Prius Conversion to E85 Ethanol?

[cwerdna]

Originally Posted by lIon

sorry to
say
but do you believe GM when in the video the guys tells you that GM supleyed them with the stuff needed for E85 .??? and therefor GM tells that its nog easy to do E85?

that makes me think E85 is easy and for every one

but for real... i think you need to do some adjustmenst to you car to be E85 able.

I believe what GM is saying here. They already sell many models that are flex-fuel capable, partly to take advantage of the E85 CAFE scam. The additional cost to the manufacturer is minimal if they've done all the R&D and are installing the E85 compatiable parts in the 1st place.

If it just meant doing some "adjustmenst", they'd just throw the switch and make them ALL flex-fuel capable w/o any new parts, which would REALLY boost their CAFE numbers. The same goes for all the other automakers.

[johnson487682]

Ethanol does have its problems, but it has one huge benefit: carbon reduction.

Burning one gallon of gasoline releases 19.36 lb of CO2* into the atmosphere (none is captured by a car's catalytic converter or other emissions subsystems), and all of that carbon was buried hundreds of millions of years ago. So, in the relatively short timespan of human existence, this represents a net gain of carbon in the atmosphere, which is the cause of global warming.

Burning one gallon of ethanol also releases CO2 into the atmosphere, but all of this carbon was pulled out of the atmosphere by plants (usually corn) within the past few months. Therefore, this represents a zero net change to the carbon in the atmosphere.

E85 will reduce your mileage, it may cost more than operating on gas, and some claim it will destroy certain parts of your engine over time, but widespread use of ethanol would help minimize the effects of global warming.

Douglas (2002 Prius)

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* see http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/TechnicalGuidelines_March2006.pdf and http://www.carboncounter.org/offset-your-emissions/calculations-explained.aspx

[Alric]

Originally Posted by johnson487682

Burning one gallon of ethanol also releases CO2 into the atmosphere, but all of this carbon was pulled out of the atmosphere by plants (usually corn) within the past few months. Therefore, this represents a zero net change to the carbon in the atmosphere.

Add to it the use of fertilizer (from oil and natural gas) and diesel for machinery and all you have have left is laundered money from the government to oil companies through farm subsidies.

Little or no improvement in CO2 emissions and to top it all off:

Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change -- Searchinger et al., 10.1126/science.1151861 -- Science

[bigbird1]

IMO, anyone who burns E85 Ethanol made from corn in their Prius is totally missing the point of owning a hybrid. The whole reason for owning a Prius is that if enough Americans bought them, we wouldn't need to import foreign oil and we would dramatically reduce CO2 emissions in our cities. We would also help keep food costs down because we could tell the politicians what they could really do with corn ethanol. The Brazilians do not use corn ethanol and there's a darn good reason why they don't. It makes no sense to produce a product that takes at least 1 gal. of diesel fuel to make 1.3 gals. of a product with less energy content.

[MontyMan]

Bird, do you think if usage of alcohol as a fuel here in the USA continues to increase, that we might start to produce some from cane as well? I have heard that all Brazilian ethanol is from cane, and it grows well all along the gulf coast region.

[jambojambo]

To run E-85 , all you need is 30 % percent bigger injectors. Just drop them in ..
I bet with his mod you wont throw any codes either
If theres a war with Iran , you bet you will all be running E-100 ... hehe

[MontyMan]

I ran for about 6 months on a 50/50 mix of E10 and E85. I did not install or change anything. I got no codes, and about 43 mpg vs the 47 mpg I had been seeing on straight E10. When I switched back to the E10, my fuel mileage shot up immediately to 51 and has remained there for over a year. It is my theory that running a higher mix of alcohol for that period of time cleaned some components of the fuel system. Since the six month fuel test, there have been two times when my engine has sputtered a little, as if I had a small amount of trash or water in my fuel. Each of these times I have run a couple of tanks of higher alcohol mix fuel, and both times the engine has immediately returned to normal. The car now has 148,000 miles on it, still on the original batteries.

[a_gray_prius]

I'd be a little concerned about the sputtering - maybe a seal is leaking somewhere due to the corrosion from the ethanol.

[MontyMan]

It could very well be. I knew when I started my fuel test that I was risking my system components. But there are so many opinions from so many perspectives of the alcohol debate, and the car was pretty well depreciated at that point, that I decided to try it. I was very pleased with the results, and they feed my hope that alternative fuels continue to be offered at more retailers, and that an alternative to cornstarch is developed in earnest here in the USA.

I doubt there has been any permanent damage, though, since it has only happened twice and briefly at that. An occasional sputter is normal for a gasoline car this age. I drove it to the office this morning, not bad for approx 150k miles, but of course the engine only does half the work of a normal Toyota.

[Drew442]

We use sugar cane for our ethanol production here in Australia. Our 'default' fuel is E10 and our biggest motorsport series is now all on E85 - V8 SUPERCARS (i cant post URLs yet)

I'm thinking about it now. There are a few places in Sydney to get E85 from but with an 800km+ range on the Prius it doesn't really matter.

There's also a big push for homologation of E85 for the motorcycle class my father races in. The sticking point seems to be the invisible flame that ethanol produces. These home built E85 engines will be getting up to 200bhp/litre specific power. The v8 supercars are getting about 130bhp/litre specific power, which isn't bad for an american, 50's technology, overhead valve, pushrod engine running on a fuel which is a 'scam'.

I've worked with fuel injection and carburetors and tuned them on the street and on dynos. I've also worked with Petrol (Gasoline in the american language) and Gas/LPG (Propane in the american language). If you are running E85 ONLY (not any blend at any time aka 'flex') then fueling it up and tuning it is all that needs to be done. If you are running fuel injection then the requirement for a larger volume of fuel may require a larger injector or more fuel pressure under maximum load and maximum RPM.

If you want 'flex' and you want a reliable power output, modern emissions standards and all that stuff we've grown accustomed to then you're on your own. Other than tuning it to be too rich on E0 and too lean on E85 and then hoping to get a good result when using a random blend I have no idea. How the hell does that sensor listed above work out the fuel blend ???? (it can't weigh the fuel as it comes past, it doesn't burn any of the fuel to measure its energy output, what does it do?)

I've read some fuel mileage tables where people have been logging their calculated blend and their MPG and it seems based on mileage the too-rich/too-lean method is what is being used...