[Rice_Patrol14]

So tax season is upon us and I've been thinking about all these mods I wanna spend that tax refund check on. I definitely want a tuner. I have a 2014 SE sedan flex fuel. Are there advantages to E85 tunes on our N/A cars? Can tunes be swapped from E85 to 93 octane?

 

[1turbofocus]

To do it right you would need a tune for e85 and one for 93 , I WILL NOT tune for pump e85 it is a crappy fuel and very unreliable in octane

My opinion is stick with 93

Tom

 

[StingRay]

You won't see much gain from e85 on an N/A engine, as compared to a 93 tune.

 

[1948 panhead]

Tom have you any thought on some brands of 93 octane being better then others

 

[1turbofocus]

The Federal Government ( Department of Agriculture ) is in charge of what a fuel has to be at to put it in a 93 Pump but its a hit and mis . Greed is a hugh factor on Octane if you read below

http://www.click2houston.com/news/gas-station-octane-levels-tested/24653396

The big issue is the testing is rarely done before the fuel leaves the refinery or after it gets to the holding tanks , so all you can do is buy 93 and how thats what your getting

This is what I have been trying to pound into e85 guys , if 93 at the pump is testing 88.8 whats e85 testing ???????

Tom

 

[1948 panhead]

Do you think that Stations like Sunoco and Shell and Mobil are more likely to correct octane ratings.

 

[1turbofocus]

I couldnt answer that , I do know in our area that when they deliver to shell they go up th street to the mom and pop store and deliver to them from the same tanker

Tom

 

[JoeyNthahouse]

valero all day

 

[rynocity]

When Haltech tunes their ECU's for e85 they add a sensor on the fuel line that somehow detects the concentration of ethanol and then tunes it at various concentrations. They explain that it's important not only because the concentration is unreliable. What if you need to fill with gasoline in a pinch? If you're at 1/3 tank of e85 and fill with e10, now which tune do you use? And suppose you fill the next tank from 1/3 with e85, now how much ethanol is in your tank?

 

[1turbofocus]

That measures the ethanol ( they sell cheap pocket testers ) but not the octane of fuel it was mixed with which can also change the final " octane " they also dont know the water content which also lowers the octane

Tom

 

[FocusSmocus]

To do it right you would need a tune for e85 and one for 93 , I WILL NOT tune for pump e85 it is a crappy fuel and very unreliable in octane

My opinion is stick with 93

Tom

i know this thread is dead and old but couldn't find this question anywhere, but would you do e85 tune for Vp e85 fuel?

 

[1turbofocus]

For VP e85 yes but I dont think your going to pay the price or go through the trouble to store 2-3 drums of e fuel , Its a pain I know I have 5 drums of fuel at my shop

Tom

 

[FFhb13]

You won't see much gain from e85 on an N/A engine, as compared to a 93 tune.

How did you arrive at this conclusion, just curious.. because people are getting some really nice gains with e85 here and tuning, not focus's but I think e85 has good potential...the quality of the e85 might be better here too.

 

[Fabio0716]

When Haltech tunes their ECU's for e85 they add a sensor on the fuel line that somehow detects the concentration of ethanol and then tunes it at various concentrations. They explain that it's important not only because the concentration is unreliable. What if you need to fill with gasoline in a pinch? If you're at 1/3 tank of e85 and fill with e10, now which tune do you use? And suppose you fill the next tank from 1/3 with e85, now how much ethanol is in your tank?

If I'm not mistaken, Ford actually has one of those sensors built into the tank of the focus. I read it in one of their technical descriptions for the Flex fuel system. Gotta look up a reference.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

 

[1turbofocus]

Correct if it states flex fuel and has the yellow tab in the fill up then the sensor automatically changes the settings to e85

I have 2 customers with this and the timing /fueling is all over the place from one fillup to another

Tom

 

[Fabio0716]

Correct if it states flex fuel and has the yellow tab in the fill up then the sensor automatically changes the settings to e85

I have 2 customers with this and the timing /fueling is all over the place from one fillup to another

Tom

Yup, the sensor actually reads exact ethanol percentage to avoid incorrect timing. I wonder if it's possible to access this sensor via OBD2 or if I'm not mistaken, PIDS??. So that we can set up an app like Torque to see percentage. Would that be possible??

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[FFhb13]

^^^^^interesting idea

 

[FocusSmocus]

For VP e85 yes but I dont think your going to pay the price or go through the trouble to store 2-3 drums of e fuel , Its a pain I know I have 5 drums of fuel at my shop

Tom

There's a shop by me that actually sells Vp e85 by pump and im interested in possibly running e85 all the time once i do full bolt ons.

And im not sure how i want to do the tuning, either a custom from you or do a dyno tune and adjust as i go about the dyno to my liking and squeeze every amount of power out of my car as possible. I've never done tunes made by someone else and loaded them, always did dyno tunes.

 

[1turbofocus]

Yup, the sensor actually reads exact ethanol percentage to avoid incorrect timing. I wonder if it's possible to access this sensor via OBD2 or if I'm not mistaken, PIDS??. So that we can set up an app like Torque to see percentage. Would that be possible??

Sent from my SM-G900P using FF Mobile

I have not looked into the ability of the sensor to read actual % but I do know that the timing and fueling change when it does sense "E" fuel does not , there are only blanket adders for timing and fueling when switched to stock "E" tunes and the actual "E" % is not taken into account

People are getting to caught up in the "E" part of the fuel and you should be as much concerned about it crap gasoline added to it and its rarely ever 85% and almost never higher then 85 octane fuel added

" The research octane of ethanol is impressively high, which is a beautiful thing for high-compression and high-boost applications. However, its motor octane (the more extreme standard) is relatively low when compared to racing gasolines of similar (R+M)/2 octane. What this means is that E85 is highly resistant to knock but somewhat sensitive to preignition, comparatively speaking. (Knock and preignition are two different conditions: Knock is spontaneous combustion in the end gases before the flame-front can arrive, while preignition takes place before the timed ignition spark occurs "

Reading the above everyone says running E85 you add more timing isnt always the case and exactly what I have found tuning with PUMP e85

Tom

 

[Fabio0716]

I have not looked into the ability of the sensor to read actual % but I do know that the timing and fueling change when it does sense "E" fuel does not , there are only blanket adders for timing and fueling when switched to stock "E" tunes and the actual "E" % is not taken into account

People are getting to caught up in the "E" part of the fuel and you should be as much concerned about it crap gasoline added to it and its rarely ever 85% and almost never higher then 85 octane fuel added

" The research octane of ethanol is impressively high, which is a beautiful thing for high-compression and high-boost applications. However, its motor octane (the more extreme standard) is relatively low when compared to racing gasolines of similar (R+M)/2 octane. What this means is that E85 is highly resistant to knock but somewhat sensitive to preignition, comparatively speaking. (Knock and preignition are two different conditions: Knock is spontaneous combustion in the end gases before the flame-front can arrive, while preignition takes place before the timed ignition spark occurs "

Reading the above everyone says running E85 you add more timing isnt always the case and exactly what I have found tuning with PUMP e85

Tom

I'll see what I can find out about the sensor but from technical descriptions and the complexity of a system like this I figure that it's a fuel composition sensor made to read alcohol/ethanol percentage. Here's a link I found that might be useful. http://www.megamanual.com/flexfuel.htm#

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