Need some education/comments on this.

[Shilo]

Read this article. Its a couple years old but still a test. Ignore the food vs fuel comment near the end as we all know this is bull.

My first question. It's an FFV and the mileage is still that bad(20%)? I have that % loss in my unaltered Toyota Corolla.
Next, what good is a fuel injector fooler kit going to do for me besides set me back $300-$400? If the fooler kit isn't going to improve my mileage at all I'll just run my car on 100% E85 and ignore the check engine light until next years VET(vehicle emissions test).

Can anyone shed some light here?
David

[Sodbuster]

Hello David.

First I just want to say I am so proud of your avatar, keep up the good work spreading the word!

I'm bored right now, so I decided to do some math to show exacting differences between fuel with E10 in it, and not at all. First of all, the reason big oil "enjoys" this, is because it lets them produce lower quality fuel overall. MORE money from them. BS on the "good for the environment" angle. If they were worried about the environment, they'd be in a different business. All they care about is making money, and doing just enough(or padding just enough pockets) to keep people quiet.

Since pure ethanol has an octane rating of 116, they can produce mid 80s octane rating fuels then add the E10 to it to get back to the "pump" octane rating. So, now your 87 octane at the pump with E10 in it, is actually only 83 octane GASOLINE. See the trend? It's easier to produce crap gas, add cheap ethanol(that you also own and produce in the case of big oil), and end up with the same thing you started with, from a flash point/timing perspective. MORE MONEY FOR THEM.

IN REGARDS TO A/F ratio and POWER: The stoiciometric ratio of gasoline is 14.7:1. Ethanol is 9.0:1. We all know that max power is achieved in somewhat richer mixtures, however STOIC is the mixture where in theory, you have the most effective combustion, where ALL the fuel in the air is burnt. Your CAR will be at 14.7ish at idle, and go to 13ish under situations requiring power. OK. So, we know 14.7 is "ideal". By adding 10% ethanol to the mixture, your stoiciometric ratio changes to 14.1:1. IF your car does not have FLEXFUEL capability(essentially the ability to identify the exact proportion of ethanol in the tank and adjust fuel/timing maps accordingly), you are now running LEAN at idle and every situation thereafter. Thus, you are now overshooting the manufacturer's fuel maps by almost 5% in all situations. Assuming an exact linear relationship(which in reality can't be done due to the number of variables, but it can for our purposes here) 5% off "ideal" on a 30mpg car is a loss of almost 2mpg. There is your explanation for your "fuel mileage loss".

To answer your question on the plug and play fooler kit they do work, and every little bit helps.

[Shilo]

Thanks for the reply.
I doubt a kit is in my near future as I heard last evening work laid off people on Friday. I'm the lowest on the totem pole but they didn't go the way of seniority but work habits and attendance. The 3 guys let go were the weakest links but if no work is there no work is there and more will go. Kinda scary-(
Back on topic, what is the difference now between lets say a Chevy truck FFV and a non FFV Chevy truck? Is it just a computer/fuel map change and nothing mechanical?
When I was at Toyota getting my car serviced last week I asked about the 2009 Toyota truck FFV's they had and these guys had no clue what made them FFV's. They did say they sold all they had and everyone came and took their paperwork so I have to go back for that.

[Chris Scanlan]

You might not get the engine check light, I got my Mitsubishi Magna 2003 AWD to run on 100 % ethanol no problems.

Petrol avg 12.5 ltr per 100 K Ethanol 13 ltr per 100k

So if you Toyota might be the same just add the ethanol slow over time.

Regards,

Chris Scanlan