I don't know about the US market but in europe bio derived petrol (ethanol) has a bad reputation for screwing up cats and O2 sensors, whether that is a myth proliferated by the oil companies I cannot say but logically I can imagine E85 could easily do this.

 

The car needs to be tuned As well as injectors need to be changed out to bigger ones as e85 needs more fuel in order to achieve the same a/f ratios as reg gas. I tune car on e85 for performance as you can get decent power from it instead of buying racing fuel

 

Glad this popped up. I just got done running this test on my rover, and this is what I found.

I dropped in a gradual amount of E85 until it was almost full strength, and ran for awhile.

Motor ran like silk, mileage dropped to about 10mpg. SES light came on, codes were P1170 and P1173.

Ran through the tank, threw a premium fillup in her, cleared the codes and all is normal.

ethanol doesn't degrade rubber seals unless its allowed to sit. the degrade (this comes from a good friend who is a phd chem engineer) comes from the moisture leaching properties of the ETOH. It basically dries out rubber and causes cracks, and is much worse when fuel sits. not a problem with the rover, it gets driven a lot.

short version - its your car, do whatever you want, but I'll keep running the E85. The downside is small and the upside, in my book, is large.

 

Thank you for the report, ATL !
I also read somewhere the ethanol destroying rubber is more a myth than a reality, but there is the generalized contrary opinion floating.

 

Question: Would you run either your '02 Ducati S4 monster, '04 BMW R1150R or '07 Ducati S2R1000 Desmo bikes on E85 fuels ?

Lots of data on E85 petrol.

https://www.google.fr/webhp?sourceid...0in%20the%20uk



In fact I personally couldn't care whether anyone runs their truck on tar oil, it isn't my concern, what is my concern is misleading others on running deleterious fuels or oils. Would I use E85, well as I already stated, yep, for washing up greasy car parts BUT wearing plastic chemmy gloves as it's bad for humans although it's contained in many alcoholic drinks , would I run it in any vehicle ................. 'not on your life' (doesn't affect me too much all of my trucks are diesels and I read a lot of problems with people running bio diesels just to save a couple of shekels)

 

This tuning Apparently isnt always perfect or consistent from factory.
I have a pair of 15 flex vehicles , both 5.3. One performs better with e85 one worse.

 

@offroadfrance - I don't use the E85 in the bikes, specifically because both ducati and bimmer used some plastics that reacted with ethanol, specifically in the fuel tanks, which causes expansion and cracking.

they actually had to recall a lot of bikes because it was cracking gas tanks if they sat in the sun for awhile....go figure.

I have put a couple tanks of 130 octane Av-Gas in the 2007, and it likes it. A lot.

The buick 215 block in the D2 is an old, pushrod V-8 design, and doesn't capture much of the advantages of E85, but has the benefit of being somewhat of a tough old bird.

ethanol is the same stuff that's in booze, but the fuel is denatured chemically to keep the knuckleheads from drinking the stuff...

Flex-fuel is basically a software mod, lengthens injector pulse, and advances timing between 1-3 degrees typically (this is a hack to make up for lower compression).

For me, I don't see a problem running it in the rover, as I know that I can fix things fairly easily, and parts are cheap and plentiful. The only thing that would really annoy me is the constant SES light.

Not so with the ducatis unfortunately. You need a water-cooled wallet to keep them running...

I agree with you on the bio-diesel and SVO blends - I did that for about 3 years, and its not really a cost savings unless diesel hits about $4.90/gallon. Too much glycerine in the fuels for modern diesels. The old ones work fine though.

 

Just posting an update here for anyone that wants it.

Fixed my 1170/1173 codes, I had a hole in the exhaust where I missed a spot with the welder.

Now I know that O2's are fine, i threw in a whole tank of e85 today for errands.

Drove about 40 miles then got P0170.

turns out its a fuel trim code on driver bank, computer can't get A/F ratio right based on voltage from O2 sensor.

Interesting.

motor runs great. not sputtering, stalling, like silk. Town, expressway, etc, all running great, temps constant on motor @ 183.2F and normal power.

exhaust smells like burnt booze. Should you have a hangover, you would puke for sure at the smell.

Going to run this tank through, and ping change2e85.com crew for some input. I'd be curious to see if their software can deal with that specific code.

$2.20/gallon is what I paid for the fuel, station is within a mile of my house.

Truck has no fuel mods whatsoever, nor any conversion kits for the ethanol fuel.

 

Update with mileage too. I'm curious how the injectors/pump/lines hold up over long periods too. Starting off with an entire tank is ballsy. I'll give you that.

 

Will do on mileage.

gonna drive 100 miles then fill up and see.

my gas gauge has that tweak where it only shows halfway, and about 60 miles into a tank the E light comes on...

So i just fill every 200 and forget about it.

last tank of premium was 14.64 mpg, so I'll be curious as to the firewater mileage.

This is just me, but I really like the idea of burning anything other than gasoline for fuel.

If the fuel system does s**t the bed, I priced out an aftermarket pump (e-85 compatible), fuel filter system, and new seals/o-rings for injectors. Few hundo $$..

So all in all, not a big deal in the grand scheme of rover ownership.