E85 gasoline?

SAAB has a turbo FFV. It gets better mileage and power on E85. Power is up 20% and mileage is similar. The 9-5 series.

I think Ford has a model(or is working on a model) that is turbo'ed as well.

A lot of tech DIY'ers have played around with idea as well. It has a lot of merit.

JW

The comparison was versus gasoline... An E85 only engine would not be practical given today's infastructure.

Who said anything about e85 only? An E85 vehicle or a FFV is the same thing. An E85 capable vehicle can (and will) burn anything from E0(straight gasoline) UP TO E85. But many vehicles dont' take advantage of the flexibity. By tuning so that gas can be burned, the advantges of E85 are typically discarded.

The SAAB 9-5 uses variable compression(ie boost) to compensate for the higher octane that E85 offers and takes advantage of it, but leaves the capability to dynamically "de-tune" so that "normal" pump gas can be burned.

JW

read the thread back....

No.

It depends on the solution used.

And that's just the sort of thing I was talking about...

Explain the difference then. I do not know of a FFV that does not burn E85.

The media(and mfg's) use the term interchangeably. FFV would imply that something else could be burned, but I don't know of anything out on the market besides ethanol and gasoline. (I acknowledge very limited availabiliy of methanol blends)

JW

If you make a vehicle strictly for E85, you bump up the compression ratio (without forced induction) such that it is no longer wise to run the engine on pump gasoline.

The catch then becomes the problem of finding the fuel for it in many places. Adding a small turbo with controls would be a much better idea.

Exactly. And patching it up by advancing the timing is half-assed at best (although better than "no-assed," I suppose.) To me it seems really lame run at super low efficiency when going to ethanol is supposedly all about being resource-conscious in the first place.

But like I said, forced induction is ideal for an FFV.

An "E85 vehicle" would not be able to tolerate burning gasoline, an FFV can.

I do not know of a FFV that does not burn

We're not talking about something that currently exists. A hypothetical "E85 vehicle" that is optimized for E85 would be much more efficient than an FFV burning E85 at low compression.