Anyone running E85?

Does anyone have their car tuned for E85? I know we don't have any stations in Billings, and looking at those E85 sites the closest I can find is in Sheridan. My tuner tells me that I could have 400 ft-lbs at the wheels with no other changes to my car (STI on stock turbo).

I am considering pricing it by the barrel and getting a few to use for the season. Does anyone know how long it will last?

I checked into buying race fuel in bulk (GT+104 UNleaded) last season and it runs $7.05 per gallon and is sold in 55 gallon drums. However, that price was for me picking up the barrels in Denver. The leaded was a little cheaper, but I have cats on my cars so that won't work for me.

400 ft-lbs on the stock turbo seems like a bit much but would be awesome if its really achievable. The biggest issue I see is almost every Subaru I have seen with any power over stock is they seem to throw rod bearings so easy. My guess is most of those are because of DIY tunes or un-experienced tuners.

What size injectors do you have? E85 takes nearly twice as much fuel per air particles as regular gas. Most people running 400 ft-lbs are using at least 1000cc injectors.

If you decide you want to go the race gas route let me know and I can check with Torco and see what the current prices are shipped to Billings. They have unleaded 108 if I remember correctly, its been a while since we have done business with them. We can also get you the High octane concentrate. Cobb and lots of other Subie companies have done lots of testing with it and its much cheaper and simpler.

I have 850cc injectors, so plenty for E85 on a stock turbo. There is no race fuel available that comes close to E85 in terms of bang for the buck, especially if you can't run leaded, and it is even harder to get. But if you have some kind of sweet hook up, definitely let me know. E85 is even cheaper than regular pump gas.

Rod bearings, cracked ringlands- there is no shortage of problems with the factory Subaru blocks, especially with the later model STI's. I figured my motor would let go when I ran One Lap in 2009, but it just keeps taking the punishment. I would get a dedicated E85 map if I went this route, since switching them is so easy with the accessport.

400ft-lbs to the wheels on a stock motor... That would be impressive. I know that Paul was running 425 to the wheels and he ended up blowing a piston up. His car was very far from stock and had a GT35 with larger injectors and pump running 25psi. He was also running race gas for the dyno.

There is no way you will get that power with a stock motor setup. IIRC the stock STI turbo on an '08 is good for about 22psi, but you are talking 400cfm vs 800cfm.

I have a picture of Pauls piston somewhere. I will dig it up.

Stock internals only go so far.



If you were to run E85 100% of the time you could possibly prolong the motor life.

I would have to agree, 400+ on stock internals is asking for disaster, no matter how good the tuning is, the engine just cant take it.

Another thing to consider is e85, methanol, e98, nitromethane all eat the ******** outta oil. Unless you spend 60$ an oil change on some joe gibbs racing oil or some other racing oil with zinc and phosphorus additives and additives to be compatible with the fuel you're running. Running that fuel also reduces oil change interval.

Another issue with e85 is fuel pumps, any fuel pump that flows through the motor will die quickly. The required cost to retrofit for e85 adds up making 100 octane not so bad.

Another issue with e85 and other alcohols is it burns faster, so many people think of it as being similar to race gas and think they need to add timing. This is very wrong and will cause sandblasted internals. I've seen engines take 28 degrees of total timing on 100 octane and only handle 19 degrees on e85. Obviously the e85 motor also made less power.

I'll check on the prices with Torco, we are a distributor but haven't done anything with them for a year or so. If I can I'll sell it to you for cost if the price makes sense to get some.

So Paul was running race fuel when he had the dyno tune done but blew it up with pump fuel in there?

DoodieHead wrote:

If you were to run E85 100% of the time I am sure you could avoid this.

I am not sure I follow... you are saying the stock internals cannot take 400 ft-lbs on pump gas, but they can so long as I am using E85? I would be running the same map I currently use for pump gas as needed, and switch over to E85 and the corresponding map for events.

Quote :

Another thing to consider is e85, methanol, e98, nitromethane all eat the ******** outta oil. Unless you spend 60$ an oil change on some joe gibbs racing oil or some other racing oil with zinc and phosphorus additives and additives to be compatible with the fuel you're running. Running that fuel also reduces oil change interval.

This I did not know. Amsoil is expensive and I already change it more often than I should. I will look into this some more.

Quote :

Another issue with e85 is fuel pumps, any fuel pump that flows through the motor will die quickly. The required cost to retrofit for e85 adds up making 100 octane not so bad.

From what I can tell, people on the Subaru forums running E85 use the same walbro pump that I am using...?

Quote :

Another issue with e85 and other alcohols is it burns faster, so many people think of it as being similar to race gas and think they need to add timing. This is very wrong and will cause sandblasted internals. I've seen engines take 28 degrees of total timing on 100 octane and only handle 19 degrees on e85. Obviously the e85 motor also made less power.

To be honest, I have no idea WTF the tuner does differently on an E85 map. I know blind faith is not a good thing, but this guy has been straight up with me since the beginning and has a good reputation. He also tunes my car for free in exchange for some advertising.

Clearly I need to read up on this some more, but thanks for the help!

I really dont think a stock STI motor can handle 400 regardless of what fuel you are running. I am just saying it might take longer for the motor to go on E85.

It really doesnt matter though if the pistons dont go the rods sure as hell will with that kind of HP.

I would like to see a stock STI running 400 on an all out track day. I cannot imagine it would make it very long.

What I really hate about Subaru is the fact they dont put the few extra bucks into making a reliable bottom end. The top end on the STI is actually really good.

For $1000 bucks you could replace the pistons and rods and not have to worry about it.

Riptide wrote:

So Paul was running race fuel when he had the dyno tune done but blew it up with pump fuel in there?

Yep, he was running 425 on race gas I believe and when he left Colorado they put a 91 map back on. I could be wrong, he may have been running 91 when he hit 425. It has been exactly a year since we pulled his motor.

People say the same thing about the mustang. If Ford had just spent a little bit extra on the rods, which are the weak point for boost, etc..

Bottom line I guess is they know that it's not big deal to 95/100 people who buy the car. The vast majority probably leave the car stock and never even know the difference. So they'd rather just cut the price down even if it's only a grand or so.

E85 is some good stuff, has great detonation resistance and most of the time that you see a destroyed motor it was due to detonation / pre-ignition. The pressures just go through the roof and it doesn't take long to break things. In the absence of detonation, I don't see why a 2.5 couldn't live for quite a while at those power levels. You'd likely be getting to the edge and at the edge a little knock would go a long way toward quick destruction.

It has been a while since I've followed Subi's, but it seems that even back in '05, there were quite a few tuners pushing 400ish on stock internals. I do know that on a lot of factory boosted engines, 50% over stock isn't asking that much of them, heck most non-boosted engines can handle that.

All in the tune and monitoring it though, when you start pushing it, it can get away from you before you have time to lift (last set of headgaskets in my Buick can attest to that). I wouldn't expect a factory knock sensor to save you, you need to have the tune spot on IMO or be prepared to pay when the time comes.

That is my $.02

The inconsistency of pump gasoline can lead to kabooms.

Here's a cool calc I found on the net.
http://www.wallaceracing.com/boost-compression-ratio-calc.php

Also,
http://www.kb-silvolite.com/article.php?action=read&A_id=57