Bearing wear being different on e85 would only be from 2 things. Detonation/tune, or oil dilution from tune as well.

On my 12:1, solid cam 408 I made 50hp and about the same more in tourque with Alky over 110 fuel.

Gains depends on the Induction and combustion efficiency of the engine, and how well the converter and gear are matched to go with it. I just had a customer switch from a 650 on gas to a 650 on methanol and pick up 1/2 a second in the 1/8 mile. My SB2 head engine in my dragster would slow down with anything other than gas (no nitro in this conversation...;-) ) So it's really subjective to the combination.

I suppose the best way to illustrate the situation with alcohol is an example.


Take any NA engine in the world, injected, or carbureted. Give unlimited resources to modify for maximum performance, and in no case will alcohol, out perform gasoline.

The reduced energy in alcohol, as compared to gas will always prevent it from reaching the efficiency of gasoline.

There is an example of gas exchange in the lungs that is appropriate for this as well.

Think of the available space in the induction tract as seats on a bus. When the bus pulls up to the stop, and people get on, in this case fuel atoms, only so many can climb aboard. The bus is going to a job site, where the strength of the people filling the seats is critical to the amount of work that can be done. People twice as powerful do twice the work, when you can only haul so many at a time to the job site.

I help a friend w/ his Camaro. 436" sbc, 14.5:1 compression, AFR heads, glide, 9", ladder bars, etc. Makes somewhere around 700 hp.
Ran on alcohol (4150 Demon 825 cfm carb) and ran a best of 5.78 in the 1/8 mile w/ a 1.24 sixty foot at 2900 lbs. Ran this configuration for years.

Switched it to race gas a few years ago (112) and went to a 1050 Dominator...same manifold (Edelbrock Victor 4150) w/ the tall 4500 adapter. Now it's 100 lbs heavier at 3000 lbs and it went a best of 5.93 w/ a 1.27 sixty foot. It lost a noticeable amount of lowend torque and obviously some HP, but never dyno'd either setup.
Knew it would slow down some, but was hoping the Dominator would help not to slow down too much. It has more in it (still needs more tuning), been a long time since the car was run, but it won't run what it did on the alcohol.

My personnel opinion on straight methanol, not race methanol like M1 or M5, is it will as fast or faster by a tiny bit on straight methanol compare to non oxygeneated race gas
I switch to pump E 85 several years back and love it, deadly consistent and half as much cost per gallon as the local race gas and the motor runs cooler No issues with oil dilution either

cab, don't you burn about twice as much alky as you would gas ? wouldn't that make alky about the same cost as gas ?

E85 is suppose to burn 30% more, I think straight industrial methanol may be close to 80 to 90% more than race gas but it is a bunch cheaper per gallon and runs a lot cooler, it also burns a lot slower in the cylinders so it pushes down on the pistons quite a bit longer also
The one bad side of straight methanol that I'm aware of is the oil dilution due to methanol sucking moisture out of the air and having it condense inside the cylinders also as well as in the oil

There are some inaccuracies posted so far.
Methanol burns slightly faster than gas. I run 34 degrees timing on alky, a lot of 440-1 motors on gas run more.
Methanol has more energy than gas based on a stoiciometric mixture, because it runs at least 2.2 times the volume of fuel per cfm of air than gas.
The fact that some claim gas makes more power may well be that only very high rpms allow this? The statement flys in the face of thousands of racers seeing reduced ETs going to methanol.
Methanol lowers charge temp considerably, increasing the amount of air (measured as mass) inhaled

The reasons some motors make more power on alky are mostly based in the inefficiencies inherent in the type of motor. No one is arguing that almost all bracket type engines will behave better on alky for bracket racing.

The decrease in timing requirement in a few motors isn't related to the fuel being better, but the increase in chamber efficiency brought about by twice the volume of liquid in the chamber, and how that effects compression. Also the reduction in temperature.

The effort required to deliver twice the volume of fuel, and the space that it consumes in doing so will always handicap the process in high efficiency engines. A normal 1.8hp per inch bracket motor would almost always be helped by alcohol. A 3hp per inch gas motor would be crippled by alky.

It really just comes down to the energy density of fuel.


Fuel Density
kg/m3kg/m^{3}kg/m​3​​ Specific Energy
MJ/kgMJ/kgMJ/kg Energy Density
MJ/m3MJ/m^{3}MJ/m​3​​
Gasoline 716 -47.3 -33,867
Kerosene 830 -46.2 -38,346
Diesel Fuel 830 -44.8 -37,184
Ethanol 784 -29.7 -23,278
Coal (Anthracite) 1350 -27 -36,450
Methanol 787 -22.7 -17,855
Wood 600 -15 -9,000
Coal (Lignite) 801 -15 -12,015

We made 18 hp more with q16 over pump e85..back to back .the e85 carb was a little bigger

How much was the Q16 a gallon?

. $20 a gallon.. vs E85 at $3.. personally I loved E85 just couldn't make it happy where we were at even experimented with race blend E85 at $20 a gallon
. I will tell you my valve spring bill offset the cost in the fuel for sure.. we like to leave the starting line absolutely as cold as possible on cue and used to like to leave the starting line at 180 degrees on the E . Which was definitely hard on the valve springs and valve job

$20 a gallon.. vs E85 at $3.. personally I loved E85 just couldn't make it happy where we were at even experimented with race blend E85 at $20 a gallon

were there a HP difference with the race blend e-85?

were there a HP difference with the race blend e-85? [/quote] . Unfortunately only tested in the car never on the dyno and personally didn't see much to gain with our application

. Unfortunately only tested in the car never on the dyno and personally didn't see much to gain with our application [/quote]

That "goofy" e-85 you had made Q16 smell good. It should have come with a Hazmat suit

. Unfortunately only tested in the car never on the dyno and personally didn't see much to gain with our application [/quote]

Thaxs……. I kind of wonder if there were an real world advantage of using the race blend verse mixing your own.

VP C85 makes more power than pump by a couple percent. Due mostly to MTBE, and some other unsavory chemicals. One of which I think is one of the propane family.

Smells terrible, but works better on higher compression ratios. Stays consistent, and has the best corrosion inhibitor I've ever used in an alcohol fuel.