E85 conversion

Mac · Post by **Mac** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 6:40 pm

I was reading up on wikepedia on E85 conversions, i was thinking this would be good for the tercel as E85 could up the engines power production, and we all know the tercel could use more power...

apparently if a vehichle is capable of running 10% ethanol fuel, then the fuel system does not need upgraded. The only change would be to increase the amoutn of fuel going into the engine by roughly 30%
Reading through the tercel owners manual, it says up to 15% ethanol blended fuel can be used, so the only upgrade nessisary should be to up fuel delivery.

as for how to upgrade, apparently increasing the jet orafices by roughly 11-14% increased fuel by 30%. I'm thinking removing the dion plug and backing out the mixture screw on the carburator might acheive the same results though. and the ghetto method is to leave your choke slightly on when driving, i'm kinda weary how well that would work though.

heres where i did the reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E85

takza · Post by **takza** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:18 am

Generally...you see around 27% less mileage with E85 though. I'm not so sure I'd trust that much ethanol in a 20 yr old car.

brianp · Post by **brianp** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:15 am

don't you also have to worry about cooling as well? I think I remember hearing that e85 engines run hotter, and although it isn't a worry when designing a car for it, I think you might have to do quite a few modifications on an existing gasoline engine to keep it from getting too hot.

Just a thought

Typrus · Post by **Typrus** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:59 am

Also, seal/gasket/hose compatibility.
Colorado has 10% ethanol mandated. Always fueling up on E10.

I think a swap to the Weber with maybe jets for the 4AC or comperable bigger engine would do er.

The REAL issue is E85 availability. What if you drive somewhere where it's not available? You will run richer'n hell on straight gas...

A Flex-Fuel car made to handle anything from E0 to E85 will see relatively the same fuel economy throughout, purely because it has all the variables designed in. In a conversion, more Ethanol is typically less mileage. Ethanol has less BTU's per gallon than Gasoline, that being the reason. In fact, the difference is fairly significant. Versus Diesel and Biodiesel 100% difference of maybe 10,000 BTU's, I think Gas and E100 is closer to maybe 50k BTU's... Last I saw. The numbers of Ethanol and Biodiesel change frequently as they change the input materials and the refining processes.

Mac · Post by **Mac** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 6:41 pm

yeah, it does seem to have its downsides, since i don't use the tercel all that much nowdays being limited to E85 only would be managable. what i think would be really good is if we could have a way of adding more fuel by say a fuel injector mounted in the intake manifold that could be conrolled with a switch.

Or the idea of the mixture screw, if your in a pinch and you have to use gas, turn it in enough to lean it out.

as for cooling, i'm thinking a TRD t-stat and rad cap to a properly functioning cooling system would work (new hoses including the ones for the heater core, new water pump and a rad which isn't clogged would be a must)