Just had a question, was doing some reading and research on E85 being used in engines, and I was wondering if I do a rebuild using Hypereutectic Pistons if the aluminum would be strong enough to hold up to that much octane.

Also, I've been reading to different options to, when using E85 do you A) retard the timing or B) Advance the timing so you can run E85 with no problem. To me gas mileage is no problem I don't care, but, using ethanol would be nice to use around town burning cleaner, keeping the engine cleaner. Also, from what I read there really isn't a HP increase and not really a mileage increase. I've been trying to read up on it online to see how this all works. I'll be running a carb set up with no emissions and no computer, no sensors.

Anyone that is knowledgable. or if they have any questions please post, I'd like to know.

Thank you

Jweast

 

If I were building a dedicated E85 engine, I would change the advance curve, using a little more timing in the low-mid range and keeping about the same at higher RPMs. That basically means you need to limit the centrifical advance amount and add in more initial advance. The carburetor will need bigger jets, smaller metering rods, high flow powervalve, alcohol resistant pieces, idle circuits will need to be larger, the transfer slots will need to be changed, etc. Your best bet is to buy a carb setup to run alcohol. The same with fuel lines, fuel pump, etc.

No problem using Hyper pistons, at all. Octane does not hurt an engine, it just affects its burn rate.

E85 could be used to support more compression in an engine. 10.5:1 is easy with alcohol.

 

There is currently a thread running on the Carb forum about E-85.

 

thank you for the info. It helped a lot.