Erik N. Hoover

I was toying with the idea of converting to E85... but wanted to try and get some numbers of HP increase over regular gas... I plan on building a 383. Does any one have any experience or tips on what or how to do this? How to build the engine etc.???

novaderrik

depends.. are you going to spec it out to run only on E85 with really high compression- 13:1 is not an issue with E85, but you won't get by with that if you want to run regular gas in it, too. you will be leaving a lot of power on the table if you build it to also run on regular gas.

what heads, cam, carb, and exhaust are you going to run?

86iroc2try

E85 goes bad faster than other gas...and when it sits in your fuel lines it ruins them. Not right away..but over time. The E85 thing is not as great as most believe. PLUS you burn 1.5-2 times the amount of e85 as regular unleaded gasoline.

Be careful with that..i vote stay regular gasoline.

As for the motor..buy good heads...the rest is easy but good flowing heads make all the power!!! Also you dont need a crazy big cam..but get one where the lift matches the head with a good lobe.

Good luck!!

novaderrik

you must have read all that info about E85 online and never actually used it yourself.. my practical real world experience with the stuff in my 84 Regal T Type says that's all wrong.. that car and my 97 Cavalier got exactly the same gas mileage and ran exactly the same running a 50% ethanol blend as they do on straight pump 87 octane. fuel economy drops a little bit on straight E85- the T Type drops from 17 to 14 and the Cavalier dropped from 39 to 35- but it still worked out cheaper than regular gas... and neither of those cars were built with E85 in mind. a car with more compression, bigger injectors, and a custom E85 tune would be an absolute beast at WFO and efficient when just putting around.

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

I used it and know many who do.

E85 and gasoline produce approximately the same power if the compression ratio is appropriate for fuel, and all other things are equal.

Build for about 12:1 static CR. You can go higher, but tuning becomes more critical.

Buy a carb built for E85. You can convert, but by the time you do that, you'll have spent as much as you would buying one built from the start for E85.

Fuel consumption is about 40% higher for E85. It just takes more volume to get a stoichiometric mixture than with gasoline. No getting around that.

Pump E85 will vary the percentage of gasoline and ethanol, especially in colder climates. Unless you buy from a source that you know is always 85%, plan on doing a specific gravity test on each fill-up and jetting accordingly.

Podium

iTrader: (2)

I've ran e85 since 07. It is nice but the mpgs suck. I say this because I drive my car all summer and mpgs do matter to me. My next build will be pump gas. I don't believe e85 is worth it in an NA street car. A high compression race motor or boost. E85 is the ticket.