Hello all I just switched from race gas 112 to e85 and haven't had a chance to make a pass on it yet. due to weather . Race gas is getting to a ridiculous price now 10.00 up and e85 @ 90% is 1.69 have the ones of you that have switched like it. 112 was printing tickets back to back , however my poured block sbc had heat issues when having to cool down quick. lets here your results

I switched for the same reason you are. Plus it is available 24/7 a few miles from my house. My car was never the picture of consistency but isn’t any worse now than before. I run a filled sbc with aluminum heads and 12-1 compression. After a pass I get out of the car and walk away. I stage at 170 and on a cooler day I have to warm it up for the next pass. It doesn’t get above 180. On a hot day it won’t get above 190. In a round robin situation all I have to do is turn the fan on while going to the lanes and it goes back to 170 pretty fast. In a pinch one day I had to run 70% since they hadn’t made the summer switch yet. It worked fine. I didn’t even change jets.

We have ran many different types of fuel in our 80 Camaro with a 11.5:1, 434 sbc, with no stock components. We started racing it with 100 UL pump gas, went to E-85, as low as E-76, used C85 & X85. I ran C12 in it for 7 races this year & most recently ran 91 UL with Race Gas concentrate added. Guess what, It runs the same numbers & wins with all them different fuels. The only difference was trying to get the heat in the motor with any of the E, C & X fuels. It does help with the cooling, but our car doesn't run hot & we mainly race daytime in Las Vegas, NV.

Thanks guys for your input. I thought there would be more to comment but I got good feedback from you fellas.
Weather isn't looking good again for this weekend so hoping to find out soon what it will do.

quote:

Originally posted by SR6223 Monza:
Thanks guys for your input. I thought there would be more to comment but I got good feedback from you fellas.
Weather isn't looking good again for this weekend so hoping to find out soon what it will do.

Here's a tip, run no carb spacer & if you have to run one; use aluminum!

I switched to E85 years ago it is way cheaper more consistent than 110 a lot cooler and I picked up .15 in the 1\8. It doesn't work like has though it changes AT from humidity not temp so much

Following this thread as I have same issues and concerns as thread author. C-12 is deadly, but cooling issues. How high of compression ratio on E-85 are you guys running?

quote:

Originally posted by JPosey:
Following this thread as I have same issues and concerns as thread author. C-12 is deadly, but cooling issues. How high of compression ratio on E-85 are you guys running?

I'm only at 11.5:1, but the E-85 so called experts say it's good to around 14:1

Unless you have a steady close by supply of E-85 don't bother. Kevin Willis and I along with Mark Whitener made over 200 dyno pulls on Kevin's 901 Super Flow. It was a small 358" SBC Kevin built from new parts hanging around the shop. I am still half owner of it.

What we learned:
E-85 cooled so quickly on the dyno that by the time we analyzed the pull and made a change we needed to get things warm (Water 160 degrees) before could go again.

Ethanol is heavy. It has a higher specific gravity, around .810, IFIRC, compared to other race fuels.

It seems to run best between .79 to .81 Lambda. You'll use more, maybe 30% as a rule of thumb.

It doesn't like a lot of emulsion. All credit goes to Kevin Willis for the emulsion stack that pointed us in the right direction.

Your work load will go up. Ours didn't because we always had fresh fuel, were always in the carb, and kept our fuel in an airconditioned shop. If you race a lot you'll be good. If you have a flex fuel daily driver run your excess through that. Save the fresh stuff for your racer.

I had some pals didn't race all that much. They just had to run E-85 but, they just would not do the work that created. They're carbs were always messed up.


Later we did three pulls each on 100LL Avgas, 110 octane Sunoco, and 110 octane Rocket. Back to back, same day. There was less that 1% variance. Buy 100LL Avgas if you can. It's blue. Suppliers buy it, add red dye to make it purple and call it 110 octane and charge extra.

I have some carb buddies. In no particular order Mark Whitener, Tony Morris, and Mark Sullens. If you don't want to do your own carb see one of these guys.

I went with E-85 this year and jetted per Mark Whiteners suggestions along with his BLP 1250. I'm running 14.3 comp. in my 565 and I'll never go back. I didn't do it to save money, I was looking for the added consistency with DA changes. I had been skeptical for years, and now I wish I'd done did it years ago.

I switched due to price of race gas, the availability around me, and because I was completely overhauling my fuel system anyway. It did exactly what I needed it to and I was really happy with it. My car wasn't leaps and bounds "better", but it did pick up quite a bit. Cooling was never an issue and I doubled every chance I could. I never did anything special besides fog it down and never had issues.

I was completely disappointed with my carb builder out if the box however. It took three trips to tnt to get it right but after that it was untouched until I sold the car. I eventually got a wild hair up my rear and had him build me a 4150 for a port matched intake I had and it ended up going back to him for a refund because it was junk. He even tried to charge me a 10% restock fee cause it "looked used". PM me and I'll tell you who so you can avoid him.

That said, we recently switched a buddy to alcohol and we were both really blown away by how his car responded with it. Picked up a ton, deadly consistent, and APD nailed it. Looking back, I probably should have just gone this route, but at the time I didn't have anyone close who ran it. But I don't envy the need to carry a 55gal drum in the bed of a pickup. Long weekend on E85, I'd take 20 gallons and would be more than fine.

I went from 114 to race e85 and the builder missed so bad we burnt 3 spark plug tips off on the dyno by 4500 rpm. Sent it back to get more fuel through it and had to go through the engine and re ring it because we had 40 % leak after that. The car finally ran but was never right. He ended up telling me I should sell it and go another route. So I took it to another builder to fix his CUSTOM piece of **** so I could sell it. I wouldn't sell it to someone else the way it was. Got it back and it ran fine but I had a bad taste in my mouth by that point so ordered an APD alky carb and it picked up .1 and 2.5mph to the 1/8. 615 14.5 Sullens built it and Eric Niefert fixed it. E85 can and will work but be carful who you use for the carb. The car is way more consistent with weather changes and is by far the best change I've made.

Inferno sorry to here about all your troubles going to e85 I had some of the same issues but not as bad as yours. So far I have got in about 12 passes and have been pleased with the results just need to do some fine tuning. Had to back out idle circuits some to get it to idle well and also raise the initial idle from 950 to 1150 in gear. I am also going to have to learn I'm not dialing gas as the e85 isn't as sensitive to DA and humidity. Car ran 4 near identical passes in a row over 3 hr period Its not as quick or fast as it was on 112 so Im going to jet up next time out over all Im happy with it