E15 Officially Approved

370Z Purist

E85 is effective because it is largely ethanol, and has an octane number greater than octane itself, so yeah, anti-detonation qualities are good.

Unfortunately, for the regular joe (or anyone who runs pump fuel), 15% ethanol fuels will probably mean we pay the same price for less gasoline and more grain alcohol/moonshine in our fuel, lower fuel economy, while maintaining mildly better emissions at the loss of power.

In other words, this is terrible news and I would go with pure gasoline if it were still to be found.

I'm sure a professional tuner could figure out a way to change engine characteristics to make more use of the high octane numbers, but unless someone figures out an effective compression ratio updated to use E15 (perhaps a 11.5 or a 12 to 1) to preserve the literature value of crank horsepower, the next generations of Zs might have a lower power output merely due to the change in fuel. If only we have something like SkyActiv... that **** is crazy. 14:1?

__________________
-Phil

"Since one of my brake light bulbs just went out, the forum told me that my piston rings are about to blow."

bdavis89

So let me get this straight, as you two seem to know what you're talking about. Ethanol is actually higher octane/more powerful, but it resists detonation more than regular gasoline? Therefore you need a higher compression ratio to make it explode properly/usable?

I'm guessing our engines aren't high compression enough for ethanol to be better for it, but for high compression engines ethanol is actually better?

p.s. Please pardon my ignorance

__________________

Shamu

Yes higher ethonal content if octane rating is higher is a good thing for high compression or blown motors. The downside will be worse fuel economy as you need to spray more ethonal to get same AFR. Our cars won't benefit from e15.

If you converted to turbo setup and ran injectors and tune for e85 you'd have one fast car but for most of us average drivers it's not good when they start putting more ethonol in our gas. Worse mileage is about all we get.

__________________
Grant