My first e85 experience.

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flyfish

flyfish

C8H18+N2O = :-D
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I posted these results in another thread, but I thought I should probably put the long winded version in its own thread.

I have been considering a bigger carb for a few years now, but was just not sure I wanted to take the plunge since friends of mine had gone bigger and saw no gain. So, instead I decided to take my money and convert my carburetor over to e85. My carb started out as a Holley 650dp, but I swapped out the main body for a Proform piece years ago to make it a 750dp.
I picked up a e85 kit from Rob Mix Services to make the conversion. I also re-plumbed my fuel line from front to back with ½ inch line and installed a new steel mesh filter (compatible with e85). Wednesday I took the car to the track for its first test on the new fuel.

Run #1: Right off the trailer, ran the same as my best ¼ mile time last year….and somehow sitting on the couch all winter makes for GREAT reaction times for the first run of the year, LOL. I accidentally left the line at 2500 RPM, but hey, it liked it.

Run #2: No changes, but my car always picks up a tenth in the 1/8 mile on the second pass…and it did! New PB on EVERYTHING except 60’ time (current best on gas is 1.45)…I left at 2500 RPM again to see if it was a fluke….NOPE! Still pounding the tree :-D.

Run #3: Tried getting to the line with the motor hotter (170°F) and less RPM (2200) on the launch. ET got better, but my RT sucked.

Run #4: Hoping to get a 6.699 in the 1/8 (just to say I did), I upped the primary jet by 2 and tried leaving the line with the engine temp @ 180°F. Tried the same 2200 RPM launch (which is what the car liked on gas, but apparently not on e85) and got another crap light….BUT was shocked to see 6.67 in the 1/8 and 10.54 in the ¼!!!

Run #5: Time for only 1 more run, left everything the same except I brought my launch RPM back up to 2500....and was rewarded with another good light, and backed up my 6.67 :-D.

Here are the time slip incrementals:
Run 1 Run 2 Run 3 Run 4 Run 5
RT 0.009 0.003 0.043 0.048 0.016
60' 1.485 1.480 1.477 1.463 1.466
330' 4.348 4.294 4.295 4.272 4.276
1/8 6.811 6.716 6.709 6.671 6.679
MPH 98.98 100.88 101.35 102.13 101.89
1000' 8.968 8.830 8.815 8.762 8.772
1/4 10.798 10.631 10.608 10.546 10.560
MPH 122.77 124.51 125.19 125.66 125.38

All I can say is I LOVE THIS FUEL!!! Not too shabby for a car with a small street roller cam, small carb, and pump gas compression :-D
 
Very cool, you are quite the racer, numbers are consistent. I have never run e85. Dose the car have more horse power,and are you turning quicker times on the track. [ have no idea of last years results ]
 
http://www.e85carbs.com/

Really nice that it's picking up. When you get the launch tuned up, it may pick up a couple .0x's from gas. The stuff works really well.

Tony - 70aarcuda is really happy with the results and less expensive fuel. It does take ~40% more fuel to run, so that's a bit of an offset. Still less than 110...

I have a 360 that has to run a 50/50 mix and would like to go e85. Closest station is ~40 miles from here.
 
10.50's @ a hundred and a quarter is no slouch. Just wait till you get it dialed in. Keep us posted. tmm
 
62Furious said:
Very cool, you are quite the racer, numbers are consistent. I have never run e85. Dose the car have more horse power,and are you turning quicker times on the track. [ have no idea of last years results ]
Click to expand...

Previous personal best on gas (in a little better air) was 6.76@100 mph, previous personal best 1/4 mile was 10.79 (on the brakes, probably would have been a 10.76 ish)....so, I picked up a tenth in the 1/8 and 2 mph. I picked up over 2 tenths in the 1/4 and over 2 mph......and I still have a lot of tuning to do :D. Once I get the jetting set I'll move on to pump cams and squirters, then maybe add a little more timing. I KNOW I can get a 10.4x out it, no problem :-D
 
Awesome. I sprung for a 950 hp holley e85 carb for my 426sb. What's cfm is your carb? What's your jetting like? And timing? Haven't taken mine to the track yet, just some street bashing!
 
1980volare said:
Awesome. I sprung for a 950 hp holley e85 carb for my 426sb. What's cfm is your carb? What's your jetting like? And timing? Haven't taken mine to the track yet, just some street bashing!
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My carb is a "750"dp, but I have read that these Proform main bodies flow closer to 830 cfm. Jetting 90/100 with my current air bleeds, I'm going to put in smaller HSAB because I've run out of bigger jets....timing, same as gas right now (34°) going to try a little more after I get the carb dialed in better.
 
They sell 950HP DP E85 converted for 450 on Ebay. I bet your engine would love it.
 
flyfish said:
My carb is a "750"dp, but I have read that these Proform main bodies flow closer to 830 cfm. Jetting 90/100 with my current air bleeds, I'm going to put in smaller HSAB because I've run out of bigger jets....timing, same as gas right now (34°) going to try a little more after I get the carb dialed in better.
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Mines a 950cfm but I'm at 98/108, afr @ wot is 11.3(gas scale) which is pretty close. Plus that was when e85 tested 75% last month(it's a hair over 85% now. I'm going to start messing with the timing, but this thing feels good. I've got to get my cage welded in before I take it to the track though.
 

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I called Justus Daniel today from raceone85.com and ordered an e85 carb speced to my combo. he is using the Proform main body on mine as well. he said he would start on it this morning and I should be able to go pick it up in 2 days. he said he would build it and put it on their test engine to set everything. he says it should only need to have the idle adjusted when I put it on the car. I have a friend who had Justus build his carb, and he raved and raved about how close it was "out of the box". he ended up picking up about 12 hundredths in the eighth mile with it.

gonna test it out this friday at test and tune. I'll keep you posted.
 
1980volare said:
Mines a 950cfm but I'm at 98/108, afr @ wot is 11.3(gas scale) which is pretty close. Plus that was when e85 tested 75% last month(it's a hair over 85% now. I'm going to start messing with the timing, but this thing feels good. I've got to get my cage welded in before I take it to the track though.
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Nice looking carb. Yeah, I need to get a wideband so I can see exactly what my AFR is. It is really hard to read plugs on e85...Right now I can only tune by MPH because of this. I need to get another test session in to get this thing dialed in better, but Muncie had a race this weekend, so I loaded up and went racing.

The car was nice and consistent considering the 25-35mph head wind. I had upped my jets a little too much I think, but I felt better knowing it probably wasn't lean. Car ran between 6.808 and 6.798 @ 99.5mph into the wind except for 1 run when the car sat too long (over 2 hours) and then I didn't get it warmed up enough....but I dialed up for it (and dropped the anchor :-D). I went 3 rounds before giving the stripe away :banghead:.......I was dialed hard (6.80), went .014 to his .036, then lifted too much and gave him the stripe by .001 :violent1:....I ran 6.82 on my 6.80...the incrementals showed I should have trusted the car, it was going to run yet another 6.80. Oh well, at least I know that I can trust the car on this fuel now, LOL!
 
Thanks Flyfish -This really helps us newbies when you share your expertise--Steve
 
What fuel pump are you running? Is it Meth or alch compatiable? Same goes for the Fuel regulator.
 
I had originally set up my system to run E85. The pump is an aeromotive 140 gph and the regulator is a bypass style. When I had talked to Aeromotive, they had said to not run a dead head style regulator for E85. The E85 needs more fuel flow so they said I needed to run a bypass style. So that's how I set mine up. But now that I've lowered the compression to run pump gas, I doubt I'll be messing with the E85 just because of the fluctuation of the % ethanol throughout the year and the loss in mileage. For me it's not worth it right now. If I was drag racing only, I would buy a barrel of E98 and mix the stuff myself to assure I truely had E85.
 
flyfish said:
Holley black pump, the Holley cheap-o regulator that comes with the Blue pump (I used to have a Blue pump), and this fuel filter: http://www.jegs.com/i/Holley/510/162-563/10002/-1
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are you ueing that filter before the pump or after the pump? and thanks for all the great info on what you are doing with your car on the E85. i am trying to decide if i want to do one carb on E85 or two.lol
 
mopar65 said:
are you ueing that filter before the pump or after the pump? and thanks for all the great info on what you are doing with your car on the E85. i am trying to decide if i want to do one carb on E85 or two.lol
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That should be used after the pump. Something like a 100 micron could be used before the pump.

"40 micron filters are recommended for use as a post filter in carbureted systems
100 micron filters are recommended as a pre filter in both carbureted or EFI systems"
 
1980volare said:
Running the same exact setup. Mine is returnless as well, I don't like the extra load a return style puts on a pump.
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Just the opposite. Dead heading is harder on a pump than allowing it to continue to circulate fuel.
 
just curious, why e85 and not methanol? Compression?
 
wirenut said:
just curious, why e85 and not methanol? Compression?
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I don't want to be anywhere near a straight methanol fire. Been near one at the Indy 500... no thanks, never again. Can't see the flame when it's burning. At least e85 has a gasoline component to give off a visible flame/smoke so you know where the danger lies. Not just a mirage style heat signature.
 
crackedback said:
I don't want to be anywhere near a straight methanol fire. Been near one at the Indy 500... no thanks, never again. Can't see the flame when it's burning. At least e85 has a gasoline component to give off a visible flame/smoke so you know where the danger lies. Not just a mirage style heat signature.
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You got that right man. I got great respect for the stuff. I went to fill the fuel bowls (was having trouble with the new shut off valve) and I didn't realize there was a fire going in the manifold.I have learned to feel the carb now, you can tell from the heat.It blew the top off my primer bottle, threw it 50' across the shop. I had to decide which fire to put out 1st, me or the car, or my other 62' 300 near by!
What I am doing is adding a prime/drive kit. Small world, the guy that bought the Valiant designed them for Ron's toilet's, and has helped me build one.He made me the under plate gas injector,it is on it's way to me.
With this setup, you can start and warm the car faster, drive it to the line, and after the run drive back on pump gas. It will saves tons in cost of fuel. With meth, and top oil, it is about $3.25 a gallon. Even at twice the amount use, it is cheaper then race fuel. But with the pump gas primer, it will save 1/2 as much on costs.
We'll see how it works. So far the only drama was the above one. Lucky there was no damage of any kind, but I learned a lot from that. It could have been much worst.
 
Good learning thread.Anyone watching Indy 500 in the day,watched drivers roll to kill the damn burn of the methanol. Wish that,on no one. Nearest E85 for me ,is Vandenberg A.F.B..... (Dammit...).
 
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