Gutted My Cat & e85

[acid810]

Hey guys, thanks for all the input in troubleshooting my issue which was indeed the cat.. I got in there with a drill and a long extension and broke it all up. Got all the catalyst out of there and I have got to say this is one mean S.o.B now. It has SOOOO much more power it is ridiculous. Anyhow, now I am trying something many of you would not reccommend. e85 in a 00 4.3 I blended 10gal gas with 8gal e85. No check engine lights, no performance problems. Will see how this works. Anyone else try e85 in their 4.3? Let me know, I am curious as to what your results were. There are many in other forums (not s10forum.com) that are naysayers and say it will FUBAR the fuel lines, orings etc. but I have found evidence to the contrary including a guy who ran e85 exclusively in a 00 subarban since new with no ill effects. Oh yeah and he tore it apart after about 105000 miles just to see what things looked like and it was perfect! There is a youtube video on it as well. I will link to it later.

Thanks for all the help and let me know what you think about this e85 stuff,

ACiD810

[Bill Wheats]

So did you fix what caused your cat to go bad?

[sparks383iroc]

It's killing my grocery bill!

Actually the biggest fear is that the alcohol will destroy the seals/o-rings/rubber fuel lines. This is probably due to past experiences with people using methanol, not ethanol in E85. Ethanol is not as harsh as methanol on rubber components or so it is said, so not sure there is as much risk using E85.

[MINTSICK]

Huge LOL at the "it has SOOOO much more power now it's ridiculous" comment from gutting a cat converter. Not even going to bother commenting on the e85 mixed with regular 87 octane fuel.

[Project89]

My buddy has been mixing e85 and reg gas for years now , bout 8 total in his 00 s-10 with noe ill effects .

[zdanovich]

Quote: Originally Posted by MINTSICK

Huge LOL at the "it has SOOOO much more power now it's ridiculous" comment from gutting a cat converter. Not even going to bother commenting on the e85 mixed with regular 87 octane fuel.

well, if your car was barely running, then it goes to running great, then that could be "sooooooo much more power"

[97_S-10SS]

Quote: Originally Posted by zdanovich

well, if your car was barely running, then it goes to running great, then that could be "sooooooo much more power"

True...but he's claiming more power, not just power back to stock level. He might want to clarify.

[zdanovich]

97 ss, is your subtitle thing (Rust never sleeps...) from space ghost coast to coast from the replicating pods episode?

[97_S-10SS]

Wow...no, not at all. I have heard of that show, flipped past it a couple of times, but I had no idea that phrase was actually from something. Now I'm bummed...I thought I came up with that one all by my lonesome.

It came to mind over the past couple of years as I've begun to find little spots of rust creeping up under the fenders and on the back of the tailgate and such. I'll have to see if I can download that episode somewhere. Now I have to find something clever and semi-witty to put there instead...

[garebel]

Quote: Originally Posted by sparks383iroc

It's killing my grocery bill!

Actually the biggest fear is that the alcohol will destroy the seals/o-rings/rubber fuel lines. This is probably due to past experiences with people using methanol, not ethanol in E85. Ethanol is not as harsh as methanol on rubber components or so it is said, so not sure there is as much risk using E85.

hmmmmm....... let us know how it goes with the ethanol.......

just today i had to soak one of my gaskets in diesel (to get it swell up) to get it to stay in the dust cover. ethanol dryed it out

[acid810]

Ok, well to answer a couple of those questions. The cat was screwed because I have 160k miles and it's the original one. The truck was my dad's brand new, he sold it to me a few years back. I drove it in 99 when it was brand new (00 model) and it was pretty peppy and all having the 4.3. But NOW, its FAR quicker in terms of accelleration. And I mean FAR. One thing is for sure, I had trouble keeping up with a KIA 4 banger before gutting the cat. I have done some stoplight drags against some ricers and left them in the dust with their neon and oversized spoilers. I just have to ease into it though because there is significant wheel hop otherwise....

As to the e85, I've been reading quite a bit about folks runnin it on non flex vehicles and so far I've only heard one story of a guy who had something go terribly wrong and honestly, it sounds to me like his problem would have occurred using regular gasoline. So thus, I am conducting my experiment to determine which delivers the lowest cost per mile. Straight gas or my 10gal gas / 8gal e85 mix. Prior to my cat becoming clogged I got about 15-16mpg @ 4.15/gal so thats $.26 / mile or so. My driving is basically ALL city. I'm lucky to go more than 15 miles in a trip 1 time per month, that's why my MPG's are so low. With my e85/gas mix, I paid 4.15 for gas and 3.65 for e85 so $41.50 for the gas and $29.20 for e85, totalling $70.70 as opposed to $74.70 so only a $4.00 savings by volume but I'm thinking that I can probably up the concentration of ethanol significantly while not really loosing to much mpg's resulting in a net savings of $10-$15 a tank. This is considering an ethanol content of no greater than maybe 65%. I am going to definitely try and figure this out becuase every $ counts right now due to the fact I am currently jobless. So anyhow, that's about all I've got, getting tired...> Just one more thing though, does anyone know of a way to adjust the computer from a laptop or something so maybe I could tune the car to run more efficiently on this fuel blend? There was a guy on this forum who stated he had the 00 with 4.3 and he had tuned his onboard computer for the e85 so I am curious if there is an easy way a regular joe could do it. I found a company online you can send your ecm to and they do it to it for you but they want like $450 to do it so F that.... Cheers,

ACiD810

[sparks383iroc]

Quote: Originally Posted by garebel

hmmmmm....... let us know how it goes with the ethanol.......

just today i had to soak one of my gaskets in diesel (to get it swell up) to get it to stay in the dust cover. ethanol dryed it out

That is why I said "or so it is said". I haven't tried it personally. What gasket are you talking about. Dust cover??? Exactly what are you talking about here?

[Serge PETIT]

Hello I am a French member of your forum proud to own a 2000 LT Blazer with the 4,3 W, Auto gear box, 4 doors, 4x4.
Because of price of gas in France (around 2$ per liter) I am running my Blazer for more than 3 mounths with a mix of E85 and 95 octane gas (the lowest in France; it include 5% of ethanol).
Our price for E85 is 1,20$ per liter
I have started with 30% of E85 and increased the rate until 60% E85 when the SES light come.
So the normal mix that I run whitout any trouble or SES is 50/50% meaning a mix with 47% of pure ethanol.
My milage is 17% below the MPG with only gas.
Last sunday outside temperature was rather high with 35°C and in a trafic jam the SES light come with a P0171 code for too lean mixture. I have added gas to be back to 30% E85 and the SES has not lighted back.
I think that it was due to the gas evaporating faster than the E85 (It was very hot under the car stopped in the trafic) and the rate of ethanal in the pumped fuel becoming to high.
All these figures have been confirmed by the members of our French forum called American 4x4 either with Chevy V6 or Chevy V8 who are running with a mix of Ethanol.
We all are adding at each fuel refill the protectant product used to oil the valves and high parts of engines running with LPG because of the fuel more dry with ethanol.
I hope that you will be able to read my post and I want to thank you all for your marvellous forum which is a very important source of knowledge for us and our "US babies".
Regards for all of you.
Serge.

[Yogi]

Quote: Originally Posted by Serge PETIT

Hello I am a French member of your forum proud to own a 2000 LT Blazer with the 4,3 W, Auto gear box, 4 doors, 4x4.
Because of price of gas in France (around 2$ per liter) I am running my Blazer for more than 3 mounths with a mix of E85 and 95 octane gas (the lowest in France; it include 5% of ethanol).
Our price for E85 is 1,20$ per liter
I have started with 30% of E85 and increased the rate until 60% E85 when the SES light come.
So the normal mix that I run whitout any trouble or SES is 50/50% meaning a mix with 47% of pure ethanol.
My milage is 17% below the MPG with only gas.
Last sunday outside temperature was rather high with 35°C and in a trafic jam the SES light come with a P0171 code for too lean mixture. I have added gas to be back to 30% E85 and the SES has not lighted back.
I think that it was due to the gas evaporating faster than the E85 (It was very hot under the car stopped in the trafic) and the rate of ethanal in the pumped fuel becoming to high.
All these figures have been confirmed by the members of our French forum called American 4x4 either with Chevy V6 or Chevy V8 who are running with a mix of Ethanol.
We all are adding at each fuel refill the protectant product used to oil the valves and high parts of engines running with LPG because of the fuel more dry with ethanol.
I hope that you will be able to read my post and I want to thank you all for your marvellous forum which is a very important source of knowledge for us and our "US babies".
Regards for all of you.
Serge.

Welcome, Serge!
I was able to read your post just fine! Thanks for adding your real world data to our discussion!

[Serge PETIT]

Please it may help
Serge

[jrschultz]

I too have done quite a bit of reading about using E85 in non flexfuel vehicles. I am currently doing a mixture of 35% E85 and the rest 87 octane. My hope is to bump up the mix to 50/50 with out a check engine light. I am trying the same experiment on my 03 Maxima. There have been many people who have found the right combo for their car that saves them money at the pump while actually slightly increasing gas mileage. E85/gas combos will benefit people with vehicles of 10:1 compression ratio or better. My Maxima requires 93 octane, so I can use 40% E85 and get a 94 octane rating while still using 87 octane gas. This saves me quite a bit of money in the long run. I am curious what your gas mileage turns out to be. I will report mine after a few fill ups. Don't worry about the ethanol ruining your fuel system horror stories. There are many people who have completely converted over to E85 by computer tuning with no bad effects on the rest of the vehicle.

[jakefiddlesticks]

what the eff is E85 and where do you get it? how much of a mpg gain are you getting?

is it ethanol 85 octane?

[96Dropped-dime]

Around here all pump gas has 10% ethanol blend and my milage is the same as its always been we dont have the choice of blending our own mix cant buy e85 anywhere around memphis tn that im aware of

[jakefiddlesticks]

Quote: Originally Posted by 96Dropped-dime

Around here all pump gas has 10% ethanol blend and my milage is the same as its always been we dont have the choice of blending our own mix cant buy e85 anywhere around memphis tn that im aware of

same here in california, 10% ethanol. watered down gas for 4.59 a gallon.

[noma98]

Fubar on E85 and people that tell you it runs with no ill effects.
E85 cars have corrosion-resistant fuel systems with upgraded plastic and rubber parts and a fuel sensor that can determine the proportion of ethanol to gasoline. The fuel injection computer, fuel injection system is totally different from the one non-FFVs use—can then inject the correct amount of fuel. This is necessary because it takes a larger volume of ethanol than straight gasoline to run your engine.

Besides the fact it is absolutely no cheaper to run this fuel than straight gasoline.
The BTU's of E85 are much lower than gasoline which in turn drops fuel mileage to a point that the savings are nil and possibly depending on the outcome could lead to higher fuel costs.
Cleaner, hell no, maybe in the vehicle used versus it being a gasoline engine, yes. But to produce Ethanol takes a serious amount of fossil fuels to produce it killing any gain seen on the vehicle side.
Removing foreign dependence of oil, another falsity.
If you actually believe we import oil for vehicle running etc, go smoke another one. There is not enough super tankers in the world to move daily what we are "suppose" to be importing and what we do import is stuffed into the ground by the government.
We actually export the Alaskan oil to make large profits by selling it at a premium to countries like Japan and China whom don't have any or very little production of their own. If we really needed it that bad you think we'd be doing that, really??

So lets all go out and grow corn to produce this ethanol so that we may now pay a premium for the other crops which would be grown at higher costs. Then have more taxes added to other stuff so that the government may keep subsidizing ethanol production, which they do currently otherwise it would cost another $1 or more at the pump, and call it cheaper again.
There is no real benefit to ethanol unless your Brazil. Little oil production, importing it is highly expensive, plenty of land available and good profits to turn from pot production to ethanol production.

[Yogi]

Quote: Originally Posted by jakefindleton

what the eff is E85 and where do you get it? how much of a mpg gain are you getting?

is it ethanol 85 octane?

E85 is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% regular gasoline. The octane rating of E85 is about 104. It's available mostly in the Midwest. We have a few stations selling it in Houston.

As stated above, your motor requires more E85 to run because of the lower BTU content. So it's cheaper at the pump, but mileage goes down. Might have a slight advantage to it but not much.

[jrschultz]

http://drunkenswede.blogspot.com/200...r-mileage.html

Here's an article that shows the benefit to Ethanol/Gas blends.

[96Dropped-dime]

I would like to hear some input from someone who has ran ethenol in a carburated vehicle ive heard back during the depression alot of people were running straight ethenol cause it was cheaper

[S15vortecpwr]

i do have a flex fuel truck, my 01 2.2l

i tired the mix several ways and still lost mileage, i run 50/50 and lost about 50 miles to the tank and even went down to 25/75 E85 to 87 octane and still lost mileage. It went down about 30 miles per tank, but when you travel 150 miles a day you need every mpg you can get. i normally get around 400 to the tank worst was abotu 280 to the tank on straight e85.

Now i know i have a flex fuel vehicle and it is diff than a non flex vehicle, but I still can not see it being any cheaper mixing the 2 together to save 10 cents per gallon. not worth the extra trouble to me.



talking running it in a carb engine, my bro is gonna try it in his go cart the race season, he normally run methanol. buying meth at 5.60 a gallon vs. 3.55 for E85