Gains from E85 (ethanol) on an N/A bolt on 370Z
 

I got the inspiration to test E85 on the Z and see what kind of quantifiable gains can be had. Not hearsay -- but actual scientific data collection. Thank goodness for these things we call dynos!

The car has bolt ons -- Stillen intakes, G35 test pipes (modified to fit), Agency Power 2.5" dual exhaust. Our pump gas is 92 octane, and on this fuel the motor is not ignition limited -- I can roll past MBT and see no detonation, there's just zero power gains to be had at that point.

VVEL and VTC were left alone as it was already dialed in.

The car took 16.5 gallons of E85 and on the dyno it went. First and foremost I tuned fuel, and only fuel to make sure the motor was getting a proper AFR -- running 100% the identical timing map. This is to demonstrate the gains to be had from the fuel -- and because of the properties of E85 (ethanol -- cooling effect and naturally oxygenated) simply switching to the fuel and making sure the motor has a proper AFR will make power! Regardless if you're comparing it to 91 octane, 92 octane, 93 octane, 94 octane, or whatever.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/iX...=w1280-h763-no

As you can see, there were gains across the whole curve.

Next, we adjusted the timing map -- and the gains were super minor and the timing added to get these gains were negligible over the pump gas timing map. 4hp on the top end. Essentially the small amount of timing just told me the fuel needed to be ignited a tad sooner to get a complete burn due to the larger quantity we're not injecting.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/n4...=w1280-h764-no

What's it look like overall? About 12whp and 12wtq in areas.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/iX...=w1280-h763-no

Not bad at all for just changing fuel and minor retuning. In fact, I saw more gains with the fuel than I did with all the work and money spent on the Stillen intakes on the car. This was also done with stock injectors and a stock pump -- worked perfectly fine, holds a clean AFR all the way to fuel cut (7800 rpm). Fuel economy while cruising on the freeway at 75mph was actually the same if not 1-2mpg better than pump gas. Go figure.

So if you want to run E85 -- the gains are there -- you should see 8-12whp regardless of the octane rating of your pump gas as the properties of the ethanol alone net gains over pump gas.

Awesome. I've been contemplating this myself but since i don't really have convenient access to e85, i put it out of my mind.

It's actually not that hard to put together a flex fuel kit for the car, I may do it just for the ease of switching back and forth between the fuels.

From prior research I've seen about 10WHP gains switching to E85 from other members. Your data confirms this. I really want to do this now.

thanks for posting.

I just picked up a q50 and would love to have Flex Fuel. One of the local gas stations just started carrying it @ $1.69/gal. I would be in it just for the fuel savings!

The extra HP would just be an added bonus.

And I would assume this is good for daily use over premium or is this just good to be race ready with?

ECUTEK used or UpRev ??

If you have E85 available, I don't see why you couldn't daily with it? I use it on a ton of cars.

ECUTek of course. I won't touch UpRev on a 3.7L since ECUTek came out with the Phase 2 updates.

VipViper - this is a good news, thank you for posting this. For the longest time, I've wondered about information pieces you mentioned. I have recently acquired a GM truck (an FFV) equipped with an engine with a high compression ratio (11:1), direct injection, and variable valve timing. GM engineers managed to bump the engine output 25 hp and 33 ft-lbs just from using E85; not to mention the pleasing way the engine reacts to throttle inputs while on E85 and it even sounds different.

I thought a Z34 could benefit from using the E85 if it's so equipped (ethanol-resistant hardware first, then capacity) since the VQ37VHR runs a high enough compression ratio. Now, if you had the data, would you mind superimposing the injector duty cycle and the AFR?

OK so talk to me about the injectors and pump. I have ECUTEK so I can added a map for E85 but I was under the impression that I need to change the pump and injectors?

BTW would this be safe to drive on until I get my tune updated. I only have access to Etunes and my tuner is in another state.

Nice to see someone try this on a NA car. Having a hard time believing your MPG improved though, mine dropped like a rock

Get your foot out of it twin turbo man! :driving:

interesting :)

Yes some motors will gain more or less. We have the Ford Coyote (5.0L) engines picking up 17-18whp & 20-25wtq from E85.

The injectors are effectively maxed out -- holds a clean AFR but if you want more breathing room you can upgrade them, but you don't have to. It was the same story on the shop Coyote when we ran E85.

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1440605434

Lol on an F/I car you're into boost so easily that it will just suck down the fuel like a crack addict.

With the VVEL/VTC system on this motor, do yourself a favor and find a competent tuner with a reliable dyno. I've seen minor 2-3* changes to VVEL net 4-5tq through parts of the curve, or the opposite -- cause huge 40tq dips in the curve. The goal is to fatten the area under the curve, and you're going to have a hard time trying to get 4tq here and there (and the cumulative effect is nice).

so what's all needed to be able to switch from e85 to regular... there are e85 pumps around me at all times, but if you go on a trip, it's not offered at every gas station.

The car doesn't come into boost any easier on E85, just takes a lot more fuel. Is the increase in MPG hand calculated?

A tune. Injectors if you want more breathing room.

Dash. Which has always been accurate on other vehicles I've converted (such as the new Coyote -- got 13-15mpg on E85, verified manually). I'll verify the reading next fill up, which will be a "combined" mpg (as I do a lot of city type driving as well).

My point was in boost it does consume a ton more fuel than pump. I don't know about you, but even small amounts of throttle input to do light acceleration would put my turbo cars into at least some level of boost, and as such into richer AFR targets than stoic at cruising.

I can give you much crazier examples -- I have a guy with a high c/r N/A 2.5L motor build in a Honda that gets crappy gas mileage on pump, but on E85 he does 40-50mpg -- the car will go from Ventura to Sacramento (California) on 2/3 - 3/4 tank of gas (it's a Civic, so roughly 9-10 gallons).

My turbo S2000 gets 19-21mpg on the freeway on E85 with a built motor. Factory they're rated 22mpg.

These are definitely the exception and not the rule... as usually I do see a 20-30% hit to economy on E85, but I can't say it's "always" after doing it long enough on a bunch of different platforms.

which injectors do you recommend?

do i need to switch from uprev to ecutek for the tune or is staying with uprev fine?

i know ecutek offers launch and few more things, but i don't need that

Whatever your tuner is comfortable with.

You'll make more power on pump just switching to ECUTek. With the timing control being garbage on UpRev you probably will only seem the initial gains from the fuel itself. On top of which you can't really do a true E85 tune without screwing up the load scaling on UpRev IIRC (been a while since I looked).

Thanks for posting Vit. Also saw this on your blog. Wish you were down here in AZ so you could mess with my tune! You've tuned like 4 of my friends k20s hah!

AZ to OR isn't that bad of a drive >.> LOL

I should be visiting Phoenix sometime soon, Andrew should be wrapping up his turbo K20 MR2 sometime soon -- we'll see if we can get 900whp+ out of it this go round!

My friend was telling me to take a road trip to OR for a retune from you lmao. I've asked about sending logs but it is a little more difficult platform it seems like to etune. Nice! Sounds awesome.

Yeah if you really want to get all you can out of it you have to sit down and dial in the VVEL. The Honda stuff is relatively simple in comparison to the VVEL system on these motors -- and you're better off using ECUTek on the 3.7 motors at this point.

With the VVEL/VTC system on this motor, do yourself a favor and find a competent tuner with a reliable dyno. I've seen minor 2-3* changes to VVEL net 4-5tq through parts of the curve, or the opposite -- cause huge 40tq dips in the curve. The goal is to fatten the area under the curve, and you're going to have a hard time trying to get 4tq here and there (and the cumulative effect is nice).[/QUOTE]

Yea finding a local tuner is a 0 to NO shoot for me Mass has NO ONE.

My dyno and TW curve is flat :)

That's good, however that graph has no context for me -- looks like some sort of base and then a "tuned" pull -- looks very similar to the last G37 I did on UpRev.

My point was I can post overlays of 5 pulls for you and show you how little changes in the VVEL made minute gains between pulls but the cumulative effect was greater than the starting point -- you don't have that kind of precision and repeatable doing a street tune.

In an case, I'm not going to argue the merits of street tune (etune) vs dyno tune. They both have their niche.

no agreed about the Street vs dyno thoughts, I should have been more clear about the graph. The lower WHP line was my finished UPREV tune and the other "Higher" line was my finished ECUTEK tune. I pick up 15 WHP just swtich from UPREV.

We made 10 pulls total, 5 on each software

That makes sense. The lower graph really looked like the motor wanted more timing. That's been one of the most frustrating things of dealing with UpRev -- you can tell the motor wants one thing, and no matter how hard you faceroll on your laptop, the ECU would fight you the whole way.

lol

E85 gaining MPG's over unleaded? If you convert a car from a standard fuel system from running Unleaded to Corn, your MPG's will go DOWN due to more fuel being consumed.

This isn't a result of being boosted. If you take a TT 370z and take the MPG readings, and THEN convert to E85 (just as Blake did), your MPG's will indeed decrease.

Will E85 make more power? YES, why???? Ignition point = It means you can run a few degrees more timing (all in the tune)
E85 ignights at 365 degrees
93 Octane Ignites at 280 degrees

Theory and practice are not always the same thing. When I go through a tank of fuel and do a manual calculation at the pump, we'll know for sure.

I clearly demonstrated E85 making power with absolutely zero timing map changes. I've seen this on every N/A car I've converted to E85.

In fact simply stating the fuel allows you to possibly run more timing to make more power is nothing more than an assumption. In many cases I've had N/A motors that want zero timing map changes on the fuel over the pump gas map.

Where can the flex fuel kit be obtained from for our platform?

Never mind I found it. http://www.e85converterkits.com/stor...exBox6Cylinder

VitViper - is there a provision to run ethanol-content sensor like my GM truck has and incorporate its output to create a "flexible" table?

Ecutek has recently released "flex fuel" and Fast Intentions is working on putting together a kit for it.

It's just a couple EFI fittings you can get on Summit, then the Zeitronix digital to analog convertor and a content sensor. Really simple. If I get bored I'll build a parts list of the correct fittings to buy.

Yes, ECUTek.

ECUTek didn't release "flex fuel" per-say. Their software allows for custom maps to be written, and the tuner is able to use those custom maps to add Flex Fuel support into the ECU.

Just to throw my $2 in here and my experience. I decided to put in a blend of ethanol. I'm on a stock tune and i used an online calculator to figure my octane numbers.

2 gal ethanol = 105 Oct
17 gal e10-91 = 91 Oct
19 gal blend = 93 Oct

Now i don't have dyno numbers but i definitely can say that there is more torque. The engine runs smother, sounds smother and my incline 1st gear start is less jumpy.

I used torque app to watch my AFR before and after and i would say the car leaned out about .50. Knowing the factory tune is rich, i figured a little leaning with ethanol would work out well. So far my mileage hasn't lowered.

I lost power:(. Best description...Higher octane fuel is slower burning. If your not igniting it soon enough then u arent giving the fuel enough time to release its energy. What u need to take away from this is that your ecu/tuning system is inadequate for use with e85 on your application. Whatever u take from this dont fall into the "e85 doesnt work crowd" because ud be egregiously wrong. Unfortunately your setup just isn't working with e85. No one has ever made anything but less power with e85 on the same timing as gas. Thats just how it works. Our platforms tuning software suppliers need to step it up imho.


So if thats correct im not sure why you got more with fuel trimming only. Clearly i need ecutek! Turner can only run 28* same as gas.

so with uprev and e85 you lost power?

Thanks for posting the info. I think this confirms that I will not be going forward with E85 when I switch to ECUtek.

Appears so. Cant get the timing.


But as the OP stated timings better with ecutek. Its worth a look see.

I used GTR's.

What timing are you running? My tuner cant get over 28 on any of the cars. He can tell it to but it wont. Im stuck at 28 on both 93 and e85. E85 lost me around 15hp. It just cant burn the mix soon enough. Is this what you're seeing or talking about with uprev?

hmm would be nice if someone had ecutek and tried this