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Dinosaurs.com
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Joined: November 06, 2013
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Location: PreHistoric
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 Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 1:30 am Post subject: Ethanol? E85? Volkswagen? Type 3? |
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My buddy told me converting to the moonshine was as easy as re timing the engine. I told my buddy, he was liar. But the curiosity has me. is that right? Am I to belief BIG OIL has me at the brainwash?
So I get that the timing needs to be advance. What about fuel lines? Fuel tank? Do these corrode by alcohol?
Although, does Fuel Injectors create additional complications?
I understand that there are cold start issues. Is that why the people use E85? Or are there other considerations and preparations?
Much Love. |
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vlad01
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| Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 3:36 am Post subject: |
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just look at Brazil. especially VW of Brazil. They pioneered ethanol fuel for the masses. All there cars run on ethanol, they country is self sustained for fuel most of the time.
I would not bother too much with carbs though, EFI would be the way to go for ethanol power engine. Most of the EFI tuning guys I know use ethanol as the primary fuel for their street machines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel |
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Bobnotch
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Posts: 22396
Location: Kimball, Mi
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| Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 9:39 am Post subject: Re: Ethanol? E85? Volkswagen? Type 3? ?? |
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| Dinosaurs.com wrote: |
My buddy told me converting to the moonshine was as easy as re timing the engine. I told my buddy, he was liar. But the curiosity has me. is that right? Am I to belief BIG OIL has me at the brainwash?
So I get that the timing needs to be advance. What about fuel lines? Fuel tank? Do these corrode by alcohol?
Although, does Fuel Injectors create additional complications?
I understand that there are cold start issues. Is that why the people use E85? Or are there other considerations and preparations?
Much Love. |
Personally for something like this, I'd go MegaSquirt, so I can control the timing, and everything else needed to keep from melting the engine down. You'll need to upgrade to ethanol rated FI fuel hose, and probably replace the fuel pump with an inline unit (to handle the ethanol), as it's hard on rubber parts. The injectors should be fine though. The fuel tank may cause problems, but really shouldn't be an issue IF you tend to keep it full (no air to form rust). But, I'd wait until others have added any unforseen thoughts on this. 
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Bob 65 Notch S with Sunroof
71 Notch ...aka Krunchy; build pics here;
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=249390 -been busy working
64 T-34 Ghia...aka Wolfie, under construction... http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=412120
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Multi69s
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| Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 12:46 pm Post subject: |
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The problem with our old engines is that to get it to run correctly (performance and efficiency), you would have to build the engine for E85. Higher compression, timing and fuel delivery. Then you would be stuck with a motor that would only run on E85. If you switched back to regular gas, you would melt it. Modern cars that run "flex" fuels have computers and sensors to control the variable valve timing, ignition and fuel delivery to be able to go back and forth between fuels. We are stuck with run what you brung.
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Willo357
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| Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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I have been daily driving using e85 only for over a year now and it is an excellent fuel. you can go to the page in my sig for some of my experimentation. runs cooler and cleaner (less carbon deposits)
As mentioned you need to use special ethanol rated fuel hose but I have not had any issues with the fuel tank or the large hose for the filling neck.
on the engine side you can raise the Cr as e85 is 102RON but you don't have to. the fuel will run fine on 7.7Cr, I have used it on much lower Cr
As for ign timing. ethanol burns a little slower but not that much, all you have to do is set a dizzy a little advanced. but again you dont really need to especially if you have vac advance.
The main thing to get correct is the AFR, e85 requires more fuel to achieve the same AFR, it works out about 1.5 times as much. if you have efi the most simple way to achieve this is to increase fuel pressure, you can easily work this out from calculators online.
final point, the truth is that yes coldstarting can be a little bit of a pain. My car is pretty good but I have fully programmable megasquirt system and did a ton of testing. Take into consideration that it is only for the first 30-60 seconds until the heads get some heat and the actual starting is not that bad.
There is a ton of BS out there about ethanol and it is imposable to convince many ppl otherwise even with hard evidence, anyone that knows anything knows it is a great fuel. 
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Bobnotch
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| Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Willo357 wrote: |
I have been daily driving using e85 only for over a year now and it is an excellent fuel. you can go to the page in my sig for some of my experimentation. runs cooler and cleaner (less carbon deposits)
As mentioned you need to use special ethanol rated fuel hose but I have not had any issues with the fuel tank or the large hose for the filling neck.
on the engine side you can raise the Cr as e85 is 102RON but you don't have to. the fuel will run fine on 7.7Cr, I have used it on much lower Cr
As for ign timing. ethanol burns a little slower but not that much, all you have to do is set a dizzy a little advanced. but again you dont really need to especially if you have vac advance.
The main thing to get correct is the AFR, e85 requires more fuel to achieve the same AFR, it works out about 1.5 times as much. if you have efi the most simple way to achieve this is to increase fuel pressure, you can easily work this out from calculators online.
final point, the truth is that yes coldstarting can be a little bit of a pain. My car is pretty good but I have fully programmable megasquirt system and did a ton of testing. Take into consideration that it is only for the first 30-60 seconds until the heads get some heat and the actual starting is not that bad.
There is a ton of BS out there about ethanol and it is imposable to convince many ppl otherwise even with hard evidence, anyone that knows anything knows it is a great fuel. |
Very good info Will. I knew someone had gone thru the testing and other hard work. The MS probably helps quite a bit with tuning too. 
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Bob 65 Notch S with Sunroof
71 Notch ...aka Krunchy; build pics here;
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=249390 -been busy working
64 T-34 Ghia...aka Wolfie, under construction... http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=412120
| Tram wrote: |
| "Friends are God's way of apologizing for relatives." |
| Tram wrote: |
| People keep confusing "restored" and "restroyed". |
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vlad01
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| Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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that very true^ best fuel ever. just wish it was more available on my travels.
fact is the ford model A was primarily built to run ethanol but ran petrol too. Soon the oil companies made it illegal to home brew in dispute of Henry Ford cars.
Ford obviously lost against them. |
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Multi69s
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Willo357
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| Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 2:13 am Post subject: |
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| Multi69s wrote: |
Willo,
You have had good luck with it, but I think we are missing the point. The vast majority of people that ask the question are running stock engines, and in many cases carburation. Also, they may have only a very limited knowledge of tuning. They want to know if they can just put the fuel in their tanks and run it with little or no changes to the engine. |
lol, luck has nothing to do with it  hundreds of hours of research and a heads up scientific approach does.
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Multi69s
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Willo357
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| Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 12:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Multi69s wrote: |
| Quote: |
| hundreds of hours of research and a heads up scientific approach does. |
I think you just answered the POs question. For the average person the swap to E85 is really not a viable alternative for our 40 year old engines. |
ohh zing you got me there, I think it does not matter what I write you will read whatever you want to read. besides the op said nothing about the average person... just what was required 
To the OP I gave the main points of consideration in my first post, as you can see there is plenty of hatters out there that are scared of the boogie man. Again I will state that the main hurdle is the different fuel flow rate but this is easy to fix since it is a linear (or percentage change) across all engine operating conditions. All that is required is an increase in fuel pressure or a jet change.
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KTPhil 
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| Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 5:11 pm Post subject: |
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| If it is D-jet injected, you can't get a 25% fuel increase from pressure increases. The injector won't take it, and the pump flow may not keep up the pressure at full sustained throttle. Not a bolt-on solution and you will want an exhaust sniffer to get it right. |
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Willo357
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| Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 6:45 pm Post subject: |
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| KTPhil wrote: |
| If it is D-jet injected, you can't get a 25% fuel increase from pressure increases. The injector won't take it, and the pump flow may not keep up the pressure at full sustained throttle. Not a bolt-on solution and you will want an exhaust sniffer to get it right. |
thats a good point.... I have run up to 80 PSI in the stock injectors when I was doing some high speed camera stuff. It was exciting and made much better atomization... but to be honest im not going to recommend that to anyone I would say 40-50PSI to me the absolute limit I didnt do any flow measurements since I was trying to find dead time of the injectors and pondered if the fuel pressure made a difference .... it didnt
Fuel pump is another good point.... I wouldnt use that for e85 because it will leak. get a Walbro-255
Ah well get all that good e85 will just have to be saved for the Megasquirt crowd then.... unless someone wants to make a dedicated e85 carb setup.
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Pelle
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| Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 1:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Willo357 wrote: |
| . unless someone wants to make a dedicated e85 carb setup. |
That could be done pretty easy since that what Volkswagen do Brasil did. The bugs and buses that ran alcool as they call there had dual 32 PDSITs. The main difference between gasoline and ethanol engines was the compression ratio and the jetting. The other difference is that Brazil runs E100 which makes it necessary to have a cold start system that uses gasoline. |
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raygreenwood
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| Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 3:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Willo357 wrote: |
| KTPhil wrote: |
| If it is D-jet injected, you can't get a 25% fuel increase from pressure increases. The injector won't take it, and the pump flow may not keep up the pressure at full sustained throttle. Not a bolt-on solution and you will want an exhaust sniffer to get it right. |
thats a good point.... I have run up to 80 PSI in the stock injectors when I was doing some high speed camera stuff. It was exciting and made much better atomization... but to be honest im not going to recommend that to anyone I would say 40-50PSI to me the absolute limit I didnt do any flow measurements since I was trying to find dead time of the injectors and pondered if the fuel pressure made a difference .... it didnt
Fuel pump is another good point.... I wouldnt use that for e85 because it will leak. get a Walbro-255
Ah well get all that good e85 will just have to be saved for the Megasquirt crowd then.... unless someone wants to make a dedicated e85 carb setup. |
Actually they dont make better atomization at pressures that high. They simply make a bigger cloud of spray...but the droplets are not any smaller. The pintle is the wrong shape and angle for that pressure range. It does look exciting but is not better atomization.
The stock injectors...D-jet...are limited to 35 psi.
Tons of research out there on this not just mine...including the manufacturers research. Its not that they cannot be used with higher pressure....its not an injector body leaking issue.
the problem is that they are low impedance and therefore use lower spring seating pressure.
As the cycle rate gets up over 60%...pressures over 35 psi will cause the injector pintles not to re-seat reliably...and the pintle shape is not correct for a higher pressure range. These injectors tend to revert to a stream while actually running an engine over 35 psi as the cycle rate increases.
As for percentage of increase...safely possible...with D-jet stock injectors....you get just a hair over 3% per 1 psi of increase at any given cycle rate (going off of memory here)...assuming that 35 psi is the max.
that means a bit over 21% is possible with no problems.
The stock pump will handle this no problem....but at pressures higher than 35 psi....assuming volume needs increase as well.....the fuel pressure will start to get unstable.
The [ump will flow 1 liter/min @ 35 psi and cover any normal duty cycle needs for a four cylinder engine. Ray |
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Willo357
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vlad01
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| Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 3:38 am Post subject: |
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I can vouch for the walbro being suitable for ethanol. They are one of the best pumps you can get.
If anyone wanted to use non stock injectors, the Siemens Deka are the best choice. High flow but very controllable for nice idle even on small engines.
Their design is very well orientated around ethanol fuels.
However you will need an aftermarket ECU capable of adjusting Kinjflow, dead time across the battery voltage bias table and what ever other parameters that the ECU may have associated with injector rate.
The smallest I think is 42 Lb and the biggest is 80Lb, much bigger flow than the stock vw ones lol, and they are physically tiny as well.
Also the Lambda is different for ethanol, its AFR 9 = Lambda 1 or there abouts.
you will have to calculate the differnce between petrol and ethanol blends to get the correct lambda.
Example below.
"1 Lambda for gasoline is 14.7 AFR
1 Lambda for E85 is ~9.8 AFR"
You see E85 is 9.8 as it contains 15% petrol and that there makes the number go up 0.8.
You will have to change the AFR scalars to suit your fuel so the AFR and VE tables etc.. can work off the correct numbers not fudged ones off lambda = 14.7. |
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raygreenwood
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| Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 12:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Willo357 wrote: |
40 PSI
Link
80 PSI 3ms pulse width
Link
I had the advantage of PWM injector pulse which the stock system did not have so im not sure if that makes a difference |
Actually...both of those sets of videos show very poor atomization.
What you are seeing at 40 psi is absolutely horrendous and looks nothing like what proper atomization should at normal 35 psi max....in fact what 40 psi shows is exactly what the manufacturer notes will happen (along with what my own experience and others have shown).....the 40 psi video is showing a classic example of the injection reverting to stream because the pressure is too high for the angle ground on the end of the pintle.
What happens is that the pressure is just high enough that the angle of the pintle cannot force the stream coming around the base of the pintle to spread out. It wants to come back to center as it clears the end of the pintle.
This is also affected by
1. total lift of the pintle
2. angle grind of the inside seat area of the pintle
3. total milliseconds for that cycle of open to close to complete.
The 80 psi is is horrendous as well.....just in a different manner. What you are seeing is several distinct streams...about 5-6 stream by my view....but notice the droplets are still large.
Also...the total spray cone of the 80 psi is roughly twice the diameter it should be....meaning that most of it will end of wetting the walls of the manifold and port inlet....where once wet onto the walls it will require roughly 5X the airflow to get it to come off. Injection like that will cause wet ports all the time...which will eventually cause seepage and leakage at the intake gaskets.
This excessive "bloom" of the spray cone...again...is caused by the angle ground on the pintle and the treatment to the edge of the pintle at the end of the angle ground on it. When you look at high pressure injectors under a magnifying glass as compared to D-jet injectors...the pintle design is totally different.
Even if the solenoid and spring could handle the pressure....the injector pintle is different by design....and dedicated to its pressure range.
I applaud the research...it just appears that you didn't quite yet have the vocabulary (visual vocabulary) of what you were looking for in your research.
Ray |
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Willo357
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| Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 4:06 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Ray thats some good insight there. like I said I was only interested in the dead time when I was doing this work and if it was changing with pressure, I cant seem to find the tests at 25 and 30 PSI but ill keep looking.
kinda wish I had made more effort to light the test area better as the focus isnt great in these shots but I was on a timeline....
At the moment Im using Denso CDH210 injectors and am really happy with them they are 22lb/hr and match well to the 1775 with e85 and MS
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Willo357
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| Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 7:56 pm Post subject: |
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Found all my data, here is the 30 PSI vid
Link
Made up a comparison pic too, let me know what you think, spray pattern seems to get wider with pressure which I think is what you mean about more likly to wet the walls.
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