I saw an article recently in one of the car mag.'s talking about E85 which is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. That got me thinking about the potential for use of alternative fuels. It is my understanding that the Indy cars run on methanol partially for safety reasons. Anyone know if it is possible or what it would take to convert a modern V8 (I'm thinking 350 TPI) to methanol or ethanol? Any good sources of information that might discuss considerations such as what lubricants, gaskets, seals would work; what compression ratio would be best, stuff like that? Maybe I would even paint my car "green"

 

the main differences is the fuel system. Many components such as carbeurator parts, fuel pumps, filters, hoses, injectors, etc. are not compatible with alcohol. It also requires a different air/fuel ratio so you'd have to run different programming as well. Lots of people run alcohol so it's not that new of a thing. I don't have any personal experience with alcohol but have talked to many who have. I learned most stuff from the track, talking to those using it. Go to the track and find someone using it and strike up a conversation. As far as I know, a revamp of the fuel system and a new program will allow you to run ethanol with no other changes. The benefits of ethanol are cooler running, cleaner running and virtually no fear of detonation. The drawbacks are the cost and I don't believe ethanol makes quite as much power as high octane fuel. You basically consume twice as much ethanol as you would gasoline and ethanol costs more than pumpgas but cheaper than high octane fuel.

 

Pure alcohol also has some cold start issues(it doesn't like to burn when it gets really cold out).

 

ethenol is in all the gas you buy, its a additive that burns cleaner and is cheaper to make, also it does not burn as well as gas, alcohol is the cheapest and best alternate fuel there is, and is made from corn so theres and unlimited supply, also propain is very popual over in the europen countrys and has a octian level of like 110! but sence this country is run off of oil and oil=money and money makes corprate america get a HUGE chubbie dont look for alternative fuels being used ANY time soon