Quote Originally Posted by rspears View Post
Dave,
That statement piqued my curiosity, too, and I hope you will explain a bit about what you guys are doing to squeeze more btu's out of the fuel.

For me the key is not what can be done to make things work, it is that the average Joe/Jane out there is buying a pig in a poke. Sure, you can buy E85 for $0.50 less per gallon, but in that average car, even one set up for E85 like the wife's Jeep is, will take a 15-20% mileage hit which equalizes or often more than offsets the "savings" of buying the E85. Costs less, but you buy more of it more often and in the long run the average Joe/Jane is spending more money for every mile but they never check mileage, or don't understand the math. Now, if a person has compelling reasons for running E85, like they believe it is better for the environment, better for their local economy, or perhaps they have found ways to offset some or all of the mileage hit by boosting compression, etc then that is a personal choice. One question that comes to my mind is what a person does if they have that modified engine and they travel across the country, hitting states/areas where their "home" fuel is not available? I would think that the engine modified to maximize power output on E85 is going to detonate like crazy on 100% pump gas, even 91 octane which slows the burn to inhibit detonation/allow more compression.

So now, about "home brew"????
Nothing personal Rog, but I just don't give a rip about Joe average travelling across the states and getting whatever he gets for fuel... Just what works right here in beautiful downtown Madison, SD. As mentioned in the previous post, had a Professor from SDSU dial us in on getting the fuel to 90% ethanol, pump 85 blened with 100% direct from an ethanol plant....

When I travel across country, the car is in the trailer and the toter is a diesel, no problems. We take our fuel with us for racing. I'm not suggesting that what we do will work in every locale or every situation, just that if it's high octane, costs considerably less then race gas, a good Hot Rodder or racer will, perhaps with some help, figure out how to make it work for him!!!

For those who want to travel cross country and brag about their fuel mileage or cost per gallon, I don't have a clue what would work, and to be quite honest don't even care!!! My diesel does just fine and I have a 2 year old Featherlight trailer for travelling.

My personal experience with 10% ethanol fuels on the street for daily drivers is great, been running it for 20 years in a whole host of different cars with nothing more then normal maintenance... Suppose I'm just lucky....