E85 conversion: Can it be done?

change the rubber hoses and other rubber items and let us know!!! you can be the first to post results. ;-)

Not good advice.

I like using alcohol for many reasons and use blends from E-10 to E-85 in all my vehicles including mowers and other small engines. I will be using E-50 blends. this summer. VW made and ran thousands of air cooled engines running on alcohol in Brazil for decades. I have not been able to find anything on the net as to the modificatons made, compression used timing or anything else. This was a factory alcohol engine and would burn E-85 to E-100. I've even found pictures of a front engine air-cooled VW auto made only one year which ran alcohol however, no specs. Let me know if you find anything from VW of Brazil. I will continue experimenting with my own VW's. By the way, Brazil announced a couple of days ago that it has become totaly self-reliant on it's alcohol production and does not have to import foreign oil. Good luck, Dennis

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Write me offline, Den. I have a book on converting the ACVW to alcohol. I think you will be amazed by the changes necessary.

-- John in Winona

So, this book you have talks about classic VW 1600cc conversions? Is the conversion pretty intense? I spoke with a mechanic today who said he used to race VW's and used alcohol and the only thing he did was change out the rubber seals in the carb. and had larger jets installed. He said it was much worse on mpg (2gal of alcohol compared to 1 of gas), but that was the only thing he could think of that needed changing. Any help/advice would be helpful.

By the way, Brazil announced a couple of days ago that it has become totaly self-reliant on it's alcohol production and does not have to import foreign oil. Good luck.

Wrong... Brazil found enough oil to be self suffient.It's not going to have to rely on oil any more. Just Google Brazil oil and read the stories about it.

Mark

" By the way, Brazil announced a couple of days ago that it has become totaly self-reliant on it's alcohol production and does not have to import foreign oil. Good luck."

Wrong... Brazil found enough oil to be self suffient.It's not going to have to rely on alcohol any more.

Just Google Brazil oil and read the stories about it.

Mark

Actually Brazil did discover off shore oil for it's own use but this is not the real reason it became self- sufficient. It's 30 year alcohol program is the reason. This year they are exporting alcohol to other countries also and are investing 9 billion in building new alcohol plants in Brazil and in other countries. The New York Times had a great article by Larry Rohter on the Brazilian oil/alcohol success on Apr 11,

2006, and click on below for a look at USA's view on it. ( I hope it comes through) Dennis

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why?

There was mention of Brazil's alcohol use on CNN's "We Were Warned" a couple of weekends back. We could do alcohol in the states on a big(bigger...) scale if it weren't for the politicians and auto makers. Chevrolet unveiled a new flex-fuel vehicle and it was a big huge behemoth SUV type vehicle.

How much alcohol do you have to be running (percentage) before you have to start making major changes to the engine and fuel system?

Any vehicle can run E-10 to E-15 without any modifications. In Brazil they had either gas or alcohol vehicles and only those two pumps at the gas stations. Your vehicle had to be made to run on one or the other. They invented the flex fuel vehicles so they could run their auto's on either or both at the same time. The flex-fuel vehicles are made by Ford, GM and Chrysler of Brazil use the same sensors and computers as the vehicles they are introducing here in America. The Ford taurus has been flex-fuel here in the USA for many years and I understand the computer chips used on other cars have been sold on E-bay to covert others to flex fuel.

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