Locations Without E85 - How do you get your Octane?

[KBGT]

I reside in a State that has little to no E85, which is a fairly new experience for me. I remember times before E85 was a thing and we had to use order methanol and C16 race gas. What do the unfortunate souls that don't have E85 at the pump do for octane in these cars?

I have started by installing a water meth kit and yes it help cool things down but does not give me enough octane to run the 93 octane OTS map (92 octane here in WA). Should I upgrade the kit lines to braided teflon and run pure methanol or ethanol (properly tuned of course)?

I have started ordering denatured ethanol for about $10-15 a gal. Expensive but we need octane.

What about port injection? Can I setup a separate fuel system and run pure ethanol, methanol, or race gas in it and run pump 92 octane in the DI system. Could a motiv reflex and good tuning handle supplying enough high octane fuel from PI to be equivalent octane as E85?

What other options are there to get E50-E85 octane levels without E85 at the pump?

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[KBGT]

I ended up just doing a CTS turbo, flex fuel, port injection, with an EOS manifold. It will normally run on 92 with 50/50 water/meth injection and for more fun add ethanol.

 

[razorlab]

Why not just get E85 shipped to you? Way safer.

 

[KBGT]

I do get ethanol shipped to me, therefore the flex fuel sensor, reflex, port injectors and tune. I do not want to run high E% all the time because of PITA factor of a 5 gal pail of ethanol in passenger seat all the time.

 

[Mason]

I would order straight e85 and run just that, don’t mix

 

[razorlab]

I do get ethanol shipped to me, therefore the flex fuel sensor, reflex, port injectors and tune. I do not want to run high E% all the time because of PITA factor of a 5 gal pail of ethanol in passenger seat all the time.

Lol, you would hate driving to the track with me then.

 

[KBGT]

It is not a reality for me to run E85 all the time, I wish it was. There are essentially no E85 stations in WA. I have no problem bringing fuel with me to the track and have done just that for 20+ years. It is another thing to bring your fuel with you everywhere because you can not fill up at a pump in your state. Therefore flex fuel to be able to run whatever happens to be available (92).

@razorlab I am assuming you don't like water meth systems from the reliability or distribution standpoint? I really don't like them either, but would rather use a small amount, tune fueling as if it is not there, and primarily use it for cooling. This way, if it stops the IAT warms up a little, and if tuned properly timing is pulled. Better ideas are welcomed. And no I do not want to move to Kenosha WI, even though E85 is abundant there.

 

[razorlab]

It is not a reality for me to run E85 all the time, I wish it was. There are essentially no E85 stations in WA. I have no problem bringing fuel with me to the track and have done just that for 20+ years. It is another thing to bring your fuel with you everywhere because you can not fill up at a pump in your state. Therefore flex fuel to be able to run whatever happens to be available (92).

@razorlab I am assuming you don't like water meth systems from the reliability or distribution standpoint? I really don't like them either, but would rather use a small amount, tune fueling as if it is not there, and primarily use it for cooling. This way, if it stops the IAT warms up a little, and if tuned properly timing is pulled. Better ideas are welcomed. And no I do not want to move to Kenosha WI, even though E85 is abundant there.

Yea, that’s totally fair. I run E40, my Supra isn’t a daily and it still can be a pain sometimes as it basically makes it so I can only do one day track events. Trust me, If I didn’t have to be a rolling bomb on the highway to track events, I wouldn’t.

You are for sure being smart about the injection. That said, you have a great manifold, do you really see a need for the injection?

 

[KBGT]

The supra is not my daily but it's so fun I drive it almost like a daily. I don't know how much it is making at 22.5 psi @MAP sensor on 92, will find out in two days, but it's all 305 ps4s can handle at highway speeds. I do not need or want 650-700 rwhp all the time. That is where I believe the knock system, flex fuel, PI, tune etc makes these cars fairly safe against fuel related octane issues. I especially like the placement of the ethanol sensor close to the HPFP and that is where I tapped the PI line. There is minimal time from sensor to injectors for E% error.

@razorlab I recently installed the manifold and already had the WM system. It may not be necessary, but would it hurt anything?

 

[KBGT]

Pump gas 92 octane, plus #6 nozzle WM, 22.7 PSI, 14 deg timing up top, couple deg of timing retard on several cylinders, 102 deg F IAT, dynojet...

561 whp 6th gear
527 whp 5th gear

Log from 527 hp run:

https://www.bootmod3.net/log?id=6525c39cd10b4371e4c8e1e0

 

[razorlab]

Pump gas 92 octane, plus #6 nozzle WM, 22.7 PSI, 14 deg timing up top, couple deg of timing retard on several cylinders, 102 deg F IAT, dynojet...

561 whp 6th gear
527 whp 5th gear

Log from 561 hp run:

https://www.bootmod3.net/log?id=6525c39cd10b4371e4c8e1e0

looking good. FYI, you aren't 22.7psi, it's 25.7psi

Load and Torque at Clutch are in the range as well, not 22.7psi.

 

[KBGT]

The pressure is higher before the manifold, look at the MAP variable too. It is right where it is commanded to be. This tuner is using the MAP as the PID process variable instead of pre-throttle body PSI.

 

[razorlab]

The pressure is higher before the manifold, look at the MAP variable too. It is right where it is commanded to be. This tuner is using the MAP as the PID process variable instead of pre-throttle body PSI.

It's 25.7. There is no throttle closure so no boost difference pre/in manifold.

Even the target psi is around 27psi. The ecu uses pre-throttle boost as that. You can see it in the boost pressure deviation logging item as well.

I 1000% guarantee your boost is not a table flat 22.7. Your load and torque would be much lower as well. The MAP logging item is capped at 22.7. If he is using that as your boost target, you have other issues, but he isn't.

 

[KBGT]

You are probably correct.

Edit: You are correct, I misunderstood what I was looking at. The boost is higher than I thought. Thanks for the education.

 

[KBGT]

I initially installed a snow WM kit after getting BM3 OTS stage 2 and noticing more timing retard than I liked. I knew it was an octane issue as different gas stations produced slightly different ignition corrections. The WM kit helped even more with 50/50 and a small 250 ml/min nozzle (stamped 4). I knew if the tune was aggressive enough to command enough timing (and boost) to cause knock timing retard, WM would help.

Then after upgrading to a CTS turbo and going down the custom tuned road with Paul Johnson I learn that pure meth is recommended, If you are ok with that. No tune changes were required going from WM to pure meth. The DME pulled fuel as seen via STFT to compensate for the methanol being delivered and minimal timing corrections occurred. After running pure methanol for a while I tried Ethanol since I get E95 for $11 a gallon delivered. It has been working almost identical to methanol. I do see a little more STFT correction with Ethanol vs Methanol but that is expected.

In the recent Mikey Botti interview, he talks about how much he likes methanol injection on this platform. He even touches on the DME's protection strategies.

Here we have a datalog on E10 pump gas where the WM system is empty, note the stft and timing corrections.
https://www.bootmod3.net/log?id=65404c32fd942262d1615b7a

This is with E95 in the WM tank.
https://www.bootmod3.net/log?id=654ec20539995a63f6691297

I am liking spraying E95 with pump gas so much, I am going to put in a 4 gal fuel cell and control the pump and solenoid from the Motiv Reflex+ output channels. This way I can get more precise mapping of the solenoid PWM. There are 4 outputs on the reflex+ so more than enough to use one for LPFP, WM pump, WM solenoid 1, WM solenoid 2 or whatever using solid state relays of course.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/be0nfu4e...eFlex PLUS Wiring Diagram_09-05-2021.pdf?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/be0nfu4e...e_Flex and Re_Flex+ User Manual Rev8.pdf?dl=0

If you are going reflex be sure to order a pressure sensor for LPFP pressure sensing. I did not and had to remove and reinstall.

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