Well fortunately we didn't get it for gas savings, she had a Gran Am, and wanted a Mini Van for the Day car business, but we'l;l keep an eye on it and see if it saves or costs more, I've been tellign my wife any savings at the pump woudl be soaked bup at least a little bit becasue it is a bigger vehicle. It does ride and drive very nice though with plenty of power out of the 6
Ford is working on that now, aka: "EcoBoost". Turbo charged, direct injection engines. They are claiming to have 500,000 vehicles on the road with the technology within 5 years.. Supposedly a 2.0L 4 banger with 275 hp and 280 ft. lbs of torque with 30% better fuel economy then the current V6, and a 3.5L V6 with 340 hp and 340 ft. lbs of torque with 5 mpg increase over the 4.6L V8.
You could do this if you convert This is originally what I was looking it up for http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/ http://www.ethanolontap.com/ethanol-stills.asp if you use a E85 carb you can run on straight ethanol, but you can also run on gas. You will need adjustment to switch to either the gas or ethanol from the E85 settings but you will be plumbed to run ethanol already, might seem like a waste to some but I have seriously been considering it, using the cellulose ethanol you could use alot of different things (not just corn) and you could do it fairly cheap.
If you run gasoline through a carb that is set to run E-85 or Ethanol it will be so rich on gas that it won't run well at all. You need to run jets that are 30% larger in flow than with gasoline. It will NOT run on gasoline with jets that large. If you want to get maximum power (and economy) out of E-85 or Ethanol you will need to bump your compression to 12 - 14 to 1. Even if you could find some 120 octane gas 14:1 compression is over the limit for gas. The problem with celulose ethanol is the expense of the yeast to convert it to alcohol. It is so expensive that it almost doubles the cost of making alcohol compared to grapes or apples. Corn uses standard brewers yeast but the apples and grapes have their own yeast on the skins. If you owned an apple orchard and let them all fall from the tree you can get more alcohol per acre than you can with sugar beets or corn. The residue from apples is good feed for livestock and what can't be eaten can be used to fertilize the crop for next year. To be truely efficient you would have to run a solar powered reflux still (which is easier to control at 160 proof) at nearly the maximum allowable by law (without a denaturing plant). There is still the problem of getting fueled up on road trips. With everything tuned for optimum use of ethanol and using a 20 gallon tank you would have to limit your travels to about 150 miles one way in order to get back to where you store your fuel. If E-85 is available then you have ready access to fuel on trips in that area but you would still have to stay within 150 miles of an E-85 station. If the USA would get off their can and put in ethanol stations then it would be easy to have performance cars that get decent mileage.
Thats definitely true ask Brazil how much the gas crunch affects them.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil
Go cheap fuel! Looks like you've done your homework PaulS. Producing your own alcohol isn't that hard once you get set up properly. At $3.00 a gallon for gas it doesn't take long to justify the start up cost. You can usually buy old stainless steel tanks and tubing from a Dairy farm. As far as running on gas and alcohol in the same car, you really need to use EFI. You can modify EFI to go either way, but as PaulS mentioned the high compression won't work with gas. If you was to run water injection you can use gas with high compression and be safe up to a point. I run a hydrogen modulator (homemade) and water injection to increase mileage. Trouble is to get good mileage with EFI you need to fool the system, because the extra oxygen will be detected and add more fuel when not needed. A good source to learn more is http://hydrogengarage.com/ they have electronic components to assist in fuel economy plus loads of free info. I spoke with the guy and he is very helpful. Their stuff is not very expensive either. Hope to see more people attempt to convert. Found a new site that allows you to show off your cars and show details http://engineswaponline.com
dont forgot George W Bush is an oil man.. he aint complaining that the barrel of oil is over $100 right now
Simon; I think Mr. Bush divested all his oil interests when he ran for President. Funny, but why does everyone think that this is his fault? Is he responsible for every bad thing happening in the world??? Sorry, no politics!!!!!!
Putting a turbo or a blower uses more fuel to make power. If you want efficiency use alcohol and 14:1 compression. Mythbusters bought or made one of those "hydrogen reactors" to see if it would work. It was put on a carbureted car and it used MORE gas with the mods than it did before. They also tried to run it on just hydrogen but it couldn't produce enough hydrogen to make the car idle much less run down the road. Think about it this way you use 14.7 pounds of air for every pound of gasoline and with hydrogen you use 1 pound of OXYGEN (air is only 20.8% oxygen) or 5 pounds of air for each pound of hydrogen. You are going to need to have a lot of hydrogen (3 times as much as gasoline) to get anywhere. Alcohol needs less air too but only 30% and the latent heat of the water in the mixture (160 proof is 20% water) allows you to use much higher compression and to get a lot more power from the fuel than you can get from gasoline. You can get a lot more power from diesel than from alcohol or gasoline but it is more expensive and the engines are unfamiliar to most hotrodders. They use 17 - 21:1 compression ratios in diesel engines..... I wish we could do that with alcohol!
Really like Mythbusters, but they only prove what they can't do. I did think about it and water is H2O, two parts Hydrogen and one part oxygen. When you introduce the hydrogen and oxygen into the engine (which is running on gas, diesel, or alcohol) you just simply combine the H2 and the O back together. The H2 and O only help to supplement the burn and in turn increases mileage. I have added these modules to many different vehicles and the only ones that got worse mileage was the EFI vehicles. On the ones that got worse mileage I had to adjust the signal from the Oxygen sensor . With a "hydrogen modulator" you don't use any more air to complete the burning of hydrogen, because you produce the oxygen also. Like anything else there are many ways to build one of these devices. They couldn't take a 1920 4 cylinder and make 600hp, why because it's old technology. It's the same with a "hydrogen modulator" it has to be the right combination to be effective. Alcohol needs less air per pound, but you need more alcohol than gas to create the same energy. Alcohol is much more corrosive than gas, because alcohol contains high amounts of oxygen, which in turn helps to reduce the amount of oxygen needed to burn, plus makes a much cleaner burn. There are many ways to increase mileage and decrease emissions in the process, I could write a whole page on the ways to do it.
The best way to increase mileage and power is to simply add to the compression. This can be done in many different ways and it may take nothing more than advancing the timing. Yes, advancing the timing raises your compression - dynamic compression goes up because the burn starts sooner and the pressure goes higher before the piston gets too far away from the head. The best way is to match the timing to a maximum static compression that you can get. That way you get the best power and economy for the amount of fuel being burned. In a carbureted engine if the air is denser going down the venturii bore then it will pull more fuel. Even steam will make a carb run richer if it goes down the bore. If you are going to introduce anything into the engine and you don't want to use more gas then connect it to a vacuum fitting as near the carb on the manifold as you can. Note: What is being done with hydrogen today was once done with "alcohol injection" systems long ago. They aren't around anymore because they simply don't work. If you want to know how much hydrogen you are getting into your engine weigh the water before you start your trip and at the end of your trip. The difference is the pounds of hydrogen/oxygen mixture you have used. At twelve volts you simply don't make enough hydrogen to make any difference. The difference comes from the way you measure your milage or the way you drive. As long as you use less gas it works. Compare the amount of hydrogen to the amount of gas used - in pounds. You are going to be disappointed.
I think I'm going to build my race car to run on E85!! I'm looking into right now,106 octane, runs cool, and $3.00 per gallon verses 106 racing gas at $6.00+ per gallon why not!!!
Been running E85 for years in everything I can put it in. Low cyl pressure engines, we mix it 50/50 with pump gas, but even at a 50/50 mix it will fire a 14 to 1 engine and love it. Everything from carbs to EFI, old tractors to hot rods. we probably will never see gasoline under 2.50 ever again,,, nor do I like paying 3+ a gallon for regular,, They must mix in gold or something in with gasoline these days,,,, Used to buy ethanol from our local COOP for 1.25,,,, I dont mid paying 2.50+ for high octane E85 that can do the work of the 10 dollar a gallon race fuels. It does not like cork gaskets,,,, In our applications, our needle seats in the carb have rubber tips on em,,,, so far in 12 years,, Ive yet to ever replace the rubber tipped needle valve. ever see an intake covered in frost while its warm??? I have with E85,,, In certain applications, Ive seen a few more ponies out of E85,,,, Wish I could make the stuff,,,, you would never see me at a gas station ever again,, and NO,,,, not cause I drank the stuff either HAHAHA!!!!
Time to wake up this old dog! I have been working on tuning my car on E85 finally and WoW. Man it runs good on it. Of coarse without any A/F readings or dyno "s its hard to say but man it sure feels strong. And so far no major modifications were needed to my carb.
