Has anyone used E85 for more towing power?
My F150 5.4 is a flex fuel vehicle and I have used E85 fuel in it. There was a noticeable decrease in flue mileage and probably an increase in HP and torque. All the reports state this Ford V8 will ma...
Forum Discussion
jus2shy wrote:
As others have posted, ethanol has less energy content than gasoline. But the reason why they can make more power is that the high octane allows for more aggressive timing and ignition curves. If an engine was optimized for ethanol, it could get almost the same fuel economy as gasoline engines. A Subaru owner did a write up on how he optimized his wrx to run on the stuff and got the same fuel economy as he did when it ran on gasoline.
The guy with the WRX has a nose as long as a telephone pole. :R You can't make up 30% energy loss from nothing.
I race against methanol boys and believe me their engines are optimized as good as it gets and they have and use twice as big of a tank as we do on gasoline. The reason is methanol has about 1/2 the energy as gasoline. As pointed out ethanol is better than methanol energy wise but not even close to the energy gasoline has.
OP, depending on the tune, the alkie will give you more power but as you found out, a lot less mileage.
