E85 Conversion? Pay 22Bt Instead Of 36Bt For 91 Gasohol?

[cheeryble]

Hi

Was at a friend's at the weekend.

They had had a conversion on their Toyota Vios to run on E85.

It cost I think it was 7000baht.

Now they're paying 22 or 23 baht per litre.

They say it runs just fine.

On a quick web browse it looks like all one might consider doing with and older car is replacing any rubber fuel lines.

E85 conversion......a great money saving idea? Or not?

Edited February 6, 2013 by cheeryble

[IMHO]

Factory implementations typically use ~30% more fuel on E85 compared to straight benzene. If this aftermarket mod is able to achieve only the same fuel efficiency loss, it will achieve a saving of around 20-25% on your fuel bills - if not it could be marginal or worse..

As you note, for 7K Baht it's likely just to include uprated fuel pump, new lines and fuel filter... I know for a fact that OEM implementations have different ECU and Lambda sensor part numbers too - which suggests it's more than just making the fuel supply parts tolerant to the Ethanol content..

Edited February 6, 2013 by IMHO

[cheeryble]

I was under the impression the dose to the cylinders is enriched, and that the E85 can then approach the calorific value of petroleum.

[culicine]

Interesting topic. I wonder if a piggyback would be needed to get it tuned correctly? I'd be concerned about pumping e85 into an old engine. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems 7K could not cover the costs of all parts that need to be replaced.

[IMHO]

Interesting topic. I wonder if a piggyback would be needed to get it tuned correctly?

FE drops by at least 30%, so logically the amount of fuel injected must increase as well.. 30% isn't a small amount - depending on what sort of headroom exists, that might require uprated fuel pump, injectors, ECU and sensor changes...

[aussiebebe]

I was interested in one of these E85 conversion kits after my local Bang Chak started selling E85. I used google and found a company right near my condo selling these kits for 7,700 so I went to look. I wasn't impressed; they aren't so much conversion kits, they just have a box that plugs into the car's ECU and then four things that go under the spark plugs. That's it. The guy said E20 cars are okay with ethanol but I'm not so sure.

looked online for more info and it's something like ethanol has a higher octane rating than gasoline but a gasoline engine doesn't have the right compression ratio to take advantage of this. There is even an E100 campaign in the US which highlights how engines running on straight ethanol would do quite well, but even E85-designed engines are inadequate and often don't have the right fuel content sensors.

E85 kits look tempting because of the E85 price, but you'll use more so I think the savings are minimal.

[cheeryble]

I wasn't impressed; they aren't so much conversion kits, they just have a box that plugs into the car's ECU and then four things that go under the spark plugs. That's it. .

Might that not be exactly what you need?

Wonder what the spark plug things are.....

(BTW can the ECU typically adjust the injection dose?)

Edited February 6, 2013 by cheeryble

[VocalNeal]

Factory implementations typically use ~30% more fuel on E85 compared to straight benzene.

At least.

I drove a Flex car in Brazil for a while. We use benzine as we had Shell fleet payment system. One day I decided to fill up with Alcool 100% ( OK 98-99%) just to try. The car runs just the same except instead of getting 650-ishkms to a tankful I only got 450.

Flex car in Brazil have a small "washer tank" size petrol tank (about 3l) used when starting on Alcool. I discovered this when I asked what the "other" fuel light was on the dash.

The math is too complex until I've had my second coffee but I think you would save 38% in cost but loose 30% in mileage so net gain is 8%. It is probably worse than that but..

Edited February 7, 2013 by VocalNeal

[VocalNeal]

Sorry for the repeat it must have been the onions.

Edited February 7, 2013 by VocalNeal