True its not worth it for a low compression daily driver, But for a performance car you are not comparing the price of E85 to the cost of regular fuel anymore. You are now comparing it to the cost of race fuel ($8-up) or at the very least the cost of Premium fuel now about $3.50 or the recently when it was $5.00
Or in this case when the car can not run on good pump gas alone?
So if you put it in a calculator on this site in the middle of the page.
http://e85prices.com/illinois.htmlE85 – $2.75 ---8 miles per gal Let’s just say if you get 20% less gas mileage This mileage could be debatable.
Premium fuel – $3.50---- 10 miles per gal
E85 wins with 34 cents cost per mile. We can still run full timing and compression ratios as high as 16 to one!
What does race fuel run at now? $8 gal. Tell me you are not going to try to enjoy the ride while using race fuel. At 10 mile/gal it cost 80 cents a mile! If you were enjoying it you would be lucky to get 8 miles/gallon so that would cost $1 a mile!
If we could drive 1000 miles a year at 8 miles a gallon (at $8) = 125 gals x $8 gal = $1000
Same 1000 miles a year at 8 miles a gallon (at E85's 2.75/gal) = $343
Basically a savings of $656 a year in fuel if you want to compare a year of race fuel vs. a year in E85
E85 Advantages- go anywhere race tune as long as you have access to E85. Runs cooler. Run a wild race setup with high compression and a lot of timing. Maybe even drive your car more because it is more enjoyable.
E85 Disadvantage- Cannot go to areas where there is no E85.
http://www.illinoisriverenergy.com/illinoislocations.html Cost of conversion.
Race fuel advantage- smells good, can say you have to use race fuel to run your car. Run in Race tune.
Race fuel disadvantage- can go only as far as the tank will allow you, then maybe retard timing and run crap gas home, Expensive
Pump gas advantage- gas just about anywhere. Go anywhere
Pump gas disadvantage- must run car retarded (if using the above motor) to run on the street. Car runs hotter. Car would not get good gas mileage running retarded. Motor must be re-built to run best on the pump fuel.
Yes you can build a pump gas car, but for it to run nicely you still need to run it on premium fuel, spend a lot of money, and you still may not be able to run full timing unless you don't get on it. But that's not why we have the car is it?
My only reason to run E85 is so I do not have to change the car so much to run on pump gas. Put on the old gas carb and with a little tweaking I'm back to where I was before the conversion.
Lot of things to weigh.
