Hmmm....I'm not sure how much trust I'd put in the "E85 Engine Preparation Kit" thats supposed to protect the engine from the corrosive effects. E85 is bad for standard engine seals and other materials. Its not just a matter of swapping the CPU if you want your engine to be okay long term E85 engines use different seals, and I'm not sure a fuel additive is the cure all for the corrosion effects.
Here in the midwest we have been using ethanol enhanced fuel for over 20 years now (E10), so the car companies have put ethanol compatible hoses, and seals for atleast that long. The problem is, ethanol only has 60% of the btus as gasoline has, less engergy means more fuel, this causes excessive fuel injector pulse width (on time) during high load and acceleration. so unless you replace the fuel injectors with larger ones I don't see how this kit can work.
I wouldn't even consider doing this. I agree that there is much more that needs to be modified than a CPU and an additive. Of course, no one anywhere remotely near here sells E85 anyway....
-Tim
2006 Mercury Mariner Hybrid AWD
Black with Pebble interior
Premium Package with Nav & Moonroof
Current ODO: 26,152 Typical Drive: 20 min crosstown in heavy traffic (3.5mi there and back twice a day)
532 Gallons of gas saved
That's 10,642 lbs less CO2 emitted
Well the injector sizing issue actually rarely is a significant issue. Most vehicles sold today have 20-30% extra injector capacity that is never used on standard fuel. And as I understand it, the Flextek simply extends the injector on time by a similar amount.
I don't buy the idea that other parts are incompatible with the ethanol however. The cost of producing cars with ethanol compatibility vs. without is inconsequential.
The one thing that I'm virtually certain of however is that the evaporative system is probably not up to EPA standards for vapor capture, but when you are running something that produces far fewer harmful emissions at the tailpipe, is government red tape over evaporative emissions for manufacturers something that should stop the average person from converting?
So assuming the internals of the engine and fuel system actually are compatible with E85, the only real question remaining is whether the injectors are sized to increase fuel that much. I suspect that they are, but I can see the flip side of that being that smaller injectors meter fuel more precisely and may have been chosen in an effort to better fuel economy, leaving us without the capacity or ability to make the FEH run E85 effectively without other changes.
Fuel injectors live long and happy lives unless you pulse width them greater then 80% so the engineers who design the vechicles, never allow the injector on time exceed 80%. I have worked on flex-fuel vehicles, and I can say the injectors are bigger, the PCM runs different software and there is an ethanol content sensor in the fuel line, other then that they are pretty much the same, back in the mid-nineties Ford use to recomend a different engine oil for flex-fueled vehicles, but they found out that it wasn't necessary, fuel lines and o-rings were the same for both.
The standard automotive engine is an Otto cycle engine, the FEH has a Akinson cycle engine (allows intake valve to remain open during the compression stroke thus lowering effective compression ratio and increasing efficiency due to less pumping losses) add a supercharger to an Akinson engine, you now have a Miller cycle engine (regains some of the lost intake charge). All of these engines have more in common then differences, and all could be flex-fuel design.
E85 with Flextek
