Re: Why is the supply of E85 fuel so tightly controlled?

Of the 'database'? The owner of the bio-power 9-3 had a phone call directly from someone who's a techincal expert from Brazil brought to Australia by Manildra to help set up the process of producing E85 fuel.

He arranged with the person who owns the car in question to register them on the database and now he can legally buy E85 from any Australian outlet that stocks it. The guy from Brazil is living somewhere close to where the owner of the bio-power 9-3 lives on the northern beaches area. Seeing as it's the very first 08-buily my08 bio-power 9-3 to be sold in Australia, it's currently a unique vehicle!

I didn't know E85 was even available in Australia yet, but clearly it is. Why it's not legal to buy without 'approval' is still a mystery. I believe it's due to the excise issue. I bet once more manufacturers start making cars that run on high-proportional ethanol fuels things will change (and the price of ethanol fuel blends will rise).

Craig.

Probably because E85 will toasr any engine not made to run on it.

Al

toasr tost toste toast

Al

That's probably true with just about all existing vehicles, but it's not really a sensible reason to make it 'illegal' to buy without being 'registered' with the Federal government. 8-)

Playing devil's advocate for a moment... If there were no special deals/arrangements in place, there would be no reason to restrict it's sale. If the 'offset' for the excise doesn't constitute a 'special arrangement', then I wonder what does.

If someone was silly enough to put it in an vehicle not designed to run on it, that would be in the same league as trying to run a petrol engine on diesel, or vice-versa.

Clearly there is some sort of liability protection going on or there'd be no reason to use a 'prohibition order' style of control mechanism to regulate end-user supply.

Craig.

I doubt it. It won't cause pre-ignition because it is a higher octane. It may run lean if the engine sensors/ecu don't have a wide enough range of adaption, but it should still run even if the ecu goes to limphome mode.

Older carb cars would have less issues as long as there is enough range on the mixture adjustments/jetting.

Only issue might be if the ethanol reacts with any existing metals or plastics/rubbers in the fuel system. It is still a spark combustion fuel.

Regarding running ethanol, I simply don't think burnt valves, holed pistons or cracked heads would improve performance or emissions. Not as bad as methanol though. You MUST make changes to timing and jetting to run alcohol fuels and you will use far more alcohol than petrol for the same power output. The ideal is to run alcohol fuels on the rich side to avoid problems. With methanol it's approximately twice the fuel you would use on straight petrol. You can't just dump these fuels into an engine with stock settings and expect the engine to last.

Al

I've actually been looking into this a little since joining this discussion.

I plan, sometime in the near future to tune the Trionic 5 ecu (yes it is T5.2 1993 ecu but it is still possible) with T5suite.

On the subject of burned valves etc, unlikley to happen if you do add sufficient extra fuel which is what I said regarding carb jetting and adaption ranges. I said don't let it run lean. A standard spark ignition engine, with sufficient fueling is all you need. Just look at LPG/Propane systems. Propane is far lower than petrol in calorific value. It doesn't even need to be accuratley measures, just open the tap, pour it in, fire the spark, drive. No problems. Again, get it too lean and it will break the engine. A simple gas tester can sort that out.

I remember helping a friend set his Honda CR 250 to run on Methanol years ago, the common consensus was to think of the biggest jet size you think it needed then double it :-) It ran really well and we didn't care that he had the fastest chook chaser amongst us, it was always a pleasure to follow in his exhaust smoke ;-)

That could be it then :-) remembering that this was decades ago and he had the bike set up to race short circuit flat track. He did pretty well at it and competed at a national level, its just a pity that he got the dreaded "rust" and it killed him a few years ago.

There lies your answer..... Excise issue......

Just think, strip out (distill) other substances, and you probably have pure ALCOHOL (Ethanol)

Now how much tax is there on alcohol.....?

Thats why I'm sure....