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[enginjoe]

I am in the process of tuning my new setup (SST v2, ported mani, 3" O2, returnline, 650s, mapclamp) and I was having trouble getting the pump gas tune right since I have no way to monitor knock yet. I'm ordering a scangauge for that, but until it comes I have to be conservative. I don't want to run around on 6 dollar a gallon 100 octane in my daily driver, although done it and it has been fun.

Anyway, I've done a ton of research into E85 conversion in the past and was planning to do it eventually once I had a good tuning method (SCT). There is a guy who put one of those converter boxes on his SRT for E85 and has had it for a while with no problems. I figured since I have way more fuel than I need and two ways to control it I could give E85 a shot. So I waited until I got down to 1/2 tank and filled the rest with E85 (I have three places which are close to my house or on the way to work where I can get it). I raised the fuel pressure and then adjusted the mapclamp while bringing the boost up to 23 psi. I think this should be safe since I'm running roughly 98 octane (50/50 mix of 105 and 91 should be 98). Car runs awesome and pulls harder than ever even though I haven't put the new colder NGK 4306 plugs in yet. I figure once I get the scangauge, I can push up the boost a bit and get it just right.

So, since E85 is $3/gal and 91 is $4/gal, my price for 98 octane is $3.50/gallon. Even though I'll lose a little bit of fuel economy it will work out to about the same cost as running pump gas, with race gas type performance. With a 50/50 mix of 91 and E85 I guess you could call it E43, because that's about the percentage of Ethanol I'm running. It should be safe for all the parts of the car's fuel system since it is designed to run on E10 in the winter anyway. I report back on my progress if anything changes.