Stimpy

Either pure alcohol, or E-85. Im not sure of extra horsepower, which I am betting it may offer. I was just thinking of an alternative to gasoline. I heard that it might be possible to replace/reprogram the chip that meassures fuel oxygenation or somesuch.

Anyone mess around with this, or have any info?

Skottish

i forsee engine damage/detonation in your future.....

bluebaltjim

i read an article about the upcoming formula d pontiac entry, its gonna be a solstice gxp with a 2.0 turbocharged ecotec making 500hp that runs only on e-85.

DWK5150

Just remember alcohol is corrosive.

patathSS

I met a guy at the track who was running E-85 in his STI. He only ran it on trackdays and you have to have some way to increase your fuel flow since it burns much faster than regular gasoline. He said it worked pretty well.

Nocturn

In short no, but if you want to invest some money into it then yes, E85 is corrosive and will melt any plastic parts it touches, So you have to replace the plastic/steel components with a different type of metal (can't remember which one at the moment) in order to keep it from eating away at your cars insides.

CobaltKing

Working at a dealership I do know that you can run E-85 in your car, but the question is how long will the engine hold up and Nocturn was dead on the point in saying that it will melt any plastics inside the engine. But it does offer a little more power to the engine, about .1 a second 0-60 time. But, I still would not suggest putting it in your car unless you have an engine that will run on flex-fuel.

RedBaseBolt

the 3.5L engine in the new malibus says it can run on either gasoline or ethanol.

pretty cool....but not on a mixed tank obviously. One or the other.

redlineblueline

I think in the manual it says you can run ethanol supplemented fuels fine but not methanol because of the corrosive nature, and belive me there is a huge difference.

Psykostevo

NO, no, no if an engine can run on E-85 it can run on a mix of gas AND e-85.

Psykostevo

Our cars are not ment for ethanol BASED fuels. Here in Arizona they usually put a mix of 10-15% of ethanol or ether in the gas to help with pollutants. They change the mix seasonally.

The E-85 is too corrosive to the components in a normal car. It will damage fuel lines, fuel pumps, engine valves, and injectors. But that's if you run only off of it. I think you are safe putting 10-15% E-85 in a full tank, otherwise we couldn't run off it here in Phoenix.

E-85 is about 100 octane, and really cleans the combustion chambers and helps prevent CAT clogging. Just use a gallon in a tank as a fuel injector cleaner, but don't use it as an octane booster. You are way better off putting real racing fuel in the car than alcohol.

Stimpy

Thanks for the replies. I guess I will just work on simpler modifications for now. If I knew for certain that replacing plastic, and a chip adjustment would do it, I might give it a shot. Maybe when e-85 is distributed more, there will be more info on these types of mods.

Psykostevo

Get a car from brazil, all theirs run off of ethanol.

mike25

e-85 would work with your engine...but it is gonna really really drop the life of your engine...your better of not to do it because the engine isnt built to run on something the...i guess you could say clean and pure...thats why chevy has specific engines built to handle it...although it isnt entirely impossible that the future cobalts could be e-85 run capable