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Clio/Meg on E85?


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As some of you may/may not know, e85 is currently the new magic potion in the automotive world at the moment. For those wondering what all the fanfare is about, e85 is a 85% blend of ethanol and 15% regular gasoline (generally a 98 ocatane). As an alcohol, ethanol is similar in that its made from foodstocks like corn and sugar cane, fermented then distilled (i dont know the full process, but thats the jist of it) into a cleaner burning and renewable fuel. What really makes me happy in the pants though are the power advantages. Although blends will vary depending on season, the average octane rating of e85 is 105 with a "good blend" getting around 108 to 110 :) Apart from the obvious power advantages from running e85, its cheaper to produce, meaning cheaper at the tank and less emissions. Win win win. The drawbacks? as e85 has less energy content per unit than gasoline (something like 20%, but dont quote me) so while its cheaper, youll need more of it to get the same mileage.

 

So enough with my informative ranting and raving, would you run it in a renaultsport? Theres been much talk that e85 corrosive but the general consensus is that in modern cars, it isnt. Some people who have converted to e85 run teflon fuel lines as a precautionary measure but many have run it for years in modern cars without any problem. As e85 has less energy content that i mentioned earlier, injectors are the first bits that need to be upgraded as the engine will be starved of fuel, run lean and lunch itself if theyre maxed out. The fuel filter will also need a replacement. These are pretty much the only things that need to be changed hardware wise, but the real gains (and how well the engine runs) depends on the tune. Basically, there are two such set-ups, one where your engine is mapped specifically to run e85 (simplest) and one where you can have a full flexi fuel car that will run on both a full 98 fuel and e85, where via a ethanol content analyzer the ecu will adjust the AFM in accordance to the ratio of e85:pump 98. This setup however requires a little more equipment and expertise.

 

A lot of people are seeing some real gains from e85, with a flex fuel setup on a skyline gtr on skylines aus forums netting a 40RWKW gain. The engine was heavily modified to begin with but shows the gains made just from changing premium to e85. Several hondas on ozhonda have made 10-15rwkw gains on e85 which is quite a gain for an NA 4. Again though, what kind of gains you get will be dictated by the tune. As far as i know, nobody has attempted it in a renaultsport, and i wonder if henk could work his magic in regards to tuning. I also wonder what the gains would be in an RSC or even more so, in an f4rt.

 

Cheers

 

-Sam

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I'm pretty sure Renaultsports are not allowed to run E85. My 182 Cup wasn't anyway.

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dont think upgraded fuel system or custom map is the path i would want to go down with a meg. not really that type of car.

but like you said with an evo or skyline type car it would give some nice gains if you could find a servo that sold it..

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dont think upgraded fuel system or custom map is the path i would want to go down with a meg. not really that type of car.

but like you said with an evo or skyline type car it would give some nice gains if you could find a servo that sold it..

 

good point, and i think a lot of other rsport owners would think likewise and rightly so given such a small support base in australia. While the advantages are there, there'd be no room for error on an rsport as messing it up would be big $$$ and a LOT of messing around. Unlike the jap cars, where theres 3 bazillion parts/engines available at cheap prices.

 

nonetheless, its food (fuel?) for thought

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Doubt there's enough capacity in the injectors to run it in a stock system.

 

Although the octane is higher, the energy density is lower - so you need to inject more to get gains.

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E85 is big in evo world . i tried it and got kw and nm gains but its a pain in the j-lo to find especially out of town [ like a trip to wakey ] and the quality varies between suppliers so that can be off the correct tune and therefore stuff the engine if youre not careful

 

to cope with E85 [ i had 2 maps 98 / E85 and could swap ] needed twin pumps / special lines / huge injectors / ECU change and tune up .

 

a meggy could do the same .. extra grunt - but its a LOT of work for a fuel you cant yet easliy get out of sydney . when its readily available and of a consistent qulity it will be great

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Two real problems with E85, highly strung NA cars don't tend to respond all that brilliantly to it (the V8 supercars actually lost a tiny bit of power in the switch and needed to do some really funky stuff to the inlet trumpets to get the fuel mix right)....

 

....and the bigger problem is you need a fuel system with ~30% higher capacity than your car is currently using at peak. Most factory fuel pumps/injectors just don't have the capacity to facilitate this.

 

Long story short (and the same story with most NA engine mods to Clios), too much effort/cash for too little gain.

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