Tuning for E85?

[04lss]

Hi all, ive got a slightly moded l67 monte carlo 3.8 SC, i recently found out that there is a gas station that sells e85 nearby. I was wondering what sort of tunes i would have to do to the car for it to handle e85. Its like a dollar cheaper a gallon and id love to save some cash. heres another question, how much of a pain is it to switch back to regular gas, can i just run it to almost empy fill up and reflash?

[5FDP]

You'll want 60lbs injectors, perhaps a new fuel pump and 2 new fuel filters.

With E85, you will burn more of it as its good for making big horsepower but not good on economy. So in the end you will spend more money than save money.

You'd have to tune for the new fuel injectors, change the "stoich" because E85 is alot different than pump gas, then do more tuning to dial in the car for the new fuel type.

[JerryPH]

A good starting number is that E85 burns roughly 30% faster than ordinary fuels. However, more important considerations are that E85 is also more corrosive, so depending on the application, many things might need to be changed from injector O-rings to fuel lines to removal of plastic tanks and anything else that E85 may be able to destroy.

60# injectors are known to be something that is near mandatory, especially if you plan to do any kinds of mods on top of it (on a stock car with a very careful economy tune, you can get by with 42# injectors, but even then they are near static when pushed). I did the exercise with another person years ago and his reason for using E85 was for the money savings, which was proven to be totally untrue. His monthly costs in fuel rose almost 20% because E85 is about 10-15% cheaper than regular fuels and his mods required even more fuel to get proper performance he was looking for. His GTP also had a plastic tank that had to be changed as well as almost all rubber parts between the gas tank and the injectors needed to be addressed to survive E85.

Cruise/highway distances are also dropped by at least 30%. So if you were doing 400km on regular fuel, with E85 that drops to around 280km, which for some is annoying to say the least.

There is more to an E85 tune than just adding injectors and adding 30% more fuel.

[charlieRobinson]

There is more to an E85 tune than just adding injectors and adding 30% more fuel.

I've been waiting for the answer for almost 5 years now. Will you please share?

[507]

This well be a good read for all that want to tune for E85


http://www.grandprixforums.net/threa...ur-car-for-e85

[charlieRobinson]

This well be a good read for all that want to tune for E85


http://www.grandprixforums.net/threa...ur-car-for-e85

Thank you for this link. I havent seen this one yet. Interesting #4 method he describes.

[charlieRobinson]

I used the write up in that thread to tune for E85 and she's running great. I still need to email HPT support to add the cold crank table to my tune but for right now it's just wonderful.

Absolutely love this fuel.

My cruise trims are perfect and she's running stronger than ever.

I know all engines/even similar builds will behave differently and they all need their own special tunes but can someone with supercharged 3800 E85 experience help point me in the right direction?

What AFR and timing should I be around for max power on this fuel? I have spent a good amount of time digging through the net and have found some crazy numbers. Many are saying 20-25* advanced timing at WOT which sounds insane to me. I was brought up on 17-18 with max boost for L67 engine. In gasoline AFR terms the net is saying low 11 AFR @ WOT is preferable.

Can anyone confirm with their own experience how to extract the most power with this fuel in a supercharged 3800?

Thank you