Update on E85 testing and adding E98 to mine

I'm seeing a difference in the percentage of alcohol in the local pump E 85 I use to race with when testing it, it seems to gain alcolol when it has sat in the plastic jugs during the winter from 2 to 3 %, from 85 to 88%
I bought some 98% ethanol medical alcohol and want to make all the race fuel the same by adding more ethanol to what I have.
What are your thoughts on this and what do you think of making it 90% and will I need to jet up or down
I haven't done much testing on the jetting on my carb. yet, shame on me
The car does run very consistent with the E85 pump fuel no matter if I run the 85% or the 87% with no tuning changes .I will and do mix them in the 7.5 gallon fuel cell at the races while racing after using up each jug
I'll add another post to the bottom on this

When I was blow through carb, I never changed the jets in 2 years that it was on the car. Even with winter blend it was 72-75% which will be richer than summer blend 85-90%. Too much hassle for no gain. Being a touch rich won’t hurt.


Now I just pump it in from speedway straight into the car, don’t test it and let holley efi closed loop correction do it’s thing. It’ll see maybe 4-5% correction from winter to summer blend.


The amount of knock resistance from e50 to e85 is about the same, only difference will be AFR

Not running E85, but if you have an electronic injection system capable of self learn, you should have no issues. But a carb is another story, they don't self learn and yes you need to jet for different alcohol levels. I had a buddy that used E85 in a circle track car, he purchased E85 from a regular race fuel distributor, because the pump E85 changed so much. You may need to change jets for weather conditions, so alcohol content would be a bigger need. In the old days we used a air density gauge to jet alcohol injectors for the weather and altitude, they have software to calculate stuff like that now. But I am not sure if they make it easy for alcohol levels. The second link explains a little why you need to change jets for different levels of alcohol.

https://www.performancetrends.com/Weather-Wiz.htm

http://www.thecarburetorshop.com/Ethanoluse.htm

When I first started using E85 I took one of my motors to a DTS engine dyno in Klamath Falls, OR which is 4300 ft. above sea level I ran the motor with a pump gas carb. and then switch to the E85 modified carb. and jetted it for the best power and torque.
The pump E85 I bought in the first week of October here was winter mix which was right at 75%, not 85% I had to jet the carb down 3 jet sizes from where it was built to get the best power, that motor lost 11 HP, it made 686 HP on pump gas, 675 on E75) but gain 44 Ft. Lb. torque 745 Ft Lb. on gas and 789 Ft. lb. on E75
My S/P bracket car is real consistent now on this fuel ( it doesn't change .0020 from the first time trial in the morning to the last round in the heat of the after noon ) and I have jetted it back up to the original jetting without any noticeable gain or loss, but not richer yet
I am planning on doing more tuning this year on the jetting and timing to see what that fuel and timing my car wants to go the fastest it can

I just ran E98. Stuff runs clean! I got it from your neck of the woods. Thunderbolt race fuels

I ran E85 from 2008 to 2012 when I switched to methanol (cost).
IMO, a couple percent difference is not a big deal as long as you are rich, not lean. I used an oxygen sensor for tuning on my car, but took it out for normal racing.
I would rather use 93 octane gasoline to bring down the 88% stuff to 85% and use 85% as your baseline. (or just leave it 88%).
Now if you had 75%, I would add ethanol or E98 to bring it up to the baseline (85%).

I call Quick Fuel this morning with a few questions on using their E85 tester, how long to wait to see the percentage and ,of course, got one of there less experienced tech guy. He had to go ask another tech so I figure I would learn it well enough on my own for me to trust the results on the readings.
I'm going to let it sit for at least 5 minutes between shaking the water and fuel together before reading the results. I had tested some last night and let it sit in the tester overnight, it changed from 85% to between 83 and 84% over night. It was a little cloudy last night and completely clear this morning
I'm adding E98 to all my fuel jugs and have seen and increase from 87 to 90 % so far with letting the tester sit for 10 to 15 minutes between shaking it and reading it, one down and four more jugs to test
I'm going to let the tester sit overnight again on the last test, more to come
I read a little on one of the E85 forum I have bookmark on my favorites and didn't get much useful information from the little I looked at it,I'll look some more now

i am not sure about the future of e85, here in iowa ethanol plants are closing do to gas selling for $1.33. time will tell

90% of a e85 test is over in about 30 seconds and that should get you less than 5% of what it actually is.. This coming from a friend that's very well educated in ethanol fuels in drag racing..

that is what the tech at Quick fuel indicated after consulting with another tech in the office.
I'm testing now after adding some additional E98 to each jug Mixed results so far, maybe I need help on the math on exactly how much E98 to add to raise it up to E90%
E85 one gallon should have 19.2 ounces of gas and other non ethanol alcohol additives, correct?
I'll add to this post later this evening when I'm done testing the mixes I used
I may have to experiment several times to get all of the jugs to E90
Test, test and test some more to get the results needed to be sure of your results

For regular pump gas,10-15% ethanol, a tanker truck pulls up with no ethanol gasoline(regular,mid,premium) and they fill the tanker with the amount of ethanol to formulate the alcohol percentage. That can get iffy when you watch it happen. With e85 its the opposite. There are irregularities with modern gasoline in general. Works for ethanol too. While the ethanol transfer tank is 1/2,1/3,1/4 full and the weather changes you have variables. Before you fill your 5 gallon(empty pails), rinse the pail with premium unleaded or your chemical grade ethanol and swirl and shake it well. Your just trying to have the gasoline to absorb and moisture that may be in the container. Then dump it. Then pump your e85 and iron ball the cap. Check your O rings if applicable. Should try this also with your fuel cell and just run the tank dry. Many people do none of this and have no issues(its a mind set). Take this info and apply it to what makes you content. For what its worth, I've taken race gas directly from the drum at the race track and watch it fail the fuel check. Sunoco and VP, what????

I've added E98 to all of five of my full 5 gallon plastic fuel jugs, some I added 20 oz. based on the test %s before adding and some as much as 60 Oz.and then retesting them afterwards by shaking the jugs up to mix the new 98 % ethanol with the fuel in the jugs.
I have seen the % change from 89% when testing 10 minutes after mixing and shaking the mixture of water and fuel in the test tube up a bunch before looking at it and then letting that same mixture sit overnight last night and see it change to 85% I'm really surprised by seeing the % change in the test tube with increased time when sitting
I am adding another 20oz this afternoon to the jug that had tested to 89 % from sitting last night until this morning and showed the same mixture in the test tube to be 85 %. I shook the jug up a bunch after adding this latest batch of E98, hopefully it will show better now.
I'm wondering if the E98 is mixing with the fuel or if I may need to add some other additive to get them to mix and stay mixed together

Some of the cheating circle track racers used to swear by amyl acetate when mixing alcohol and gasoline, but that was back in the dark ages. There may be better options out there now.

I added another 13 Oz of E98 along with 8 Oz of Acetone to one of my 5.5 gallon jugs that had tested to be right at 87% before adding this additional E98 and Acetone.
I tested it again after adding the latest mixture 15 minutes ago, around 3:05PM our time, and it now tests to be 88% as of 3:20 PM local time
I'm going to let that seal test vial sit overnight now and look at it again tomorrow morning, I'll post what it reads after that
I've added around 2 gallons of E98 to these 5 jugs( approx. 5.5 gallons in each jug) so far up to through this afternoon, I didn't think to keep tract of how many ounces to each jug and write down what it tested to be before adding E98 to them, sorry for not thinking far ahead enough to help being more accurate on this testing

Acetone absorbs moisture. You have just created a magnet for water in the atmosphere. If you remeber a gas additive called Liquid Heat, it was isopropyl alcohol. It was meant to absorb moisture in your fuel tank. I think you will make yourself crazy trying to get that perfect result. Tune your motor to a specific % range of alcohol. This is the best avenue for success.

I'm under the impression that most type of alcohol will suck moisture out of the air if in a breathable container, yes or no?
The test tube now, after adding the E98, seems to have a very thin(.030 to maybe .075 thick) layer of some funny looking liquid at the very top, looks greasy almost
EDITED:
I remembered using Lucas E 85 stabilizer in several of the full jugs earlier in the spring of 2019, I wonder if that is the funny looking stuff on top of some of the fuel samples now
I think I will add some more of that to all of the jugs and then retest all of them once more

A customer of mine just killed his motor running the E-98 and from what most pro's say, 85-87 is better and has more "gas" to start the burn better/faster.....

Last update, the sample I tested last night showed between 87 and 88 % after shaking it a bunch and then letting it sit for around 10 minutes in the Quick Fuel test tube, this morning it reads 85 %
I am going to add some of the Lucas E85 stabilizer to all my jugs and not worry about raising the Ethanol content to the local pump E 85 I buy and race with from now on as long as it test from 84 to 87 % from the pump
I'll use all the fuel I have on hand first that I added E98 to and hope it burns okay in my motor, it does have right at 15.0 to 1 compression and didn't get hurt last year racing it with the pump E85 that had set all winter in some of the same jugs that tested to be from 86 to 88 % last spring
I keep every run with the weather information from my Performaire weather station in my racer log so I should be able to compare last years runs with this years runs with similar weather and air density

Cab,
were the test tubes sealed/plugged during every overnight test?
Just trying to figure out the various results.

I use the Quick Fuel tester kit which uses water and E85 mix together in a glass vial with a screw on hard plastic lid, the lid was on tight for every test.
I shake each test batch up a lot which makes the mix turn milky looking and no visual separation for several minutes, hence me calling Quick Fuel to see if there was a minimum time to let it sit before reading the results. I'm going to let all my future tests sit at least 5 minute before reading the results due to not seeing a noticeable difference between sitting 2 to 5 minutes compare to sitting from 5 to 10 minutes All the testing I've done this week remained milky for over 20 minutes but would clear up over night and read differently after sitting that long
This last batch of mixing has me really concern on what I'm doing wrong on the mixing
What I have notice when adding the additional E98 to the pump E85 I bought this year is the .030 to .060 thick milky looking stuff on the top of the mixture now I have not seen that until this year, I think the Lucas E85 stabilizer may be causing that
I had notice before using the stabilizer that the fuel sitting in the jugs in the car trailer park outside for the winter would change from E85 to E86+ up to E88%, not so this year with the stabilizer in those jugs
Now all the fuel is testing to be 85% after sitting over night in the test vial, I am going to retest all five jugs again over night they way they are now before adding any more stabilizer to them to make sure of how they read now before adding any more Lucas stabilzer to all of them for this year. I'll mark each jug again so I can keep track of the over night test results
I'll post those results next week

Cab I would have thought that you would have kept one jug untouched just to have a baseline....maybe the random swings are not from your additions? You know to make more like an ABA test.

You know what happens when we ASSUME, correct
I didn't mark the two jugs that had the stabilizer in them before having all five them filled up two weeks ago
That won't happen again
This is my second go around on trying to make more power with alcohol in one of my race cars, I had tried mixing straight Methanol alcohol with race gas years ago (mid 1970s) to get a 25% mix. That made that car go quicker but I didn't know about Methanol sucking water into it unless it was stored in a air tight container and I didn't know how bad water and Methanol will corrode non coated aluminum. That testing resulted in the mixed fuel eating up one of the two Holley Fuel regulator I had on that car, one for each Carter AFB on a Max wedge motor. That bad regulator starved that carb at WOT and ended up detonating the passenger side of the motor blowing out that head gasket between #4 and #6 cylinders ruining the block and head
Maybe I need another lesson Please God, NO more lessons like that

All five jugs ended up testing around 90% in the first ten minutes after mixing the water with the fuel and shakng it hard and letting it sit between 5 to 10 minutes before looking at the test vial. The mixture was still milky looking at that time but once it sat another 2 to 12 hours it would clear up and read 85 % on all the jugs I HATE MURPHY
I decided to call the company who made the E98 I had bought from Wal Mart to do this mixing, the owner of the company thought that the new alcohol was not saying mixed with the pump E85 after sitting a while. I have to agree
I'm going to use this batch up and hope I don't hurt the motor, I will change the jetting up one size on all four jets and hope EDITED My fuel system has a custom made anodized black aluminum 7.5 gallon rectangular fuel cell mounted up front of the motor with a BG400 fuel pump mounted to the bottom of the fuel cell mount so the #12 AN inlet fitting on the pump is a tiny bit lower that the drain on the cell, it is fed from the bottom of the cell and the #10 AN Teflon return line from the fuel regulator mounted on the motor plate is dump back in at the top so the fuel is getting mixed up any time the fuel system is flowing fuel through it. The two lines to the carb are #6 AN and all the lines on this car are now all Teflon lined AN lines. I set the pressure at 5.5 lbs. with the motor running, I don't have any way of monitoring the fuel pressure yet while racing it so I'm hoping this system is still working fine
The next thing is when we will be able to go racing again
Stay safe and be ready to go racing soon