Blending your own E85...and other ramblings...

[David7355]

If a person were to blend their own E85 what would be the best percentage to use? 80%, 83%, 85%

My bro-in-law is a petroleum transportation specialist(truck driver). ;D Talked to him last night and he may be able to get me a 55 gal. barrel of straight ethanol. I figure if I mix my own I will know exactly what the percentages are(still like to get a tester though). Whatta ya'll think??

I think testing is just about going to have to be done around here. I really don't feel it's going to be consistent from one seller to the next. I'm wondering if that is one of the reasons that some of the guys around here have had such a terrible time getting their cars to run right on E85. Well that and the fact that they didn't call Heath.

Bro-in-law told me there have been times he's had a little extra fuel left over after filling an unleaded tank and the station has told him to just go ahead and dump the rest of the "E10" into the E85 tank. Gas is cheaper than ethanol right now so it's not costing them anything extra. I know it ain't good, but that's what he told me. I'm sure he is not the only one this has happened to.

I found this website that seemed to have some useful info on it.
They have a pdf file that shows a pretty easy way to test E85. www.iqlearningsystems.com/ethanol/racers.html

I need to stop reading so much before I even get a chance to try it. I'll stop rambling now.

[Heath Daniel]

Wow David thanks for the insight on the tanker driver being told to "just dump whats left into the E85 tank". If you think about it it really wouldn't matter to someone just filling up their "flex Fuel" vehicle but it sure does matter to us. The way I see it you can go after this in a couple of ways. If you have a reliable source for E100 than mixing your own is certainly an option. Just keep in mind that I have heard that ethanol and leaded fuels don't mix well or at all if you were thinking about mixing it with race gas. You could mix it with premium pump gas and get more than 105 octane out of it. Or you could just tune for E70 then test when you buy a new batch. If it's more the E70 just dilute with regular unleaded or premium for about the same net octane as E85. The second option seems like the easiest and best way to me. I put a new link on the web site yesterday that explains how to easily test the ethanol percentage in E85. It's under links and about the 3rd or 4th one down from the top. It is labeled Racing with Ethanol Information. Hope this helps.

[David7355]

Looks like you already have the link listed that I posted earlier.....Duh.

Yeah, I was thinking about mixing it with premium pump gas if the race fuel the track sells has lead....which I'm sure it does.

If I can get a barrel of E100(98) I think I am going to go ahead and mix it to 85/15 and go from there. Sure would be nice to keep it the same right from the get-go.

[Cary Daniel]

Why wouldn't you just use E 100 stright.I have been using E 100 in a blown application with electronic fuel injection.

[David7355]

Found out today I'm not going to be able to get E100 anyway(at least not right now). Did find a place that the owner swears they are selling the same blend(85/15) all year...so I'll just get my fuel from them right from the start. Ordered a 100ML cylinder to test it with so I can at least check it to see what the exact mix is.