Has anyone used E85 for more towing power?

You may get a little more HP with the E85 for those moments when the throttle is wide open. It will consume more fuel all the time.

Some info

Another factor is that it takes several tanks (usually 3 ) for the computer to adjust to the change in fuel. And no...it does NOT make more horsepower on E85

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.

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.

E85 ethanol has an octane rating of 100-105, versus 85-95 for gasoline.
A gallon of E85 ethanol has only 72 percent of the energy in a gallon of gasoline
A tank of E85 ethanol will take you only about 80 percent as far as you could drive on a tank of gasoline.

brirene wrote:
I would go by the manual.

Sounds like brilliant advice. See what the manual says about towing, specifically what fuel to use. I believe GM advises against using E85 to tow. I think it burns hotter than E10 or regular gas, which could be counter productive to lowering temps when towing.

E85 has about 30% less energy than E10 and 33% less energy than good ole fashioned non-ethanol gas. I can't speculate about increased HP and torque... but I know that your fuel economy will go down. E85 tends to be a couple cents cheaper per gallon, but your economy will be about 30% worse.

Seems counterintuitive that it would produce more power, but I admittedly don't know anything about it. I would go by the manual.