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...
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JIMNLIN wrote:Has anyone used E85 for more towing power?
Doesn't look like many have tried it.
Well I tried several tanks of E85 in the wife 1500 crew cab chevy 4x4 5.3 3.73 axles pulling my blue tractor on a 10k trailer. Some of my trips were out to 175 miles.
Of course mpgs dropped steadily for the first few tanks till it was running on mostly E85. I noticed a good seat of the pants difference in towing performance. MPGS dropped to 9 'ish over several tanks vs 10-11 on E10 with the same trailer on the same hauls. My wife even made a comment the 5.3 doesn't sound like it was struggling like it did on E10.
IMO its good to know her truck will run on E85 if we had to but most of her driving is with a empty truck so the big hit in mpg drops with a empty truck doesn't make cents at this time.
Now if I could drop (at no cost to me) another tank in the bed for towing with straight E85 .........
Thanks for the report on using E85 and towing. There is a lot of bad information out there. Ford says my 5.4 has in increase in HP and toque on E85. It looks like an easy way to get a little extra power if you needed it while towing. It looks like your one of the few that has tried this. Again thanks for the information.
