'07 Honda Accord E-85 tests in Dallas, Texas

[Bill]

I have been mixing and increasing my E85 useage for several thousand miles now. I thought it may be helpful to some who may be wondering if this will work for them. My car is a 4-cyl, 4dr with a 17gal tank. On regular unleaded gas, it gets about 32mpg on the Hwy and 26 mpg in the City. I add the E85 first so I can get all the E85 I want in my tank and then fill the remainder with gas. I have a 4 gallon reserve in the tank when the "fuel" warning light comes on to refuel so I don't worry about too much E85 hitting the injectors. I also, immediately after driving away from the pump, hit the brakes several times and steer left and right sharply to shake up the fuel in the tank and blend it further.. This is how things have gone so far:
1 gal E85 = 27mpg... no engine issues
2 gal E85 = 25.5 mpg....two long idling periods hurt mileage. Some incidents of engine miss-firing. I can only contribute this to carbon passing through the injectors as my engine is getting cleaned by the E-85. I have had no other issues such as this since.
3 gal = 26.8mpg
4 gal = 25.9mpg
5 gal =26.1 mpg
Average cost of E-85 has been $1.88 gal which is generally 30 cents leass than gas. No issues of any kind to report except that the performance is so much better that I have to watch how fast I drive !!!

[Erik Weaver]

Excellent! Thank you for the report, I and I'm sure others, appreciate your taking the time to share your real-life experiences. Those are the best! I'm glad it is working out for you so easily.

...let's see, 5 / 17, and you are up to.... what? 28% E-85??? ....er.... calculator says 29.4%.... factoring 85% ethanol in that 29.4% ....and 5-gallons of E85 is 4.25-gallons of ethanol, and that is 4.25 / 17 = 25% ethanol in your tank. Way to go! It'll be interesting to hear if you find you make it up to ( past? ) the 50% ethanol blend we hear so often as a target. You're already half way there without issues!

And every gallon of ethanol fuel in your tank is that many more dollars into some American farmer's pocket, and perhaps more importantly, that many dollars NOT into the pockets of people who are trying to kill us!

As to hitting breaks and turning sharply to mix up the fuel, given that you say you add the E-85 first and then the unleaded gasoline, I have to imagine that swirls up the mixture quite well. But it may still be fun to do so just to get people scratching their heads, if they didn't notice you're filling up "twice" -- heheh, gotta keep 'em guessing! :)

Erik

[Bill]

Thanks for the info, Erik. I skipped up to 8 gallons of E85 on the last fillup and all is well. That would be an E-40 blend. Next week, I will skip up to my target of 10 gallons of E-85 to get to 50% Ethanol. I intend to push it as far as it will go. Maybe I already have a fully functional E-85 FFV !!!