I know there are a few people on here that have made the switch to E85, I am thinking of doing the same, but I am wondering how you plan road trips. I tried mapping the route and then searching along the route for E85 stations, but came up with nothing. So, if you have an E85 tune, how do you plan your roadtrips and more importantly, fuel stops? I am assuming that there are a bunch more of them.
if your road trip includes iowa.... finding E85 will not be a problem EDIT: have you tried this? http://www.e85fuel.com/find-an-e85-station/
Yeah, but what if I want to go to Colorado? Or Texas? Iowa is not what I would refer to as a 'destination state'.
Ask Deegee about driving his new bugeye beast from Texas to MN on an E85 tune. It's a PITA. In all honesty, I'd recommend having a laptop or AP to flash a pump gas map if needed.
Can you run pump gas on an E85 tune? Or would there be just too much fuel in the cylinder for it to run properly?
I wouldn't drive across the country with an E85 tune. E85 should be treated like race gas. You can't get it everywhere, and it really should be used as a fun-map in your car with pump fuel as a backup. Someday when I want to test the limits of a built EJ22T shortblock with 1600cc injectors, I'll run corn. It will merely be a weekend/fun map that I adjust for E85's inconsistencies though.
You also have to keep in mind that places like Colorado only have 83, 85, 89 gas. The altitude will help you, but depending on the locations in Colorado you can't find anything better than 89 at the pump. If you start getting out into remote locations you will be lucky to even find 87. There was plenty of stations that we ran across that were only 83 and 85 at the pump. Russ
At higher altitudes octane ratings are not the same (effectively). A typical mountain drop is 2 points (so 85 acts like 87). As long as you are in the mountains this should be safe. The problem comes if you fill up high in the mountains with lower octane gas and then drive to a much lower elevation. Then your 89 is really just 89 and you should keep a light foot. *edit* You clearly know that, I was just elaborating for the sake of others.
Make sure to click e85 and public for the search. This will work in any state. http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/locator/stations/route
I was going to suggest this site also...http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/locator/stations/route. This is what I used on the way out to Milwaukee. The nice thing is it gives you addresses for the stations so you can just put it in the GPS and then head straight there. It's good to call first to make sure they have the fuel.
I know 4doorcivicmaster used to take the car I now drive to Chicago on E85 without any difficulty. I guess it just depends on destination. The further you go the sparser it will be.
i drove from minnesota to cali to tx and back all on e85 just plan out your trip and take at least one 5gal jug of e85 with i had 2 of them and needed it when i got into oklahoma
i agree it was but being somehow when i left my house my head was in my ass and i left without my cable it had 2 be done.
and really at the end of the day, you might as well put a safe 91 tune on your car. the overall mileage on e85 is going to suck, so do you really want to road trip on crap mileage?? And with a 91 tune, you don't have to plan your trip based on where the next e85 station is. My fxt with just a DP and a stg2 tune (with a little extra cruise work) gets 26-28 just cruising the freeway at 75-80. Russ
i did a mixture on my trip not a full e85 and it helped alot still had power for when i wanted to romp around but was still getting over 30mpg
If you are going to STL again, I had checked a while back with that site that I posted. You can make it on e85 no problem.
Sorry, going to call BS on this one. E85 gets about 30% less mileage than typical "pump" gas. Unless your car gets above 40 MPG on pump, there's no way you got 30 MPG when running any type of E85 blend.
i know with mixtures like 50/50 you can get almost, if not, the same gas mileage as pump, but over 30mpg still...you sure?
I am not sure if this comes into play.... but if you change your injectors your MPG looks a lot better than it really is on e85.
+1 I was getting 30 on my bugeye with a 18g and HOURS and HOURS of tunning at cruise/light throttle to get things dialed in. There is no way any IHI turbo is efficient enough on the hot side to get up in that 30 area. Russ
I have to partially disagree here. While remote areas of Colorado carry 87 and 89, the highly populated areas carry 91 and sometimes higher, up to 104. I lived in Colorado for 5 years, bought my WRX there, and it has never seen less than 91 in Colorado. ~Dan
Anyways, getting anything close to pump fuel mileage on corn means the car is running quite lean, with possibly advanced timing. Not saying decent mileage isn't possible, but very unlikely. A very detailed tune on corn does not show the results you speak of.
