significant power with timing is if you were octane limited.
I was always under the assumption on timing, in flex cars with med/low compression (10ish;1) ethanol having a higher octane rating ALLOWED for more timing, thus the ignition maps for flex upped timing from say 24 to around 29 degrees. Not so much alcohol needs it. Most power gains seems to be from charge cooling since you have a larger volume of fuel and a greater latent heat in ethanol vs gasoline.
I think the way the other dyno results makes a larger difference would be that they are comparing pump gas and E85 so the pump gas is detonation limited so they have to use less timing. The other thing to consider is that you need a lot more E85 than gas to get optimal air fuel mixture so there is actually less room for air in the mixture so less oxygen, so less horsepower. Also that motor isn’t detonation sensitive. I’ve also seen Gen 2 Hemis pick up power with less timing.
I wanna say engine masters ran a similar test and got roughly the same results. The big thing people don't understand is they thing timing is like boost and you just add more and get more hp. It doesn't work that way a certain combo wants a specific timing where it is happy.
I recently built an e85 427 Clevor with 3V heads and have found the same thing to be true. On the engine dyno we picked up gobs of torque by dropping the timing a few degrees. We lost 1 peak HP but gained 18tq. Timing ended up at 32 degrees total.
@@tomlavendusky8150 They are CHI 208cc 3Vs. The 208's were great, tthey made 618hp and 598tq on the engine dyno with the biggest off the shelf hydraulic roller I could find. I can only imagine what the 225's are capable of. Good luck with your build.
I liked your video I was wondering if you could do a tuning video on how to read spark plugs like a example understanding the timing burn on the grounding strap , cutting a plug in two to determine rich or lean fuel conditions etc Thanks
E85 or even all meth makes a denser fuel charge. Alcohol burns cooler that why it's jetted bigger. More meth, more fuel to get the BTUs to make as big a bang as gasoline. You actually learned this in the 9th grade, but you just don't remember. Study real science, not the common barn yard science. Why do I say barn yard, because it's full of bull and horse and chicken shit
Throwing a static compression number in there means nothing without valve timing. What dynamic compression are you aiming for? what is the top combustion pressure at what crank angle? Yes, E85 has a higher octane number than pump gas, allowing it to work with higher dynamic compression and combustion pressures than pump gas. When you compare it to 110 race gas, the difference is very little. Regarding timing, you aim to get top combustion pressure at a certain amount of degrees after TDC. This certain number depends on the exact engine configuration and the speed of the flame front (combustion speed) of the air/fuel mixture. From there you can calculate back to where you should ignite the mixture and use your dyno to verify/correct your calculation. The moment you start changing fuel mixture, you change the burn speed and thus need to change timing to find the optimal ignition moment. It's not rocket surgery, but it gets complicated fast and a lot of people try to simplify to a point that their story becomes just not true anymore.
I am a camshaft expert. I really need to know the specific atmospheric pressure, temperature and humidity to get the correct LSA . And the colour wall thickness of the drum the E85 came in . 😉🤦♂️😂
Interesting video for sure. I've been wondering what the difference is between 110 and an E85. My old setup I used 110 and my new setup uses E85. Using the same sbc short block, a different cyl head with the same cc, a bigger cam and going to E85 in a 400# lighter car, I picked up over a second in 1/4 mile ET. That got me trying to figure out what part of the improvement was related to E85. Regardless, I sure do like that $2.79 E85 at the pump.
Gasoline has significantly a significantly higher calorific content of about 125,000 btu/gal (US). Ethanol is about 76,000 btu/gal. While with quantity of ethanol in “E85” varies considerably (significantly less ethanol in cold weather) an E85 capable vehicle will always burn more E85 than gasoline.9
The misconception is the ability to run more timing because the charge temp is brought down because of the added fuel quantity in the chamber with high compression or boost. That is only with pump gas compared to pump 85 in my opinion..
E85 takes up more space in the intake runner, and this looks like a classic example where up top it the e85 is definitely starting to tax the intake capabilities, under 6300 it has more than enough airflow to support e85! Would love other guys thoughts
That all sounds good and stuff. BUT!! I would like to see real pump E85 . How much of a difference is there in dream and pump and gas station pump 93? Let’s face it you are not going to have this stuff just sitting around in your house.
Typically ethanol through a carb will be pretty close to gas no matter the octane because carbs rule now if it’s multiport fuel injection. You might get some power from ethanol.
This is my guess...I am no expert...perhaps with a carb, the evaporative cooling effect mitigates some of the cooling gain from the E85 and the lower energy density of the E85 means the fuel has to be run richer abd the fuel is taking up space that is being filled with more air with the race gas. Perhaps with EFI and/or boost the E85 might show an advantage in the absence of evaporative cooling from the carb and with the greater volume of air afforded and higher heat associated with boost...that is just conjecture who really knows, I am sure different combinations could be put together that would show more power with one fuel or another all dependant on what the specific combo likes. A lot of this stuff can be witchcraft in extreme instances 😂
Great thoughts. But EFI won't solve the issue IMO, at least not port FI on an NA engine. In fact carbs on alcohol fueling do a lot better job of cooling the charge than port FI engines with the injector at the cylinder head. It's not uncommon to see mild injected LS street engines (10:1 or so CR) gain almost nothing when switching to E85, even though at normal mixtures the E85 should contain more energy per cylinder event and you can run more advance. And that's probably because you're displacing some charge air with the extra fuel mass and not cooling the incoming enough to make a big diff in density. OTOH, direct injection motors _love_ E85. An stock 11:1 LT naturally aspirated engine will gain an easy 25-35 hp (6-9%) just switching to pump E85 from pump gas (and retuning of course). The octane helps, but it's also the fact (IMO) that you're injecting the fuel after you've already ingested the air charge so you're not displacing anything in the intake port like port injection. Of course, I could be wrong. Always willing to hear other explanations.
E85 is a lot cheaper!! It not about the hp gain it’s about getting a pump gas fuel for a price cheaper than $15 a gallon for 110 race gas. $2.85 vs $15.00 a gallon yall pick a price you’ll rather spend of race day! 😎now I wish he would have did this test with pump gas e85 but till I feel pump e85 is the new 110 race gas 😎now days
@@funfun8095 ignorant still works in that sentence. Just because its not the word you would have used doesn’t mean it still doesn’t work and make sense
@@justinspringer4197 because you can test one gas station at 79% ethanol and another at 84%, if you’re running a high dollar build you’d want the same percent and quality from every fill up, so you buy “race” e85
most people watching and replying are not speaking the same language as you are. unless you are talking specifically to engine builders. What i mean is street cars and performance shops are all chassis dynos and EFI. AFR and overall timing. IF we take 2016 or 2015 mustang these are more easily relatable. that is why people are commenting negatively they are not on thesame page as you.
I think people get confused cause they watch people add timing and make more power on chassis dynos not knowing why they added more timing and usually it’s on a boosted application.
If you want to make gains with ethanol it can often be higher compression but not always.. This isn’t always true. A low compression but high efficiency engine you can gain more. Example is an engine that will only take 16 degrees on 93 octane is a perfect example. Engines like that will gain from ethanol first. A lot of times a high compression old school V8 will do way better on race gas than ethanol. Vs modern engines tend to be the other way around. Basically, in a nutshell, when you cannot add a lot of ignition timing, you can’t always harness the whole combustion event . This is very typical for turbo cars where you have reduced ignition timing due to certain fuels and it’s a lot of cylinder pressure. Some old-school style will take 32- 40° on 91 octane. Engines like that generally do not benefit from ethanol. So at the end of the day engines that gain the most generally are ones that are very high efficiency and low ignition timing on pump gas .
This is exactly what we find with NA cars on the hubs. It just does not make a difference because the engine is not knock limited. Or another way to say it is that the 110 is sufficient to keep the engine out if knock at the set timing. The E85 is only a tiny bit better because it usually has a lower IAT so it's getting a denser air charge. And since it takes more E85 to make the same power, the E85 is taking up more space in the intake so the gains dissappear in the upper RPMs. But It's like your results show, small gains. But E85 is cheaper and more readily available for most people. My local station will almost always test at E90 and it's $3 a gallon.
The extra volume of fuel displacing air in the intake costing power? Could be The slower burn rate of alcohol may be letting the Piston "run away " from the flame front as it travels down the bore? Could be Maybe a little of column a, and a little of column B? Beats me
Never seen much of any difference in power between E85 to E98. This isn’t a 35 psi turbo setup. I’m surprised it made more than the 110 on a NA motor. Also curious why you have such a small cam in high compression 408? Throw a something serious in there and try and find a CID intake to test. Seen some strong gains on other tests but you seem to must some myths.
Comparing E85 to 110 Octane race gas seems kind of pointless to me... People don't switch to E85 if they are already running 110 Octane race gas, they switch to E85 from regular 93/91 Octane pump gas, which would net you big gains.
@@WeingartnerRacing As I recall, the previous test was not with a 13:1 compression engine. While I don’t have dyno numbers for that situation, I do have first hand experience driving a car with a sbc with 13.2:1 compression on pump gas, and it had to be extremely detuned, whereas I feel confident pump E85 would allow a much better tune. The difference between pump gas and 100LL was barely drivable to pretty damn hot. In other words, an affordable way to run higher compression, and use it too. The biggest advantage of E85 to me is cost.
E85 burns quicker than pump gas. Rich burns faster than lean. High compression or boosted burns faster than low compression/unboosted. You need less timing with a faster burn. Turbo Buick guys knew this 30 years ago, so I don't know where that "myth" came from.
e85 isnt always 85% 65/70 mix i'd still run the race 110 because its pure high octane hat prevents detonation on 14.1 or higher compression we ran renegade 116 15.5.1 430 sbc dirt motor over 800 hp..
Getting hard to find here in the us in places. They’re not just every where. I know we went to a mustang car cruise last weekend and the only station that sold it was sold out of it, that Sunday morning.
@@jcnpresser You could buy E85 at some stations until maybe 2016/17 - then most switched over to Autogas/LPG. but you can buy pumpgas with more then 88MOZ/98ROZ at most stations
@@BeetleatWar it's the same thing with E85 here in Norway. I think the last pump closed in 2016. About the same time they added tax on LPG. Price is equal to 1.19EUR a litre at the time at my local pump. You probably got 100 times more LPG pumps in Germany than we do. I have bought parts for the LPG system in my car from Germany several times. I miss E85 at the pump. Converting to liquid LPG injection is so more difficult than converting to E85.
Who is saying that e85 is better than race gas? Pump gas 91-94 unleaded vs e85 it’s far superior fuel. It’s funny how you try to gaslight people to get views. 👍👍
You're right bro,, guessing my shift points and being in the pits over and over is way better than running consistently higher mph right off the trailer........🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
@@rotaryray 'm not saying there is no value in dynoing an engine vs track only. I am saying there is not a direct correlation of settings. Best cam and ignition timing and jetting on the dyno and at the track are different.
Id Love To Go Flex Fuel And Run E85 On My Turbo 3800. But It's Actually A Pretty Big Burden To Deliver That Much Fuel. I'm Limited To 1 Pump. A 525 On A JMS Voltage Booster As well As A Vapor Worx PWM Controller (to prevent vapor lock) Both Are MAP Referenced. That 525 Is Maxed Out On Pump 91 For Me And That's With 1000cc Water Menthol Injection. I Couldn't Imagine Trying To Flow Enough E85 For My Application. But I Can't Imagine My Car Going Any Faster, It's Already Enough Sauce For Me hahahah
Thanks! Hope this will help a little with dyno sessions.
Great video Eric, appreciate you taking time and money to run these tests that most guys don't have the means to accomplish.
I don't think anyone was implying E85 was gonna blow away 110 race gas in power numbers, 99% of people are comparing what they can get at the pump, so E85 vs 93 or 91 octane depending on where you live. E85 being 100-110 octane depending on what ACTUAL % of ethanal you are getting at the pump, it undoubtedly will make more power than 91 or 93 octane, bearing in mind you are actually tuning for the fuel change vs regular pump gas.
With 110 being 15-20$ a gallon (local price 5 gallon pail) and E85 being ~3.60$ a gallon (pump), I think its a no brainer for street guys and weekend warrior setups, its cheaper than 93 in most places even. Bear in mind you need more E85 than 110 or regular gas because you need more E85, but 20-35% more fuel being used on E85 is still leaps and bounds cheaper HP per $ than 110.
I also think the cooling effect that E85 has on a motor is also very hard to quantify in a dyno room vs real world or track use shoved in a tight engine bay where the motor is getting heat soaked. Just like you mentioned in the video, I know many turbo guys swear by E85 for its cooler burning properties because turbo cars obviously product a TON of heat.
I don't think anybody with the money and the NEED to run 110 is taking time to argue about E85 online, I think they are too busy at the track or the strip with their race car for that 😂
The laminar flame speed (and also the flame kernel development time) of ethanol is faster than gasoline. So the effect of that is exactly what you saw (same timing makes ethanol combustion phasing advance) so CA50 tends to advance with ethanol for a given spark timing.
Glad someone finally is getting this info out there
I wish you had a gen 5 LT to show this even more and the HoV effect…
In a blow through application like your's, the E85 cooling effect is amazing. Not so much with port fuel injection. Good test Eric.
Holdener has tested something called oxygenated race gas. It outperformed straight gasoline in high compression engines as I recall. Very interesting results-you really do have to test the theory on your application! I don’t have pump E85 anywhere close, so I’m not tempted to use it. No power adder, either. Great test, thanks Eric!
Appreciate the test. Just found your channel from the cam challenge can’t wait great work.
There's a substantial difference between the words 'tighter timing' and 'more timing'. Tighter timing refers to placing the ignition timing event closer to just after the peak cylinder pressure event. In an ideal world, you would have peak cylinder pressure from combustion happen at ~14 degrees after top dead center. Some people say 16-18, and that is safer, and easier to achieve, so a more realistic number to shoot for. It's like pushing someone on a swing, you gotta time your push just right to add momentum to the swing.
Different fuels take different timing because they burn at different rates, and thus the relationship of maximum combustion pressure and where the piston is in its stroke will also change.
I did the same test about 5 yrs ago on a 383 pump gas motor. Got pretty much the same results. Used pump93 and pump E85, lost 5 hp with e85 but gained torque through the entire rpm range as much as 17 ft/lbs at one point and lost at 6500rpm, no timing change. Nice vid.
Found your channel via the Old Mans Garage. Subscribed tonight and watched this video. I’ve got a 565” BBC stick shift 55 Chevy that I switched to e85 this year. It runs great but didn’t seem to gain any power. A timing bump did not seem to help. Anyway I found your results very interesting. Thanks for your efforts.
I noticed the same thing with E85 on my Draw-thru turbo builds too - it keeps picking up torque until you run into the limits of the ignition system. 12.8 AFR it pulled like pump gas, 10.8AFR (gas scale) it felt like it picked up 10ft/lbs at the wheel (this is on a 130whp Turbo Buell M2 I built that makes 105ft/lbs at the wheel). I also tried adding in more timing and the trap speed didn't move and I blew the front headgasket after about a 50 runs. I went back the the same timing I ran on pump 91 and actually pulled out an additional 2 degrees below peak torque and the trap speed stayed the same and I never had issues with headgaskets from there on out, even on higher boost.
Great video Eric! Yes, definitely run E85 under boost, or better yet, methanol!
Good stuff again. Many internet folks don't realize that as measured in test engines by the science guys at places like SWRI and such, the flame speed of ethanol is somewhat faster than gasoline (well iso-octane is what they test cause we all know how much pump gas varies). If you're not octane limited on your gasoline tune, it makes complete sense that ethanol may want a little less. Wondering if it liked the richer mixture because it cooled off the charge that much more with the added ethanol.
Awesome videos, thank you for sharing some real information.
Can’t wait to see that blown big block @ Gary’s throw down some numbers!
Thank you, I’ve been saying this for years!
E85 Burns faster.
The only time you need more timing is if your compression is way to low.
It burns slower just like higher octane race fuel,makes less heat than gasoline also,so you can add timing because it needs more lead time sometimes but that all depends on chamber efficiency/quench which LS have pretty good chambers
@@robholmes2129 🤦🏻♂️
@@robholmes2129 Ethanol has a flame speed about 5% faster than gasoline. Pretty easy to google it.
Great information!
Rumor has it that there is work being done to develop a dual plane BBC intake manifold with a 4500 flange.
I have one on hand if you want to take a look at it.
I do
It's nice to see the usable powerband improvement with E85 vs race gas, but it feels like comparing E85 VS Pump Gasoline 91-93 VS Race gas is more compelling
Im running pump e85 over pump 91 califronia gas.
Definitely feel a difference.
After 4 years of running same engine/car on the dragstrip with E85 I can say there are within reason no absolutes with e85. I use Lambda on my af guage with a Go Pro recording all the way from burnout to finish line to back to trailer.Read plugs too sometimes. E85 is a fuel that is really good based on how it's tuned, temperature outside, and the engine combo. If you don't let engine get to 170 you won't know beans, and if the engine gets above 200 some combos you might have questions about why did I run that ET When it didn't do that before. Timing for NA I run the same 36 degrees as I would on race gas as my combo does not go any faster with more. One thing I think I've found is that with different intakes it behaves differently, again depends on engine combo and the temperature thing. So if I were summing it up I"d say, start out with a basic safe tune and let the cars timeslip along with O2 sensor tell you what it needs and change in small increments jetting /air bleeds etc. I will also say there are a bunch of "experts" out there that only know one part of the story with E85. Good video Eric!
Great test! So gas timing was 29* and bumped to 30* up top and that would put E85 at 27* bumped to 28* up top for best results? Curious on the best AFR’s between the fuels- did this end up near 13.0 on gas and maybe down around 12.0 with the 4 jet increase on E85? Definitely busting some myths!
Yep you don't know what you don't know until you test it!
Excellent video.
Good info Eric,thanx bud
E85 burns slightly faster than most gasolines except when very lean. The only time you should pick up significant power with timing is if you were octane limited.
Good testing great info thanks
I was always under the assumption on timing, in flex cars with med/low compression (10ish;1) ethanol having a higher octane rating ALLOWED for more timing, thus the ignition maps for flex upped timing from say 24 to around 29 degrees. Not so much alcohol needs it. Most power gains seems to be from charge cooling since you have a larger volume of fuel and a greater latent heat in ethanol vs gasoline.
I think the way the other dyno results makes a larger difference would be that they are comparing pump gas and E85 so the pump gas is detonation limited so they have to use less timing. The other thing to consider is that you need a lot more E85 than gas to get optimal air fuel mixture so there is actually less room for air in the mixture so less oxygen, so less horsepower. Also that motor isn’t detonation sensitive. I’ve also seen Gen 2 Hemis pick up power with less timing.
I wanna say engine masters ran a similar test and got roughly the same results. The big thing people don't understand is they thing timing is like boost and you just add more and get more hp. It doesn't work that way a certain combo wants a specific timing where it is happy.
I recently built an e85 427 Clevor with 3V heads and have found the same thing to be true. On the engine dyno we picked up gobs of torque by dropping the timing a few degrees. We lost 1 peak HP but gained 18tq. Timing ended up at 32 degrees total.
What 3V head? CHI or something different? I’ve got a new build with ChI 3V 225’s
@@tomlavendusky8150 They are CHI 208cc 3Vs. The 208's were great, tthey made 618hp and 598tq on the engine dyno with the biggest off the shelf hydraulic roller I could find. I can only imagine what the 225's are capable of. Good luck with your build.
I liked your video I was wondering if you could do a tuning video on how to read spark plugs like a example understanding the timing burn on the grounding strap , cutting a plug in two to determine rich or lean fuel conditions etc Thanks
A 3rd comparison would be good. Pump fuel plus water injection. Tuned properly of course with a fixed fuel to water ratio.
Ill take cheap e85 over expensive 110 race gas.
Great video! Keep on testing. Write it off on your business taxes as R&D.
E85 shines with a supercharger because of the cooling effect.
And with efi because if the lack if evaporative cooling.
E85 or even all meth makes a denser fuel charge.
Alcohol burns cooler that why it's jetted bigger. More meth, more fuel to get the BTUs to make as big a bang as gasoline. You actually learned this in the 9th grade, but you just don't remember.
Study real science, not the common barn yard science. Why do I say barn yard, because it's full of bull and horse and chicken shit
Eric ! what roll do you think quench had to play, as far as timing? great vid
Throwing a static compression number in there means nothing without valve timing. What dynamic compression are you aiming for? what is the top combustion pressure at what crank angle?
Yes, E85 has a higher octane number than pump gas, allowing it to work with higher dynamic compression and combustion pressures than pump gas. When you compare it to 110 race gas, the difference is very little.
Regarding timing, you aim to get top combustion pressure at a certain amount of degrees after TDC. This certain number depends on the exact engine configuration and the speed of the flame front (combustion speed) of the air/fuel mixture. From there you can calculate back to where you should ignite the mixture and use your dyno to verify/correct your calculation. The moment you start changing fuel mixture, you change the burn speed and thus need to change timing to find the optimal ignition moment.
It's not rocket surgery, but it gets complicated fast and a lot of people try to simplify to a point that their story becomes just not true anymore.
I am a camshaft expert. I really need to know the specific atmospheric pressure, temperature and humidity to get the correct LSA . And the colour wall thickness of the drum the E85 came in . 😉🤦♂️😂
😂
Interesting video for sure. I've been wondering what the difference is between 110 and an E85. My old setup I used 110 and my new setup uses E85. Using the same sbc short block, a different cyl head with the same cc, a bigger cam and going to E85 in a 400# lighter car, I picked up over a second in 1/4 mile ET. That got me trying to figure out what part of the improvement was related to E85. Regardless, I sure do like that $2.79 E85 at the pump.
Gasoline has significantly a significantly higher calorific content of about 125,000 btu/gal (US). Ethanol is about 76,000 btu/gal. While with quantity of ethanol in “E85” varies considerably (significantly less ethanol in cold weather) an E85 capable vehicle will always burn more E85 than gasoline.9
The misconception is the ability to run more timing because the charge temp is brought down because of the added fuel quantity in the chamber with high compression or boost. That is only with pump gas compared to pump 85 in my opinion..
That timing may also be chamber dependent good tech
you have been proven correct on the timing by Alotta engine builders
E85 takes up more space in the intake runner, and this looks like a classic example where up top it the e85 is definitely starting to tax the intake capabilities, under 6300 it has more than enough airflow to support e85! Would love other guys thoughts
That's what I've found
Maybe , like ,,, !
consider E85 contains more oxygen in it. Needs less outside air
Heat of vaporization too, its probably cooling a bit better
@@genxunclekey Or for a fixed amount of air E85 means you need more fuel. Hence the comment about displacing air in the runner.
That all sounds good and stuff. BUT!! I would like to see real pump E85 . How much of a difference is there in dream and pump and gas station pump 93? Let’s face it you are not going to have this stuff just sitting around in your house.
Typically ethanol through a carb will be pretty close to gas no matter the octane because carbs rule now if it’s multiport fuel injection. You might get some power from ethanol.
Ooohh. I'd like to try that engine on propane.🙂
I'd love to see that too.
Liquid LPG 😁
This is my guess...I am no expert...perhaps with a carb, the evaporative cooling effect mitigates some of the cooling gain from the E85 and the lower energy density of the E85 means the fuel has to be run richer abd the fuel is taking up space that is being filled with more air with the race gas. Perhaps with EFI and/or boost the E85 might show an advantage in the absence of evaporative cooling from the carb and with the greater volume of air afforded and higher heat associated with boost...that is just conjecture who really knows, I am sure different combinations could be put together that would show more power with one fuel or another all dependant on what the specific combo likes. A lot of this stuff can be witchcraft in extreme instances 😂
Great thoughts. But EFI won't solve the issue IMO, at least not port FI on an NA engine. In fact carbs on alcohol fueling do a lot better job of cooling the charge than port FI engines with the injector at the cylinder head. It's not uncommon to see mild injected LS street engines (10:1 or so CR) gain almost nothing when switching to E85, even though at normal mixtures the E85 should contain more energy per cylinder event and you can run more advance. And that's probably because you're displacing some charge air with the extra fuel mass and not cooling the incoming enough to make a big diff in density. OTOH, direct injection motors _love_ E85. An stock 11:1 LT naturally aspirated engine will gain an easy 25-35 hp (6-9%) just switching to pump E85 from pump gas (and retuning of course). The octane helps, but it's also the fact (IMO) that you're injecting the fuel after you've already ingested the air charge so you're not displacing anything in the intake port like port injection. Of course, I could be wrong. Always willing to hear other explanations.
Eric is it worth mentioning that e85 burns longer down the stroke applying more leverage on the crank equaling more torque?
E85 is a lot cheaper!! It not about the hp gain it’s about getting a pump gas fuel for a price cheaper than $15 a gallon for 110 race gas.
$2.85 vs $15.00 a gallon yall pick a price you’ll rather spend of race day! 😎now I wish he would have did this test with pump gas e85 but till I feel pump e85 is the new 110 race gas 😎now days
Guys the video is e85 vs 110 octane so bringing up availability of e85 compared to pump gas is IGNORANT
Same goes for the comments about ignition timing. E85 vs pump gas is one thing. But E85 vs 110 race gas is a different story.
@michaelblacktree He stated in the video that this is race E85 vs 110. Not pump E85.
@@funfun8095 ignorant still works in that sentence. Just because its not the word you would have used doesn’t mean it still doesn’t work and make sense
@@justinspringer4197 because you can test one gas station at 79% ethanol and another at 84%, if you’re running a high dollar build you’d want the same percent and quality from every fill up, so you buy “race” e85
@@knowbull5hit590 thanks bro, I meant what I said lol
most people watching and replying are not speaking the same language as you are. unless you are talking specifically to engine builders. What i mean is street cars and performance shops are all chassis dynos and EFI. AFR and overall timing. IF we take 2016 or 2015 mustang these are more easily relatable. that is why people are commenting negatively they are not on thesame page as you.
Good info Eric, i'm in the T-town area and who can you reccomend to tune my 17 Z06 after i install a flex-fuel sensor?
I think people get confused cause they watch people add timing and make more power on chassis dynos not knowing why they added more timing and usually it’s on a boosted application.
If you want to make gains with ethanol it can often be higher compression but not always.. This isn’t always true. A low compression but high efficiency engine you can gain more. Example is an engine that will only take 16 degrees on 93 octane is a perfect example. Engines like that will gain from ethanol first. A lot of times a high compression old school V8 will do way better on race gas than ethanol. Vs modern engines tend to be the other way around.
Basically, in a nutshell, when you cannot add a lot of ignition timing, you can’t always harness the whole combustion event . This is very typical for turbo cars where you have reduced ignition timing due to certain fuels and it’s a lot of cylinder pressure. Some old-school style will take 32- 40° on 91 octane. Engines like that generally do not benefit from ethanol.
So at the end of the day engines that gain the most generally are ones that are very high efficiency and low ignition timing on pump gas .
The timing part was odd to me. Most LS guys just copy/paste the ethanol timing offset like it's universal.
This is exactly what we find with NA cars on the hubs. It just does not make a difference because the engine is not knock limited. Or another way to say it is that the 110 is sufficient to keep the engine out if knock at the set timing. The E85 is only a tiny bit better because it usually has a lower IAT so it's getting a denser air charge. And since it takes more E85 to make the same power, the E85 is taking up more space in the intake so the gains dissappear in the upper RPMs. But It's like your results show, small gains. But E85 is cheaper and more readily available for most people. My local station will almost always test at E90 and it's $3 a gallon.
The extra volume of fuel displacing air in the intake costing power?
Could be
The slower burn rate of alcohol may be letting the Piston "run away " from the flame front as it travels down the bore?
Could be
Maybe a little of column a, and a little of column B?
Beats me
@@billythebake Ethanol burns faster than gasoline.
Can you talk more about average hp & tq when showing dyno videos please?
Doesn’t the comparison graph show it well enough.
E85 doesn't move with weather as much as gas incase your considering it for a bracket car
I wonder what the difference between efi and carb would be on this same combo. Would there be any change or would it stay the same 🤔
Carb will make a little more.
What was the temp of the motor on the runs? Any way you can start showing the plugs after the runs?
Never seen much of any difference in power between E85 to E98. This isn’t a 35 psi turbo setup. I’m surprised it made more than the 110 on a NA motor. Also curious why you have such a small cam in high compression 408? Throw a something serious in there and try and find a CID intake to test. Seen some strong gains on other tests but you seem to must some myths.
I'm stupide and don't really know but
I thought the biggest difference was between 98 and e85
I can see how 110 and e85 would be similar
I haven’t had a chance to watch yet but are you planning on testing methanol too?
He has tested methanol and make way more torque and a little more power than e85
He has tested it on his previous video
@@chevyrc3623 I mean on this motor. I know methanol makes more power. My motor is on methanol :)
What video is the 355 in?
Comparing E85 to 110 Octane race gas seems kind of pointless to me... People don't switch to E85 if they are already running 110 Octane race gas, they switch to E85 from regular 93/91 Octane pump gas, which would net you big gains.
It doesn’t I referenced that from the previous test.
@@WeingartnerRacing As I recall, the previous test was not with a 13:1 compression engine. While I don’t have dyno numbers for that situation, I do have first hand experience driving a car with a sbc with 13.2:1 compression on pump gas, and it had to be extremely detuned, whereas I feel confident pump E85 would allow a much better tune. The difference between pump gas and 100LL was barely drivable to pretty damn hot. In other words, an affordable way to run higher compression, and use it too. The biggest advantage of E85 to me is cost.
E85 burns quicker than pump gas. Rich burns faster than lean. High compression or boosted burns faster than low compression/unboosted. You need less timing with a faster burn. Turbo Buick guys knew this 30 years ago, so I don't know where that "myth" came from.
e85 isnt always 85% 65/70 mix i'd still run the race 110 because its pure high octane hat prevents detonation on 14.1 or higher compression we ran renegade 116 15.5.1 430 sbc dirt motor over 800 hp..
i seen after you used real corn bread fuel lol... kentucky is known for our moonshine
I actually see a test at BTR. They tested moonshine. It took alot. I think it was on Richard's channel. @@faustthehammer8706
Too bad you didn’t use an oxygenated fuel like c45. I bet it would at least equal the e85 down low and run away up top
Is this guy a TH-camr now or a head Porter?
Multitasking !
E85 is nearly impossible to get here in Germany......
Getting hard to find here in the us in places. They’re not just every where. I know we went to a mustang car cruise last weekend and the only station that sold it was sold out of it, that Sunday morning.
@@jcnpresser You could buy E85 at some stations until maybe 2016/17 - then most switched over to Autogas/LPG. but you can buy pumpgas with more then 88MOZ/98ROZ at most stations
@@BeetleatWar it's the same thing with E85 here in Norway. I think the last pump closed in 2016.
About the same time they added tax on LPG. Price is equal to 1.19EUR a litre at the time at my local pump.
You probably got 100 times more LPG pumps in Germany than we do. I have bought parts for the LPG system in my car from Germany several times.
I miss E85 at the pump. Converting to liquid LPG injection is so more difficult than converting to E85.
It will be quicker but I don’t know about how much faster.
Test Methanol too!!!
is race E85 oxygenated?
No it’s just 91pump with the rest ethanol. They do make different blends with race gas but I didn’t buy that one.
VP x85L is oxygenated with lead. Excellent stuff.
Eric is wrong, ethanol molecules contain oxygen.
If your racing something that has to run like 15min + wot the weight of the extra fuel needed on e 85 it isnt the best choice.
Who is saying that e85 is better than race gas? Pump gas 91-94 unleaded vs e85 it’s far superior fuel.
It’s funny how you try to gaslight people to get views. 👍👍
Play with timing and jetting at the track. Engine dyno's and race cars are not the same.
You're right bro,, guessing my shift points and being in the pits over and over is way better than running consistently higher mph right off the trailer........🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
@@rotaryray 'm not saying there is no value in dynoing an engine vs track only. I am saying there is not a direct correlation of settings. Best cam and ignition timing and jetting on the dyno and at the track are different.
Id Love To Go Flex Fuel And Run E85 On My Turbo 3800. But It's Actually A Pretty Big Burden To Deliver That Much Fuel. I'm Limited To 1 Pump. A 525 On A JMS Voltage Booster As well As A Vapor Worx PWM Controller (to prevent vapor lock) Both Are MAP Referenced. That 525 Is Maxed Out On Pump 91 For Me And That's With 1000cc Water Menthol Injection. I Couldn't Imagine Trying To Flow Enough E85 For My Application. But I Can't Imagine My Car Going Any Faster, It's Already Enough Sauce For Me hahahah