E85

S

skillet

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Location
Cornfields of Indiana
Anybody know if a tuner has come up with an E85 solution? One of our MINI tuners on the forums had tuned the ECU for this and saw quite an increase in performance and mpg... Don't know how different it'd be for a NA motor vs. forced induction, but thought I'd throw it out there:tup:
 
I've read whole articles about exactly this - apparently E85 burns cooler and does give significant gains in HP. Not sure if there is a conversion kit out there for the VQ engine. Certainly nobody here on the scene has done this. From what I understand, it not THAT difficult to convert - but there's not too much in the way of support. If you are personally not an expert, you might have a tough time keeping it long-term unless you know somebody close to home.

It's more than an ECU tune - I read you'd need new spark plugs and the fuel demand is higher. In some cases a new fuel pump was necessary, along with some other OEM components that don't react well to the chemical differences between fuels. I'm sure as time goes on, we'll see E85 becoming more common.
 
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I've actually done some research on this and will eventually do it.

Here is what you'll need.

Injectors need to be replaced to with at least 40% larger.
Fuel pump needs to be changed to Walbro.
Need to Reflash ECU.
Possible Air/Fuel Management needs (depends on Tuner)

The problem is that in order for you to do this, you'll need to have access to E85 fuel. Currently there are not that many stations around for it to be readily available when you run out of gas. Although the price per gallon is about $0.70 lower than Premium, it burns much faster than GAS. So your MPG is even lower which means that you'll run out gas lot quicker. But compare to Race Gas, it's a Steal. Also, because Race Gas contains Lead, you'll have no problems running it on the streets. You must remember that once your re-tune your ECU to use E85, you can no longer use regular Premium Gas, unless you re-Flash.

there are a few Solutions however.

You can install an Osiris By Uprev which will allow you to keep multiple interchangeable Tunes. The cost of the unit is about $1000 installed and additional tunes. This will allow you to load up to 4 different settings. You will need to tune both for Premium Gas and E85. The down side is that you will lose your cruise control and if you don't have CC you can't install the Osiris.

Alternative could be to purchase a separate ECU. Tune one for Premium Gas and the other for E85. You'll have to manually unplug the and switch the Cable.

I Spoke to TechnoSquare and they are able to do this using the OEM ECU. But they will not work with Uprev.

Shawn Church is the only one I know is SoCal that is an UpRev dealer and has actually done a E85 conversion.

E85 Conversion needs to be done on a dyno ONLY. Several months a go SupperStreet did an article on Subaru STI that was tuned by Shawn Church.

E85 would be equivalent of 116 Octane Race Fuel but has a much cooler burn point. This comes only handy if you are Boosted.
 
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