E85 Fuel to Caltex

The Caltex near the Ipswich cemetery has had E85 for probably a year now.
If my car was going I'd be running it on it.  It is actually E70-E85 based on seasonal variation though, and is mixed with 91 (?) ron fuel. 
 
IMHO to run it in a performance car you'd probably want to run a flex fuel sensor with map (primarily timing as it'll richen up as the fuel content increases) adjustment for ethanol content.  If you ran a really conservative tune you could probably get away with it.  It was about 10c cheaper then standard unleaded when I looked. 
 
Whats required?  E85 compliant fuel system.   I've heard of it making a mess of old gunked up fuel systems as well and people ending up with gummed up fuel injectors, so, its probably wise to run new rubber lines before running it.
 
I'll be running it once the MR is going again, wether or not it'll be the pump stuff or the gear you can buy in the drum (guaranteed 85% ethanol blended with premium unleaded) is yet to be determined.  The drum from race fuel suppliers runs you probably $2 a litre.

The main benefit of E85 compared to normal unleaded fuel, is that it is much more tolerant of knock due to the higher octane rating. This means that you can run significantly more ignition timing advance to achieve a substantial increase in power. Although this is the only benefit I can think of, it is quite a big benefit indeed. On normal fuel you will often be knock-limited before reaching maximum torque, but with E85 it's not unusual to be able to advance the ignition timing past the optimal point and still not get any knock. 
 
So, that's the benefit, now for the negatives.
Although it is true that fuel is cheaper per litre when mixed with ethanol, ethanol has a lower energy density...so it is consumed much faster than normal fuel. Basically, to achieve a suitable air/fuel ratio when running E85, you typically need at least 30% more fuel than you otherwise would with normal fuel under the same conditions. For this reason, you need new injectors with a much higher flow-rate, and a fuel-pump that provides sufficient flow too. As mentioned already, having ethanol mixed with the fuel will often destroy old fuel systems which weren't designed to be ethanol compatible. This means that running E85 (or any substantial percentage of ethanol), makes it compulsory to upgrade most of the fuel system. 
 
One more thing (not a pro or con, just some info)...as Totenkopf mentioned, modern cars which are 'flex-fuel-capable' from the factory, will have an Ethanol Concentration Sensor fitted. This tells the ECU the exact percentage of ethanol in the fuel, so it can adjust the air/fuel ratio and ignition timing accordingly.
Some aftermarket ECUs are designed to allow Flex-Fuel compatibility in a similar way. 

Totally agree robk, you certainly know what your talking about. Trouble with this stuff is it would seem the quality isn't going to be consistant with world standard E85..if there is one, but when it's going to vary in quality, or more importantly octane rating, as tots said I think, your going to be restricted to a conservative tune, and all the benefits of optimising ign advance and MBT go out the window.
As a race fuel, the quality E85 is ideal, lets face it, alcohol cars have been around for years, so considering gearing up costs don't mean a lot, it's definitely a win. The problem is adapting this particular strain of E85 that Caltex is talking about to street driven cars, and particularly to older cars with stock ECU's or even older technology aftermarket ECU's is a bigger problem. Plus there's a large gap between running E85 and 98 that needs to be resolved. Its not like you can simply run dual mapping on the same injectors and switch over. Take that into consideration, plus the need to tune conservatively and the resultant reduction in ign optimisation, where the big gains come in, and the limited availability of the stuff locally, and one needs to think it through.
 
Your perfectly right about running 30% more in the real world, but you still need injectors 42% or even up to 50% larger, so in our case on the street, with dual mapping, you'll be looking at running 800-850cc injectors on 98 at a very low duty cycle and associated nozzle spray pattern issues. There's been a lot of success with this fuel in EU and US, but are we getting the same E85?
When you look at the other end of the scale, running 98 or even 95 in some cases, blending in levels of E85, there's some real gains to be made, without the all or nothing problem arising..I'm talking street use of course. For instance, running a  gen2 with stock ECU on say 50/50% with 550's, an extra 1-2deg initial advance, bigger pump, rail and AFPR can open up the JDM ign mapping, increased boost and offer a world of joy that wasn't there before..of course in this case limited by the HG and possibly ceramic turbo.. just as an example.
But my point is there's a lot of potential in this approach, where stock or smaller turbo's are concerned ie ct26/ct20b/hi-flow/28's etc., limited by the power potential of the inj sizing of course, but good honest gains for anyone in that bracket.
 
 
 
 
 

That's a lot of great info there MuMan thanks!

Would this 80/20 ratio be okay on the stock fuel system pump/lines/injectors/rail?  or detrimental?
Wonder if the consumption would change dramatically....I already get poor economy lol
Cheers

Update:  Well I've been playing with this stuff again (still) and after a bit of consideration I decided to do this..
I wanted to see if this 80/20 mix was going to lean out under boost, so not wanting to change away from stock mapping, but not wanting to take any chance, I set the AFPR 10psi above stock to stretch the injectors, I also set initial advance as close to +1.5deg as I could get it, and re-enabled the fcd clamp. I took it out and boosted it to 20psi..
The thing went ballistic, boost came on so fast you simply couldn't keep track of it. I think a lot of it was the 28 hitting it's sweet spot. Anyway, please don't try this... 
 
Just to get this back into perspective..give this 80/20 a try, but don't change anything, and see what results you get. Don't try it if your running a standalone or on a chipped ECU without a dyno. The reason it works so well on stock ECU's is because of the mega rich fuelling under boost, also JDM knock response eating away at your ign curve due to low grade fuel. If you like what you get (and you will) you can play around with it using initial advance (2deg max!) and base fuel pressure (AFPR) to stretch the injectors a bit.
You can look at a minor injector upgrade but if your getting good results, there's no real point as once your on 100RON and getting all the JDM ECU has to offer, there's no where else to go with the stock ECU. Well unless you looking for more boost, but then you will need a metal HG, pump & rail upgrade & AFPR. You could also put the stock pump onto battery voltage, but then it's going to quit at some time.
You can consider a fuel/ign controller and increase the mix your running, with bigger injectors, but again once you reach a certain level, there's no point in going further. This stuff really isn't such a good fuel in its own right and once you have the benefit of the higher octane & combustion temp cooling, the rest becomes a burden.
Also don't forget the more you use, the less power potential the injector sizing has, so there's definite limits where more = less. ie. 550's will net you 330whp on 98 but only 275whp on E85, the same injectors on 80/20 will make ~315whp (or whatever that is in Kw..230Kw?)..this is an example only, not suggesting your going to see anything like that.
Anyhow, they are my thoughts on the subject, so go check it out.
and play safe!...
 
Disclaimer: Anything you do with bio-flex is up to you, and ethanol can affect your pump, tank & hoses.

Good stuff, let us know how you go..might help someone else looking at doing the same. Not sure about the 25%..hmmm well at least your the first.
I'd like to see how the gen2 ECU's respond to it.
Anyway, anyone in brissy looking for this stuff, you can get it at Marsden Caltex on Browns Plains Road, cnr of 3rd Av I think it is..also Ipswich where tots said.