Is anyone using or considering it? Check out this thread on the Carb forum for background https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/carb...5-jetting.html .

I'd have to go out of my way to find a station, and would probably need get another 5 gal can to take to the track, but it sounds tempting.

 

Mike Tritle has made leaps and bounds in the use of it in a competition sense, and i'm interested in trying it, but it's not available in my area.

 

If I'm doing the math correctly, the 147% would make my 72/80 jetting 81/91. I'll have to double-check my squirters, they're the stock Proform which I believe are .031's, meaning .037's for the 147% up-tick.

 

I have looked into it. and your would actually be paying about the same amount for gas per week wihtout changing your driving habits. Since your fuel economy does go down, you would have to purchase more gas. and e85 is about 30 - 40 cents a gallon less than regular unleaded ( that is where i am at and there are 2 ethonol plants within 50 miles of me.) so really. they get you either way.. the better question is is why does e-85 take the same exact price jump sa regular gas when it only comprises 15% of regular gas... the cost to make the ethonal and such is pretty much static.

Also another thing with running the e-85 is all your soft gas lines, fuel pump, carb gaskets will need to be changed so that they are alcohol safe (meaning they will not degrade at an accellerated rate due to the Alcohol)

 

This is for the weekend warrior, not the daily driver. I figure I'll be filling up 5 gallon gas cans rather than the tank. 91 octane pump gas is somewhere around $2.75 here these days, so even $2.50 for E85 would be fine (I paid over $3/gal for 91 octane last fall).

Ethanol doesn't have the material problems methanol has. I'm not concerned about gas lines, fuel pumps, or carb soft-goods with what I've got now.

As for price fluctuation, how do you think they distill the ethanol? (A bit of a disconnect on the "petroleum addiction" aspect, at least for now.)

The biggest attraction to me is the heat vaporization aspect. The 396 likes to get hot, but doesn't run so hot on gasoline when it is. Hot-lapping will become much less of a problem.

 

I'll stick with methanol. Even with the increased maintanence, it's cheaper to find and use. I can go down to a local hardware store and buy Methyl Hydrate (same thing) if I need an emergency supply of fuel.

Jetting for methynol is even greater. My jetting is the equivalent to running a #180 jet. Air/fuel ratio is about 6:1. I need to burn about twice as much alcohol as I would if I had to buy race gas however the alcohol is about 1/4 the cost. Race gas isn't cheap.

As for the price jump of Ethanol compared to Gasoline, it's because the oil companies like to increase their profits. In Canada we have a lot of gas stations who also sell propane. Back in the 80's propane was a great alternate fuel. It was extremely cheap since it wasn't a heavily taxed fuel. It's around 105 octane so it runs great in a high compression engine. It's one of the better clean burning fuels. It enters the engine as a gas so there's no accellerator pump or choke. As a gas, it starts better in the cold. Downside is the size and weight of the tank required. Now as for price, it's always pegged about half the cost of regular gas and fluctuates the same. Propane however has nothing to do with the cost of a barrel of oil. Propane is a byproduct of the production of natural gas. So why does the pump price for propane change when gasoline changes? Oil company profits.

 

Back last summer in the 95 degree heat, i use to mix some alcohol with my gas when I needed a little extra to run the numbers in the heat. 8oz per 4 gal.

 

Just got the car back up & running last night. With the new cam, some carb tweaking is in order (PV & idle, mostly). First T&T is Saturday, I won't be able to work on it tonight or tomorrow night, and will only be able to get to T&T in the afternoon.

How crazy would I be to try to do the E85 by Saturday... ???

 

Well, I guess I'm just crazy enough to try it anyway. I filled up a 5 gal jug last night for the initial fill ($13.50 worth). Tonight I'll pull the carb to refresh it and jet it up, then drain the tank and put in the E85 initial fill. The drained gas will go in the Camaro, then back up to the E85 station with 2 five-gallon jugs to get them filled up.

Tomorrow, to the track, boys!

 

let us know how that works out for you...

 

Required a lot more jetting up than I anticipated. I went from 73/83 with gasoline (and the 270 hydraulic cam) to 90/97 with E85 (and the 282 solid cam).

It seems to like a hot engine, which I couldn't get through my head. I had it up to 190 for the first run, vs. the 160 I ran with gasoline, and produced the best 60' ever (although the ET/MPH weren't that great because I didn't have it rich enough for that run). After that, I didn't get it warm enough and the 60' times were back down to the old range, even though ET's & MPH picked up.

Hopefully I can make it back out to T&T next Saturday and try to be more consistent with the engine temp and see what that does.