[pentaxis]

I just wanted to hear from some of the members on hear regarding long term blends of E85 and premium pump. I know some of you have been using E85 for more than a year now. It would be good to hear of any maintenance / issues / success stories that you may have.

Please include items like car mileage, # of miles and or months/years on E85, mods, etc.

Fire away!

Cheers,

-Paul

[plague]

im running 50/50 and liking it. there are a few members who have been running their cars on e85 for over 10k miles. i havent seen any complaints or issues yet from anyone.

[robc1976]

Originally Posted by plague

im running 50/50 and liking it. there are a few members who have been running their cars on e85 for over 10k miles. i havent seen any complaints or issues yet from anyone.

I am at 9,000 miles FBO and no complaints! Checked the plugs yesterday and are in
Perfect condition.

[BrianMN]

I've been running 50/50 or more of E85 for about 6 months probably... Now I'm at 100% E85 (not mixing any gasoline at all) and it's been rock solid for a month after the initial tuning. WOT is perfect, but I'm continuing to work on transient response and throttle sensitivity.

Anything over 60% ethanol in the fuel tank (mix of 70:30 E85:Gas) requires minor changes for cold-starts and and some special stuff for daily driveability.

So far zero negatives for me running E85. No problem so far with ethanol eating through fuel lines or wearing out fuel system componenets...but even if it does, it'll be worth it A customers' car running 50/50 E85 to Pump experienced cold start rumbles and hesitations, but that was easily cured with the Procede tuning software.

[YMB_M3]

Originally Posted by BrianMN

I've been running 50/50 or more of E85 for about 6 months probably... Now I'm at 100% E85 (not mixing any gasoline at all) and it's been rock solid for a month after the initial tuning. WOT is perfect, but I'm continuing to work on transient response and throttle sensitivity.

Anything over 60% ethanol in the fuel tank (mix of 70:30 E85:Gas) requires minor changes for cold-starts and and some special stuff for daily driveability.

So far zero negatives for me running E85. No problem so far with ethanol eating through fuel lines or wearing out fuel system componenets...but even if it does, it'll be worth it A customers' car running 50/50 E85 to Pump experienced cold start rumbles and hesitations, but that was easily cured with the Procede tuning software.

compared to a 50/50 mix of e85 how much more beneficial is it to run 100% e85?

[BrianMN]

Originally Posted by kkashanchi

compared to a 50/50 mix of e85 how much more beneficial is it to run 100% e85?

I proactively raised timing for each increase in ethanol mix, and noticed continued improvements running up to 60% ethanol...(apx 70:30 E85:Gas mix) Above that ratio, I have not been *seeing* significant returns. Although I have added another 2 degrees up top with 100% E85 (80% ethanol), I have not been back to do dyno testing to validate any power difference since we've had a massive heat wave up here the last couple weeks.

The problem is getting E85 to show its' knock threshold... It is/was very hard to stop increasing timing when everything looks perfectly happy with every increase made.

[rooringhusky]

Originally Posted by kkashanchi

compared to a 50/50 mix of e85 how much more beneficial is it to run 100% e85?

Kkashanchi you won't be able to run 100% on JB4...There is no support yet...

BrianMN is running a Procede and it he has fine tuned it as well...Glad he is taking the plunge doing tests running 100% E85 bc it is great info for all N54 owners...Good post Brian...do you know anyone else running 100% E85 with positive results? Also anyway you can comment on the adjustments you made for partial throttle/cold starts to help things out...Thanks in advance!

[AU335i]

Originally Posted by BrianMN

I've been running 50/50 or more of E85 for about 6 months probably... Now I'm at 100% E85 (not mixing any gasoline at all) and it's been rock solid for a month after the initial tuning. WOT is perfect, but I'm continuing to work on transient response and throttle sensitivity.

Anything over 60% ethanol in the fuel tank (mix of 70:30 E85:Gas) requires minor changes for cold-starts and and some special stuff for daily driveability.

So far zero negatives for me running E85. No problem so far with ethanol eating through fuel lines or wearing out fuel system componenets...but even if it does, it'll be worth it A customers' car running 50/50 E85 to Pump experienced cold start rumbles and hesitations, but that was easily cured with the Procede tuning software.

anymore details on what you did to fix the cold starts?

[Lankster]

Originally Posted by BrianMN

I've been running 50/50 or more of E85 for about 6 months probably... Now I'm at 100% E85 (not mixing any gasoline at all) and it's been rock solid for a month after the initial tuning. WOT is perfect, but I'm continuing to work on transient response and throttle sensitivity.

Anything over 60% ethanol in the fuel tank (mix of 70:30 E85:Gas) requires minor changes for cold-starts and and some special stuff for daily driveability.

So far zero negatives for me running E85. No problem so far with ethanol eating through fuel lines or wearing out fuel system componenets...but even if it does, it'll be worth it A customers' car running 50/50 E85 to Pump experienced cold start rumbles and hesitations, but that was easily cured with the Procede tuning software.

I started an E85 Dyno Chart Compilation thread if you could be so kind as to post some of your charts? I am going to be taking all the information i recieve and creating a normal distribution of the power gains with various mod set ups. Awesome work on E85 btw!

[BrianMN]

Originally Posted by rooringhusky

Kkashanchi you won't be able to run 100% on JB4...There is no support yet...

BrianMN is running a Procede and it he has fine tuned it as well...Glad he is taking the plunge doing tests running 100% E85 bc it is great info for all N54 owners...Good post Brian...do you know anyone else running 100% E85 with positive results? Also anyway you can comment on the adjustments you made for partial throttle/cold starts to help things out...Thanks in advance!

Correct, there is no such thing as a JB4 E85 map. Either you're tuning for E85 or you are not. There are a few reasons the JB4 is not capable of running E85 to its' full potential, the main reason being there is no way to advance ignition timing. Boost control is another important thing to get right when pushing [much] higher boost, and there is still a lot of work to be done to get boost control up to par. Plus, the end-user adjustability in the "real" tuning sense (tables for every load/boost/throttle input and rpm) is not there with the software.

Map 5 on a JB4 either tuned for gasoline or a mix of E85... It's scary to think that it's suggested to run straight race gas, then be able to switch over E85 mix and have everything groovy. Most people will notice a nice bump in power over pump gas due to the increased octane and general benefits of E85, but unless they are tuned for E85 (completely different Lambda table and ignition table), they are not getting close to the full benefit of E85.

Originally Posted by AU335i

anymore details on what you did to fix the cold starts?

Here's what helped my cold-start dramatically: your results might be slightly different.

-In the Open Loop Fuel tables for Map1, I gradually increased values in the 102kpa load column from 0 to 2000 rpm every morning until things were very good. I ended up at a value of 14 for 0,250 and 1000 RPM, 12 for 1500rpm and 10 for 200rpm.
- In the AFR Offset table, I enriched AFR target by reducing the values of the 102 and 120kpa load columns for 0 to 1500rspm...45 for 120kpa, 42 for 102kpa.

If you're only running 50/50 you might as well start a couple points lower. Hope this helps!

[BrianMN]

Originally Posted by Lankster

I started an E85 Dyno Chart Compilation thread if you could be so kind as to post some of your charts? I am going to be taking all the information i recieve and creating a normal distribution of the power gains with various mod set ups. Awesome work on E85 btw!

I have a whole bunch of dynos of my own car as well as a couple other local cars... I just need to find time to organize everything and make a writeup. Not only were the peak numbers impressive but the powerbands were almost as amazing as the logs

[5soko]

Been running E85 for a few thousand miles and its been running great... ive done from 20% to 60% mixes... Car loves it all..


But i havent seen any real benefit from running anything over 30% it seems though.

[jb's335]

104k miles and counting...

40k has been playing with e85. My HPFP has been with me for over 60k now, and before that I went through several. BMW fixed their ethanol fuel problem, IMO.

I found a pretty good mixture is to run about 4.5-5 gallons of e85 TOPS per full tank (15.7 gallons). So basically a 1-3 ethanol:gas ratio. Ethanol is the cheap race fuel. I also occasionally put the octane booster in too just for kicks lol.

Have fun

[pentaxis]

Originally Posted by jb's335

104k miles and counting...

40k has been playing with e85. My HPFP has been with me for over 60k now, and before that I went through several. BMW fixed their ethanol fuel problem, IMO.

That's some solid mileage with E85. ~64k Miles!

[akotten]

Originally Posted by jb's335

104k miles and counting...

40k has been playing with e85. My HPFP has been with me for over 60k now, and before that I went through several. BMW fixed their ethanol fuel problem, IMO.

I found a pretty good mixture is to run about 4.5-5 gallons of e85 TOPS per full tank (15.7 gallons). So basically a 1-3 ethanol:gas ratio. Ethanol is the cheap race fuel. I also occasionally put the octane booster in too just for kicks lol.

Have fun

That's great! What kind of concentrations do you normally run?

[JDrillingJ]

Subscribed.

JDJ

[Mike@N54Tuning.com]

Originally Posted by rooringhusky

Kkashanchi you won't be able to run 100% on JB4...There is no support yet...

BrianMN is running a Procede and it he has fine tuned it as well...Glad he is taking the plunge doing tests running 100% E85 bc it is great info for all N54 owners...Good post Brian...do you know anyone else running 100% E85 with positive results? Also anyway you can comment on the adjustments you made for partial throttle/cold starts to help things out...Thanks in advance!

A few JB4 customers have run 100% E85 for months at a time. There are a few problems in terms of secondary o2 sensor codes and open loop tables you can't easily correct with a piggyback, and for that reason it's not officially supported, but its workable. With stock turbos normally 50% E85 is enough to max things out power wise though so there is no real need to run a stronger mix. To do 100% E85 right you would need a special flash tune.

The JB4 map 5 has been working flawlessly for hundreds on a 30-50% E85 mix. When E85 is detected lambda targets are changed, boost is increased, and advance is increased, proportional to the E85 mix used. It's a very solid setup.

Mike

[jb's335]

The best mixture for FBO 335i on JB4 map 7 is 4-5 gallons per tank I have found. So 1:3 ratio

[A418t81]

It's convenient that the LAMBDAs of E85 and pump gas for max power are around similar values (despite stoichiometric values being substantially different), particularly for DI vehicles like the N54. Since that is what the 02 sensor is actually measuring, the actual mixture of pump gas and E85 is somewhat irrelevant other than the fuel trims which obviously increase as the E85 mixture does due to the computer monitoring the lambdas and adding fuel as necessary. Staying under the fueling ceiling set by the trim max values is really all that is needed to keep the car happy. The remainder is done by the ECU and piggyback monitoring the CAN data feeds.

[RoundelM3]

Just curious...those of you running 50% or higher mixtures, what is your average fuel mileage?

[benzy89]

Share your mixtures, dynos, data logs + results on this thread here:

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=719181


Too many E85 threads floating around with no credible data, let's try to get a sticky going where people can refer to & view some REAL results

[BrianMN]

Originally Posted by Mike@N54Tuning.com

A few JB4 customers have run 100% E85 for months at a time. There are a few problems in terms of secondary o2 sensor codes and open loop tables you can't easily correct with a piggyback, and for that reason it's not officially supported, but its workable. With stock turbos normally 50% E85 is enough to max things out power wise though so there is no real need to run a stronger mix. To do 100% E85 right you would need a special flash tune.

The JB4 map 5 has been working flawlessly for hundreds on a 30-50% E85 mix. When E85 is detected lambda targets are changed, boost is increased, and advance is increased, proportional to the E85 mix used. It's a very solid setup.

Mike

And how is ethanol 'detected'? Unless you have an ethanol-analyzer, there is no good way to measure the ethanol in the tank.

You could base what you THINK is the ethanol content based on fuel trims, but that is a pretty ghetto way of doing things... Not only is there way too much variance between car/condition, but testing will show there is no significant fuel trim variance between 35% and 50% of ethanol.

So if lambda targets really change (and whatever system you're using actually works- which if it's based on fuel trims it is a lame attempt), then what you WOT Lambda Target for a FBO Car running 50/50 E85? The answer I'm looking for is XX.X Lamda for Midrange RPM, ramping to XX.X lambda above 6,000rpm.