Re: Clean My Ride, Flex My Fuel
 

Because of the different evaporative and corrosive properties of ethanol as compared to gasoline, several significant modifications are made to the engine and fuel storage / delivery systems. Fuel tanks are made of or lined with stainless steel to reduce / eliminate evaporation and seapage. Engine intake valve seats are made of a more expensive and more corrosion resistant metal. Fuel lines are made from materials less resistant to leakage under the higher delivery pressures required. Fuel injectors have to be recalibrated.

Is it POSSIBLE to retrofit. Yes. But it would cost you less to just buy a new car.

Actually, though, GM and Ford have been producing E85 capable vehicles since the late-1990's. So there are many used car options out there that can be had for a fraction of the cost of a new vehicle. And there are a lot of people out there driving E85 capable vehicles, only they don't really know that they are. Here's a link to a site that can tell what vehicles since 1999 are FlexFuel capable. If your vehicle appears on page 1, you still have to go through the info on page 2 to confirm.

http://www.4cleanfuels.com/Fuels-tec...tification.pdf

One reason for the recent boost in volume and awareness of E85 FlexFuel vehicles from GM, Ford, and Chrysler is the recent development of computer code that allows the vehicle to calculate the ethanol content of the fuel tank and adjust the engine operating calibrations accordingly.

If, for example, you are down to 1/2 tank of FlexFuel and you fill up with gasoline (E10), your car will correctly calculate that you are running the equivalent of "E47.5" and adjust your combustion calibrations to react accordingly. Prior to the development of algorithms to do that within your car's computer, a fairly sophisticated fuel sensor had to be installed in the gas tank to do that. If you cannot figure out how to program your car's computer to sense the difference in fuel composition and recalibrate the combustion cycle accordingly, you might wind up doing more harm than good.

Here's a link to a Department of Energy site that maps E85 station locations.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/infr...5_stations.cgi

It's a bit behind, but close enough. I drive vehicles that are assigned to me by my company. A while back I had a 2007 Tahoe that was FlexFuel capable. I was able to use FlexFuel about 70 - 80% of the time.

Peace,

Martin

Re: Clean My Ride, Flex My Fuel
 

E85 is selling for $2.05 in south Minnesota today.

One company, is working on using the left over corn after brewing for human consumption, such as cereal use. Ethanol only takes the sugar out of the corn kernal. Much ( even most ) of the nutrition remains after the ethanol is brewed. Just ethanol distillaries are not "food grade" clean right now, because they don't need to be, but in the future, very well could be.
-John