My local lemon gas station in Phuket just started carrying e85. From what I've read on some performance forums, e85 gives a pretty good power performance boost over normal gas and gasohol. If there was a decent flex fuel system available, I'd consider one of these. I see from various websites in the US, a top of the line system runs between $400-$500.

I understand mileage is around 10-15% less, but at 21 baht a litre, it could save some money over time and give a few more hp.

Yes, there are many E85 conversion kits, just google it and find a company nearest to you. I had similar thoughts to you as the Bang Chak station nearest me started selling E85 and you're right, it is around 1/3 cheaper than E20. I found a company selling kits that was actually adjacent to my condo and went to have a look - they sell for 7,900 baht and are basically a box that plugs into your engines ECU and then four connectors (on a 4-cylinder engine). I decided against them as they really do nothing apart from this to 'covert' the engine. Actual flex-fuel vehicles like the new Civic or Captiva have proper warranties because they have modified parts to deal with enthanol and they will specifically tuned to get better fuel consumption - sellers of kits will claim that E20 cars can deal with it but I disagree; car manufactures could greatly increase their profit margins if they could sell all their cars to handle E85 as the excise tax is lower; it would obviously cost them more to build and warranty the cars than they stand to save, so they don't.

As for lower fuel consumption, the fact than ethanol has a lower energy content than gasoline is part of the reason, however if a car engine were designed to run on pure ethanol then it could be more efficient as it could have a higher compression ratio - taking advantage of ethanol's higher octane rating. Flex fuel vehicles will fair better than cars with E85 kits but all cars handling E85 will get less mileage as their compression ratios are lower to handle gasoline. Your vehicle will use a lot more e85 to go the same distance as it could on E20; 10-15% is the financial saving, you're saving money, not fuel, and if you do get a kit, you really should save the money to cover the increased servicing costs over the lifespan of the engine.

You might like

video on youtube where they purportedly take apart the engine of a non-flex-fuel truck allegedly run on E85 for 100,000 miles - you'll have to take the guy's word for it though. I don't know who made the video or what they'll selling, it could be E85-kit propaganda!

I found a guy out of Chiang Mai via Alibaba.com and it seems he has a dealer network in Thailand. He gave me the name and number of a local garage in Phuket. If anyone wants the contact info, pm me. Before I call the Phuket garage, I'm hoping to get a price from the dealer in Chaing Mai as I have a feeling it will be more here as everything seems to be.

I drove a flex VW in Brazil. According to the manual it produced 3hp more running on alcohol and an extra 2 kph.

When I ran a test tank of alcohol I got 3/4 of the mileage compared to benzine. 450kms a tank vs 600 km a tank.

I'm on a few peformance motor forums and everyone that runs e85 shows a substantial increase in hp 20-30% over pump gas. This is a forum from the US about the 2jzgte motor and the e85 there is 105 octane, while pump gas is 93 octane, so that might explain the big difference.

I think e85 here is only 95, so I might be barking up the wrong tree for more hp by switching fuels. I wonder why the octane level on e85 here is so much lower than in the US?

21 baht/litre vs 41 baht/litre would be nice for filling up the tank, even if I only got 75-80% of vpower 95 mileage.

my answer would be to convert to lpg at approx 13 baht per litre plus cost of conversion.

Ethanol has an octane rating of something like 110. So a turbo charged engine with increased boost and lots of fuel could get extra HP. But a normally aspirated standard engine will get a very small increase.

Ethanol has an octane rating of something like 110. So a turbo charged engine with increased boost and lots of fuel could get extra HP. But a normally aspirated standard engine will get a very small increase.

I too thought e85 would be around 105-110 octane, but according to this page the e85 here is 95 octane, negating what I was trying to achieve. http://www.eppo.go.th/retail_prices.html

Well pure ethanol or methanol has a rating of 108-ish so either the alcohol is rubbish or the petrol/gasoline they mix it with is rubbish.

Seems like E85 in the US is about 105.

Or there is some chemical or physical property I do not comprehend.