Pump & meth vs. E85
 

Ok peoples, I just put my car on pump gas the other day and I was surprised by the gas mileage that I got back, with that said I have been thinking about pros and cons of E85 vs pump and meth.

Now during the "season", i drive the car everywhere, hell as long as the salt isn't down I drive the car basically.
My feelings are that E85 is too inconsistent in MN, but I really haven't had any problems I would just take my laptop with me and make a global change if needed, which was usually every monthish.

The reason I see the pump/meth being better is consistency. I can tune the car and forget about it, i love scheides setup for meth seems to be trouble free once tuned.

Hopefully the pro tuners will jump in here and give their .02 cents worth as its about $2mil to me. And of course people that have had experience with these diff. types of gas and tuning with them.

Final word, I never did really get into "lean burn" tuning on E85. Maybe once I have the car pro tuned on E85, compensating for the diff. blends would really completely be just a slight global change. Please note that I like to tune very conservatively.

Thank you

Aaron

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

Pump got my vote. Better gas mileage, no worries about searching for E85 stations when you're traveling, more consistent, etc.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

I've also been thinking about switching to meth recently. The only thing is that where I live there isn't any good 92+ stations, but we do have a couple decent e85 stations.

But I must say I do like e85, just wish it was more consistent.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

^^^^^ like jake said it would depend on ur area moreless. Our area has shit for decent pump gas only 1 Shell station in hutch and one in glencoe, but e85 is readily available in our area, and there isnt much variance in the blend that i could notice on my wideband.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

And I think that shell just has non-oxygenated garbage 91. I havent been there for a few years so that might have changed.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

in hutch prolly we got the v power 92 here in glencoe, the bp here in town has the non oxy 91 or the bp93, but e85 is just as readily available.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

shell is usually 92 and is junk. I'll only run bp 93

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

E85 for sure.. I dont wanna have to get the meth kit and fill it up all the time. To much of a hassel for me. I have more than 1 car so if its not a Mitsu Cruise that im on I can take my other car if E85 is not available.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

I'll probably just do e85 and have shane tune it cause I don't need to buy any extra parts to switch to e85

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

I have tuned with both premium fuel and E85 and E85 is much more forgiving. I haven't tuned with meth yet.

For lean burn or leaning it out, I have went to 18:1 (WB not adjusted to E85) just to see what it would do and I got 21MPG but it felt pretty lean and couldn't have been that good for the car. Drove with little problems though.

It goes back to the question of, are you going to be using the car as a DD or a weekend car? if a weekend car E85 all of the way. It would be cheaper to run Premium on a DD though

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

Thank you for the FEW helpful posts.
Again, I don't care about your area, you can figure it out. I also don't care about your opinions of gas stations.
Let's try and keep a tech thread going fellas.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

How do the E85 cars using lean-burn come off a steady cruise and into a gentle roll-on of the power? I was never happy with how my car came off lean-burn when I tried it with pump gas. The car also seemed to hesitate/stutter a bit and also seemed more prone to knock (probably from the additional heat in the combustion chamber).

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

^I'd say that's more-so an issue with tuning and you size of injectors. E-85 has been great to me so far. I like that all I need to do is gas and go. How available is meth, as opposed to e-85?

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

I think its obvious, I chose pump/meth. :D The decision was very personal and I've come to learn that different setups just make sense for different people. For me, I really really wanted E85 and gave it a try, but as soon as I switched, I found out that two stations I had been planning on getting it from that were along my normal route to/from work were no longer carrying it. The only station in my hometown (Fergus Falls) is on the far end of town, the station near my house is 5 miles past it. Quickly I found getting fuel for my ride to be a PITA. I didn't care, I was happy with it. Eventually the PITA won out, I was constantly driving extra just to fill up or filling up early so I wouldn't run out of fuel, and that just made the mileage penalty worse.

I was flabberghasted by this, Jim (TalonEvo) on here makes me so jealous, he's run the stuff forever and thinks nothing of it. Well, I've come to learn that he has no less than 8 stations that carry E85 on his daily commute, so running it long term is almost a no-brainer for him, because it's 'everywhere.'

It was easy easy easy for me to try it. I had 1050cc injectors, enough fuel pump, a wideband, accurate boost measurement, etc. I could make all the changes myself and it cost me nothing. Some may argue that it cost me a headgasket but I'm not entirely sure about that to be honest.

Anyways, I LOVE the added power meth offers over straight pump, but ultimately E85 WILL MAKE MORE POWER, MORE RELIABLY. I made what I would say are ideal numbers on my setup earlier this summer, but on the street I just wasn't able to run the timing required for that last 12whp and 2° of timing that separated me from timing numbers on a comparable car. This after doubling the amount of meth/water I was spraying (950cc now) was a bit of a hard pill for me to swallow, but eventually I have come to accept it.

So, 80% of the power/torque advantage of E85 over pump gas but you get to keep the pump gas mileage. Even trade in my eyes.

Anyways, my $.02. Shane has great info on this, hopefully he can share his insight :)

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

E85 is not only cheaper than pump gas, but if you run meth you have to pay for pump plus meth. E85 is by far MUCH cheaper and it's amazing for tuning aggressively to give you optimal performance out of your setup. Even if the blend changes it's never big enough to have to worry about. If you tune your car on E85 with lets say a 12.5 a/f at wot. With E70 it will just make you run richer. Lets just say around 12.1 or so a/f. (More safe) For closed loop cruising the ecu can just take car of that just like any factory car would do since the ethonal content in pump is not always the same. I don't think the inconsistancy of E85 is enough to think about switching back to pump. Also the loss in gas mileage IMO isnt enough to switch either. You got E85 for 1.90 (give or take) a gal. Then you got premium pump gas for 2.60 (give or take) a gal. And on top of that METH.

That's just my opinion. :)

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

I will add on my post:

I was running before 111 gas. Straight up, 24/7. I had a tune back on my old scm61 for both pump at 20ish psi, and 111 for 26-28 psi. The car felt night and day different on these two gases, and fun was just too much for 111 to NOT run it all the time. Came with a price tag of 4.99/gal too. I didn't care. I drove from my house(maplegrove) out to bobby and steve's in fridley once a week to get the stuff, and put $70 of gas in my car to drive (was my only car too). Then, I re-tuned it again on 111 with the old 6776s, and drove it on that as well. Last year, I realized that 111 was now $7 and was just too much to run on a car that I considered a DD for summer. So, especially after moving to savage, 111 was much harder to get, and I switched to E-85. I've been running it since then. I have a station down here off 18, and am still working on finding more stations, but it's nice to have that corn gas at less cost then before. I also am a person who want's all the power, all the time. I don't like switching maps, and driving around with half a setup. If I put something together, then I want everything I can get outta it. when I was on 111/26-28 psi, car made 371db/509MAP. Now, on E-85, costing me LESS, and boost now able to run up to 36-40 psi, car made 533db/62xMAP. More boost, more power, less money per gallon...no brainer here! I plan on tuning with e-85 once again on the new setup next spring. Car runs cooler too!

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

Not at all, same thing with stock and aftermarket injectors. Its actually very common on pump-gas Evos using lean-burn which is why so many people quit using it after trying it (and the fact it barely helps fuel mileage).

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

E85 for power

cons - tad longer cold starts, fuel tank empties faster, injector tar/gunk build up, need bigger injectors

but

For power, totally worth it. Literally almost any wot timing advance you choose. No knock when pump gas knocked at ~22psi+

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

The real trick to liking E85 would be using a GM ethanol sensor and having your ECU compensate for it, basically tuning to run a given A/F ratio all the time, like pretty much any newer Tahoe out there. That would make it perfect.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

My wideband is wired into my EMS to monitor. Shane set up the tables for it, so it works just the same.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

The best mileage I've got on E85 was 23, the best on gas was between 25 & 26. Even in town I only lose a couple MPG's. I save like $10 per tank, and only lose a couple MPG's, I'm still saving money while making the most HP. I was running the stock o2 on gas, and was running my LC1 for closed loop when I got my best E85 mileage of 23, and it was set for around 11.5:1 (17.25:1 gas equiv AFR) and I was still using the 95 EPROM ECU at the time.

I've been running E85 for a few years in my DSM's and I've never noticed a difference in AFR's throughout the year, and I drive mine all through winter too. If you run closed loop it shouldn't change as open loop uses the high fuel trim (even though loggers don't show it that way), at least on 1g's and 2g's. I'm running full open loop now and I still don't see a difference, even though I'm sure the gas percentage has went up. One of these day's I'll test the fuel to see for sure.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

At 370 stations serving E85, Minnesota has the largest capacity in the nation by far. I Recommend you take advantage of it... while you can.

I use my DSM only for personal entertainment. It is running on a stand alone in open loop only (~11.5 afr, 25* timing) I get 14 mpg with a heavy throttle and small turbo. At the same AFR, just cursing to Duluth, a few triple digit bursts here and there, I got 18 MPG. I am sure if I lean it out and increase the timing at cruising, I could do mid 20's (AWD). I haven't tried DD e85 though, so it might be a PITA scheduling fillups.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

Thanks for the insight guys a good thread here, a lot better posts.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

I voted E85. I love it and will never go back to pump gas as long as its available.

I almost always fill up at the same station on my way home from work. Ive never had a problem with my injectors gumming up since my station has a new e85 tank. The gumming problem usually only happensif you fill at a station that uses a storage tank that was used for gasoline before E85.

The lower cost of E85 will make up for your loss in fuel milage. The only downfall would be the availiblity and cold starting Isues. If your tune is conservitive you shouldnt need to retune mutch between the blends. You also have to factor in the added cost of a good meth kit and the meth its self.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

I would say just stay with e85 since you have the holiday just down the road from you and there are a few other ones in the blaine/coon rapids area. I love the extra power with e85

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

Shane will be converting me to E85 on Monday.

I originally planned to go with meth but after looking into it, I decided that I wasn't comfortable with the safety level (at least on the X since it doesn't have ECU map switching yet). If anything goes wrong then it's all up to your failsafes to keep you from losing the motor. E85 doesn't have that (rather large) caveat and it's a lot less complex.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

Well after driving home from OK (14hrs each way), I have decided that yes I will keep E85 when I get home, but just have a pump tune.
Esp. now that link has switchable maps (they have had it for a while, i just found out about 2 months ago)

thanks for the helpful words.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

I got to say thanks for posting that thread. I have been on the fence about what I should do with my car and its appearing that E85 is the way to go.

I am thinking when I get the Flash ecu for my talon this spring E85 is what its going to get set up for. Should be pretty sweet.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

One obvious con of pump+meth: What if meth injection fail right in the middle of the pull? Just those split seconds of knock can be devastating.

E85 will never fail like that. If injectors get dirty/gummed up, it will be slow and gradually, you will feel the difference.
E85 is magical. It burns so much cooler. It is cheap, smells better than gas too :) I was able to get away with 23* of timing with 11.5-12.0 AFR's with stock SMIC, heatsoaking through the gears in 90*F day. NO KNOCK.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

With the proper setup the system is failsafe and fool proof. Scheides has his meth injection system dialed in to be as safe as possible aside from a severe malfunction.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

I keep it simple and stick to just BP 92, maybe someday if I go to something else it would be E85 because I only like to fill up one tank :). Just sucks to have to worry about the change in the grade of the E85 through the seasons.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

is there a write up on a meth injection for a DSM?

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

Yea, pretty much any thread with Evo info is applicable to a dsm. Do some research and then start a thread with any questions you have.

Re: Pump & meth vs. E85
 

Personally, I have never ran meth. But the idea of just filling up your tank with e85 sounds a lot better than having to fill up both your fuel and meth tank. And, like many others who have posted I am weary of the "what-if's" associated with meth injection. I think it all comes down to where and how you will be using the car. I can see both being viable options.